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It was probably taken as part of the search sequence and subsequently rejected. By taking it out of its context and putting it into an unexpected place, it becomes funny.
A more carefully developed comedy effect was used in The Set-up, and occurs during an otherwise serious dramatisation of a boxing match. During the fight the editor constantly cuts away to familiar ring-side figures : a blind man, having the match described to him by a friend ; a gawky youth, shadow-boxing in unison with the boxers ; a refined middle-aged lady, mercilessly screaming " Kill him ! " ; and lastly, a fat man, unconcernedly eating. The fat man is introduced for a macabre sort of comic relief. In the first round we see him eating a hot dog ; in the second, sucking a lollipop ; in the third, eating peanuts ; and in the last round, drinking a lemonade. The humour of the situation springs from the fact that the fat man seems to be completely engrossed in the fight, yet somehow cannot bring himself to stop eating. But the effect, as presented, is better than this : after eating the hot dog, in the first round, we are given to understand that he is still eating in the second, still eating in the third, and finally washing all the food down with a drink. The implication is that he has been eating continuously and becomes more outrageous with every showing.
The last two quoted episodes are both essentially editor's jokes. The shot of the weary policeman in Naked City and the various shots of the fat man in The Set-up are not humorous in themselves. It is only through placing them into a special context that the editor has made them appear funny. In each case, the editor has introduced a shot against the mood of the story and thereby created a comic effect.
It may not be altogether useless if we attempt a tentative analysis of how these humorous effects are in fact achieved. Let us first look at a literary anecdote and see how it works.
A woman in widow's weeds was weeping upon a grave.
" Console yourself, madam," said a Sympathetic Stranger. "Heaven's mercies are infinite. There is another man somewhere, besides your husband, with whom you can still be happy."
" There was," she sobbed — " there was, but this is his grave."1
The principle of this anecdote is simply that a false inference
1 Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce. Jonathan Cape, Travellers' Library, 1927 p. 244. The fable is quoted by Eisenstein in The Film Sense to illustrate the principle of montage.
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