Added Value in Slapstick Comedy

Any of the short films featuring the Three Stooges would make a good example for discussion of this subject, but I shall focus on All Gummed Up (1947), which, while not being one of the Stooges’ best films, nevertheless offers some interesting features for the purposes of this posting. A video clip of the first half of the short may be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxieHgozwRg

One minute into the short we find Moe Howard (who, in this particular film, is, along with Shemp and Larry, a drugstore clerk) testing a lightbulb. When he is finished testing it, he turns his face towards the bulb, his cheeks briefly expand and contract, and the bulb goes out. If one watches it with the sound, however, it is instantly clear that he has just done the impossible (and comic) feat of blowing the lightbulb out as if it were a candle. On the other hand, if you listen to the scene without watching it, when Moe blows out the lightbulb it merely sounds as if he has a problem with a stuffy or runny nose.

At 4’45” Shemp declares that he has got an idea in the back of his head which won’t come out, and asks Moe and Larry to help him. So, in typical Three Stooges fashion, Moe and Larry begin to hit and slap Shemp’s head to coax ‘the idea’ out into the open. With the sound, these hits and slaps come across as being comic and intense. This culminates in Moe bonking Shemp’s head with a hammer. Triggered by the bonk of the hammer, we finally get this lovely sound which resembles a vending machine yielding one of its products (a bowling ball with crushed ice by the sound of it!). Now watch this segment (4’45” to 5’05”) again, without the sound. Watched without sound, one can clearly see that Moe and Larry are not hitting Shemp, but are instead lightly touching their fists against his hair, and that the velocity of the fists moving through the air is actually slower than the impression the sound effects give. However, since without the sound we don’t know why Moe and Larry are hitting poor Shemp, their actions might appear more cruel, whereas with the sound effects we know we are supposed to interpret it as comic. Also, with the sound muted at the point where we would otherwise hear what resembles the vending machine, the viewer has absolutely no idea how to interpret the hit on Shemp’s head with the hammer…apart from the fact that Shemp appears to be happy about it (which, in itself, would be really weird). Yet, merge sound with image, and the comedy becomes perfectly clear.

Slapstick comedy has relied heavily on added value for several centuries (including the provenance of its name). Whether one is experiencing traditional commedia dell’arte, a Laurel and Hardy tit-for-tat sequence, or a nice civilized pie fight in a Three Stooges film, one finds that, even though acting ability is a determining factor, much of the success of slapstick comedy is actually due to the sound effects.