Review of When Comedy Was King

This is one of Robert Youngson's compilation features from the early 1960's. Youngson took clips from the silent slapstick films and spliced them together in a nostalgic look back at comedy of yester year. Youngson turned out a good number of these films and they all work to varying degrees. Broad spectrum look at the comedy of silent days is an excellent look at the early days of comedy with looks at Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Snub Pollard (in the influential Its a Gift) and others. While not necessarily the best work of all of the performers, Chaplin has mostly his early Sennett stuff, which shows off why he was a star but isn't the funniest stuff he ever did, Keatons's Cops is cut up and while it is a really funny film, it may not be his best work either. Then again they are actually the things I would probably show someone to begin to foster a love of silent comedy. I like this film a great deal and consider it probably Youngston's second best film after Days of Thrills and Laughter. Definitely worth a a look