Word: comically
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...cheap pleasures of the funhouse, and in this fundamental modesty it becomes something unique. The simple high spirits of the ferris wheel save The Stunt Man from a pathetic failure. This film falls into the great American tradition of roguish, exploitative entertainment. This is a movie of sequins and comic strip naivete, of the three-ring circus. And Rush is a dazzling ringmaster...
When Craccio, the old man, goes out of town, Cristina, an attractive housemaid, brings two men to entertain her and her pretty mistress. The men, the town barber and apothecary, are comic oafs, and both women are relieved to hear another male voice from offstage. Enter the student from Salamanca, who has been beset by robbers and is looking for food and lodging-among other things. The husband unexpectedly returns, and the plot goes on its merry way to a happy ending...
...another Dutch film, combines phoney detective dramatics with comic violence and political protest, but impromptu performances by Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen more than compensate for lapses in the story. When they sit together at a bar, spontaneously crooning up lost melodies and inhuman sounds in deadpan seriousness, they win the "Lucy and Ethel of the Eighties Award" hands down...
Surely those old gags would have gasped their last. How long can a comic repeat the same wife-ethnic-sex jokes and secure a strong laugh? If the comic is Henny Youngman, the answer is--a lifetime. "The King of the One-liners" has used the same schtick for almost 50 years--and it still works...
Youngman's style is what grants his humor a lasting quality. It's a rapid-fire technique that hasn't changed since he mastered it in the Thirties. He'd been working as a night club comic, employing a cigar instead of a violin as his prop, when he signed (without an audition) to do a six-minute spot on the Kate Smith radio show. He was an instant hit and the producer extended his routine to 10 minutes. With a $250 check in his pocket for 10 minutes of work, Youngman realized he was a sudden success. Since...