Steve Massa

Vim Comedies, their predecessor Wizard Comedies and their successor Jaxon Comedies all featured the comedy characters Pokes & Jabbs as their primary comedians. Embodied by Bobby Burns and Walter Stull, the acrobat and the man in plaid led a group of comedians including Oliver "Babe" Hardy, Billy Ruge, Myers & Theby, Kate Price and Marcel Perez in making some very funny films. These slapstick one-reelers were shot primarily in Jacksonville, Florida and Providence, Rhode Island. POKES & JABBS take a look at how Vim was created from the ashes of Wizard and how it morphed into Jaxon, and the films those studios made. It is a story repeated many times in early film history of a studio that was quickly created and with even more speed disappeared.Published 2022. 7x10 softcover, 480 pages.

Silent Film Comedy was a fortuitous combination of art and technology, where the physical comedy skills and artistry passed down from the Commedia dell'Arte, English music hall, and American vaudeville were captured for posterity by the newly created motion picture camera. While the Chaplins, Keatons, and Laurel & Hardys are still remembered and celebrated, this book profiles unsung practitioners such as Billie Ritchie, Marcel Perez, Lige Conley, and George Rowe, with special focus on the neglected comediennes Alice Howell, Gale Henry, Fay Tincher, and Josie Sadler. Popular icons on the order of Mack Sennett, Marie Dressler, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and W.C. Fields are re-examined, plus detailed histories of silent comedy teams and kid's comedies are offered. The book also includes selected filmographies and is lavishly illustrated with more than 225 rarely-seen photographs and advertising images.

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a silent comedy trailblazer--the teacher of Buster Keaton, a collaborator of Charlie Chaplin--whose reputation was eclipsed for many years by his involvement in one of Hollywood's first scandals. Rediscovering Roscoe is a film by film examination of his work as a performer, director, and all around comedy creator.Having learned and developed his craft on the stage, Arbuckle came to films in 1909. After joining Mack Sennett's Keystone Company he became one of the most important pioneers of American silent comedy, as well as a screen icon known around the world.This filmography details his initial forays into films and mastering of the medium, but also his banishment from the screen and ultimate comeback. It is lavishly illustrated with more than 500 rare photographs and advertising images. Steve Massa is the author of Slaptstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy, Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and the Forgotten of Silent Comedy, and Marcel Perez: The International Mirth-Maker.

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a silent comedy trailblazer--the teacher of Buster Keaton, a collaborator of Charlie Chaplin--whose reputation was eclipsed for many years by his involvement in one of Hollywood's first scandals. Rediscovering Roscoe is a film by film examination of his work as a performer, director, and all around comedy creator.Having learned and developed his craft on the stage, Arbuckle came to films in 1909. After joining Mack Sennett's Keystone Company he became one of the most important pioneers of American silent comedy, as well as a screen icon known around the world.This filmography details his initial forays into films and mastering of the medium, but also his banishment from the screen and ultimate comeback. It is lavishly illustrated with more than 500 rare photographs and advertising images. Steve Massa is the author of Slaptstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy, Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and the Forgotten of Silent Comedy, and Marcel Perez: The International Mirth-Maker.

Marcel Perez: The International Mirth-Maker examines the life and career of perhaps the best silent film comedian whom no one's ever heard of.One of the founding fathers of film comedy whose career spanned the silent era as a comic, director, and writer, Marcel Perez is a missing link between the early European and American cinemas, and in the book author Steve Massa follows his work, and also explores the very beginnings of film comedy. Tracking Perez's career through industry trade journals and film fragments from archives all over the world, Massa also includes a detailed filmography and lavishly illustrates with more that 50 rare photographs.Be sure to look for The Marcel Perez Collection DVD from Undercrank Productions, available on Amazon.com. The DVD contains 10 rare Perez comedies - 5 made in Italy (preserved by EYE Filmmuseum, Netherlands) and 5 made in the USA (preserved by the Library of Congress), seen in new digital transfers with new musical scores by Ben Model.