"Broadway" comic strips - Robert Emmett Keane & Charles Butterworth

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Ed Watz
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"Broadway" comic strips - Robert Emmett Keane & Charles Butterworth

Postby Ed Watz » Mon Apr 06, 2020 5:28 pm

Robert Emmett Keane was a vaudeville and musical comedy straightman before turning to a career in talkies as a prolific supporting player. He is best remembered by Laurel & Hardy fans as the closest thing to a regular cast member in 3 of the team's Fox features. Droll Charles Butterworth had a much more successful career as comic relief in numerous films of the 1930s. Here it's nice to see Keane and Butterworth making fun of the hokey material used in these "Broadway" comic strips.

Dec 10 1929 NYDN.jpg
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Nov 7 1929 NYDN.jpg
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"Of course he smiled -- just like you and me." -- Harold Goodwin, on Buster Keaton (1976)

Ed Watz
Associate
Posts: 424
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 7:35 pm

Re: "Broadway" comic strips - Robert Emmett Keane & Charles Butterworth

Postby Ed Watz » Sun Apr 12, 2020 12:25 pm

Robert Emmett Keane returns, without Butterworth.

A variation on the first joke was used a few months later by W.C. Fields in his first talkie, THE GOLF SPECIALIST (1930). In Fields' film, a 5-year-old girl substitutes for the young lady seen here, giving the gag a non-suggestive (though no less funny) meaning:

Nov 26 1929 NYDN.jpg
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Sept 26 1929 NYDN.jpg
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"Of course he smiled -- just like you and me." -- Harold Goodwin, on Buster Keaton (1976)


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