SLAPSTICK AND MIS‐REMEMBRANCE

Abstract

This paper examines Buster Keaton's much‐maligned Columbia shorts (1939–41) through the lens of late 1930s ‘old‐time’ slapstick revivalism. Mobilizing the concept of ‘mis‐remembrance’ (adapted from Barbara Myerhoff), the paper begins by considering how, by the late 1930s, Keaton was nostalgically misidentified as a protégé of the Keystone studios, mistakenly thought of as a veteran of slapstick's ‘pie and chase’ days of the early 1910s. It then argues that transformations in Keaton's late comic form are best seen in the light of the same process, a mis‐remembrance that assimilated Keaton's performances to the throwback style of Sennett‐era knockabout. Finally, the paper locates the origins of that nostalgia in changes in small‐town and rural cultures in 1930s America, arguing that the retrospective cast of Depression‐era regional cultures created a space in which residual forms, like early film slapstick, could still be enjoyed for their ‘old‐time’ appeal.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 4 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.