The focus of this book is on three of Harold Lloyd's features, Grandma's Boy (1922), Safety Last (1923), and The Freshman (1925), and it presents a thorough investigation of the structure, characters, and comic techniques employed in these films.

A boxed set of three full-length romantic comedies. Snoops in the City--What's an amateur PI to do when she falls for the man she's investigating? The Misconception--The sperm donor she hired has gone AWOL, so who's the man in her bed? A misunderstanding of biological proportions. Bait & Switch--After switching places with his identical twin to catch a criminal, Mitch is the one who's hooked - on his brother's girl!

Mel Brooks is often regarded as one of Hollywood's funniest men, thanks to such highly successful films as The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. His films do have a tendency to turn out much like the jokes that comprise them--hit-or-miss, one minute shoot-the-moon brilliant and the next minute well short of laughs. This work provides a thorough synopsis and thematic analysis for each of his twelve films along with complete cast and production credits: The Producers (1968), The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), High Anxiety (1977), History of the World--Part 1 (1981), To Be or Not to Be (1983), Spaceballs (1987), Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).

This book analyzes the evolution of film and television comedy from the 1930s through the present, defining five distinct periods and discussing the dominant comedic trends of each. Chapters cover the period spanning 1934 to 1942, defined by screwball comedies that offered distraction from the Great Depression; the suspense comedy, reflecting America's darker worldview during World War II; the 1950s battle-of-the-sexes comedy; the shift from the physical, exaggerated comedy of the 1950s to more realistic plotlines; and the new suspense comedy of the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the popular "dumb cop" or "dumb spy" series along with modern remakes including 2006's The Pink Panther and 2008's Get Smart.