Fun Factory

Rob King is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and History at the University of Toronto.

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction PART I: "SATIRE IN OVERALLS": THE KEYSTONE FILM COMPANY AND POPULAR CULTURE 1. "The Fun Factory": Class, Comedy, and Popular Culture, 1912-1914 2. "Funny Germans" and "Funny Drunks": Clowns, Class, and Ethnicity at Keystone, 1913-1915 3. "The Impossible Attained!" Tillie's Punctured Romance and the Challenge of Feature-Length Slapstick, 1914-1915 PART II: "MORE CLEVER AND LESS VULGAR": THE KEYSTONE FILM COMPANY AND MASS CULTURE 4. "Made for the Masses with an Appeal to the Classes": Keystone, the Triangle Film Corporation, and the Failure of Highbrow Film Culture, 1915-1917 5. "Uproarious Inventions": Keystone, Modernity, and the Machine, 1915-1917 6. From "Diving Venus" to "Bathing Beauties": Reification and Feminine Spectacle, 1916-1917 Conclusion Notes Filmography Index

"A searching and briskly authoritative history." National Post "[An] ambitious and innovative study [and] an important contribution... A wonderful analysis of the historical and cultural complexity of this key moment of modernity and one of its major industries. [It] should be compulsory to all scholars in the field." Leonardo Reviews "Essential reading for all those film historians not necessarily interested in slapstick comedy." Screening The Past "This studio history ... offers insights on the politics of early filmmaking through the sociology of laughter." Communication Booknotes Quarterly