Table of Contents

Illustrations Foreword by R. Karl Largent Preface Acknowledgments Historical Literary Overview Selected American Dark Comedy Films and Themes Dismantling Dictators: "Marxist" or Otherwise Coming of Age…With a Vengeance When Film Noir Becomes Dark Comedy Conclusions Appendix: Selected Filmography Selected Bibliography

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From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre.

About the Author

WES D. GEHRING is Professor of Film at Ball State University. He is author of ten previous books: Leo McCarey and the Comic Antihero in American Film (1980), Charlie Chaplin: A Bio-Bibliography (1983), W. C. Fields: A Bio-Bibliography (1984), Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance (1986), The Marx Brothers: A Bio-Bibliography (1987), Handbook of American Film Genres (1988), Laurel & Hardy: A Bio-Bibliography (1990), Mr. B. or Comforting Thoughts About the Bison: A Critical Biography of Robert Benchley (1992), Populism and the Capra Legacy (1995), all by Greenwood Press, and Groucho and W. C. Fields: Huckster Comedians (1994). His poems and humor pieces have appeared in numerous publications.