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This is one of the funniest sketches I've ever seen. It's about as close to the mother-child relationship as you can get. Mike Nichols and Elaine May created perfectly improvised scenes that were outrageously funny, yet simply understated. Their dry wit and wry satire allowed them to lampoon faceless bureaucracy and such previously sacrosanct institutions as hospitals, politics, funeral homes, and even motherhood. Like other great comedy duos, Nichols and May perfectly complemented each other. They seemed so attuned and at ease with each other that the mis-communication they often based their skits on were all the funnier. Within a short while of arriving in New York, they were the talk of the town, appearing on The Steve Allen Show, introducing a nationwide audience to a humor unlike any on television. Nichols and May spent much of the next three years traveling the country performing together on stage, radio, and television. In 1960, "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May" had opened on Broadway to rave reviews, but by 1961, Nichols and May would announce the end of their partnership. Interested in pursuing individual careers, the two left behind one of the most popular and imitated comedy acts of its time. Mike Nichols has directed and produced a variety of hit films, such as The Graduate, Silkwood, The Birdcage, Primary Colors, and The Remains of the Day. Elaine May is a two-time Academy Award nominated director, screenwriter, and actress.
Tags:
mike
nichols
elaine
may
improvisational
comedy
Added: 6th November 2007
Views: 664
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Posted By: Naomi |
 
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The Hollywood blacklist, was the mid-20th Century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected. Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy toward the American Communist Party, involvement in liberal or simply humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist federal investigations into Communist Party activities. Some were blacklisted merely because their names came up at the wrong place and time. Even during the period of its strictest enforcement, the late 1940s through the late 1950s, the blacklist was rarely made explicit and verifiable, but it caused direct damage to the careers of scores of American artists, often made betrayal of friendship, not to mention principle, the price for a livelihood, and promoted ideological censorship across the entire industry. Pictured are Front row (from left): Herbert Biberman, attorneys Martin Popper and Robert W. Kenny, Albert Maltz, Lester Cole. Middle row: writer Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornitz. Back row: Ring Lardner Jr., Edward Dmytryk, Adrian Scott.
Tags:
the
hollywood
ten
blacklist
mccarthy
hearings
Added: 25th November 2007
Views: 432
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Posted By: Sophia |
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