Wisecracks : Great Lines from the Classic Hollywood Era - Softcover

Jarski, Rosemarie

3.9

21 ratings by Goodreads

9781853753572: Wisecracks : Great Lines from the Classic Hollywood Era

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853753572 ISBN 13: 9781853753572

Publisher: PRION, 2000

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Scriptwriters from Raymond Chandler to S.J. Perelman penned great linesfor everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Groucho Marx. It was the classic era of comedy with acts like Abbot and Costello, Hope and Crosby, the Marx brothers, Mae West, W.C. Fields, and the great screwball acts like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Straight out of the American vaudeville tradition, it was the wisecracking that powered these comedies along. The wisecrack being that sharp comeback or reposte that left those around for dead. Rosemarie Jarski's selection mixes all the classic Hollywood lines with little known gems to leave your dinner guests for dead as you wisecrack like the best of them.

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From the Back Cover:

Hollywood's classic studio era spawned just about the sharpest comic dialogue there's ever been. Hollywood garnered the finest talent available from both the vaudeville tradition and the new sharpen-talking pulp novels to furnish their stars with their greatest moments. Scriptwriters like Raymond Chandler and S. J. Perelman along with teams of Tinseltown wannabes penned lines for everyone from Bogey to Groucho.

Wisecracks is a collection of the finest of these gambits, ripostes, oneliners, putdowns and come-ons as used by Hollywood's greatest idols. As well as featuring all the great comedy acts--the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Mae West, W. C. Fields--Wisecracks has the hard-boiled comebacks of classic film noir and the rapid-fire exchanges of screwball comedy sparring partners like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

"She tried to sit in my lap when I was standing up."
--Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep

"I'm no angel, but I've spread my wings a bit."
--Mae West, I'm No Angel

"If I get the electric chair my agent gets ten per cent of the current."
--Bob Hope, My Favorite Blonde

About the Author:

Rosemarie Jarski prefers Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein to Citizen Kane because there are fewer ceilings and more laughs. Her ideal movie double-bill would be Some Like It Hot followed by Some Like It Hot.

Rosemarie writes screenplays and compiles anthologies. For Wisecracks she watched over a thousand movies and ate her own weight in popcorn. She now expects to make her Hollywood debut as the star of Free Willy 4.

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