Wolcott Gibbs Tonight: "Glorious Calvin (A Critical Appreciation)" -- the clown prince of screen comedy?

"The comic art of Calvin Coolidge was a thing so subtle that it almost defied analysis."

-- Gibbs, in "Glorious Calvin (A Critical Appreciation)"

by Ken

It occurs to me that the Gibbs piece we're about to read, "Glorious Calvin" -- an "appreciation" of what we might call the "comedy stylings" of Calvin Coolidge which first saw the light of print when Glorious Cal was within weeks of retiring permanently to private life -- might have been eerily on point for the nominating phase of the 2008 presidential selection process, given the wide assortment of verbally bumbling life forms then vying for the Republican nomination. Of course there's no guarantee that the 2012 field will be any wiser or more articulate, so we may well wish to refer back to "Glorious Calvin" as the lineup takes shape.



"When Coolidge left the pictures, he was succeeded by Herbert Hoover, a comedian whose work displayed certain similarities. To the critical mind, however, it was thin and derivative, a self-conscious echo of his predecessor's magnificent technique. I doubt if we shall ever see the Master's like again." (Gibbs)


TO ACQUIRE A PROPER APPRECIATION
OF GLORIOUS CALVIN, CLICK HERE


TOMORROW NIGHT (preview), SATURDAY NIGHT (preview), and SUNDAY (main post) in SUNDAY CLASSICS:
Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music


NEXT WEEK in THURBER TONIGHT: "Gentleman from Indiana" and "Lavender with a Difference," Thurber's 1951 appreciations of his late father and still-very-much-living mother, starting Sunday night with the first part of "Gentleman," which on publication in The New Yorker caused a family furor


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY TONIGHT,
WILL CUPPY TONIGHT, and now WOLCOTT GIBBS TONIGHT):
Check out the series to date

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