Leaders in the Funny Business (1926) 🇺🇸

Charles Reisner (Charles Francis Reisner) (1887–1962) | www.vintoz.com

September 20, 2025

They are the “gag men” who invent new jokes for old and who think up stunts to make you laugh. No studio is complete without its “comedy constructor”

by Alice Tildesley

They used to call him a gag man, but he’s a comedy constructor now.

He’s responsible for the laughs that echo in motion picture houses, and it is according to the volume and frequency of those laughs that he keeps his job. A “gag” is a bit of business or a funny situation that brings laughter, and gag men are beginning to be as numerous as sunny days in California.

Three or four of them may be found on the sets of such celebrated comedians as Harold Lloyd and the Chaplins. Ray Griffith [Raymond Griffith] and Bebe Daniels, Doug MacLean [Douglas MacLean] and Colleen Moore would as soon do without a make-up box as a gag man, and even companies given to more dramatic efforts usually have an unobtrusive gentleman lingering about the set whose business it is to see and improve chances for comedy. Chuck Reisner [Charles Reisner], now Syd Chaplin’s director, was the first gag man. He was with Eddie Foy’s company when that comedian decided to accept an offer to make a picture on the Keystone lot, and Foy simply brought him along.

“What do you do?” people used to ask Reisner when they saw him sitting idly on the set.

“Oh, I think up gags — I’m the gag man!” — from whence the term grew.

Before that, on the Sennett [Mack Sennett] lot, men like Mal St. Clair [Malcolm St. Clair] sat in little cubby-bole offices and wrote a series of gags strung together which served as comedies for the custard-pie kings. Later, when he was made a director, he built his comedy into his pictures, as he might have built a window into a house.

“There’s nothing more ghastly than inserting so-called ‘comedy relief’ into a drama,” says Mr. St. Clair, “Because a man has a name as a comedian, you can’t stick him before your camera when the lady is getting too somber and say ‘Hey, be funny!” The only way to create comedy is to let it arise from natural situations as your play develops.”

Perhaps one of the most overworked gags on the screen began as an actual incident in the life of Charlie Chaplin. Charlie had just come to Hollywood, and was invited to a very formal party. He had the clothes but he had no car. An obliging youth volunteered to call for him. But when Charlie, all “soup and fish” and high silk hat, stepped out of his doorway, he found that the conveyance drawn up at the curb was a bright red Ford bearing the legend “Dog and Cat Hospital.”

This interesting vehicle proceeded to break down about four doors from the party, whereupon Charlie walked stealthily up the wrong side of the street, waited until an impressive limousine drove up and, entering this from his side, followed the occupants out as tho he had come in their limousine!

A gag is often used to create a laugh on an exit. One day, Chuck Reisner and his comedy constructors wanted to get Syd down-stairs. He had already gone down the banisters and tobogganed on a tea-tray.

Little Dinky Dean [Dean Riesner], Chuck’s small son, is going to be a gag man when he grows up, so they put the problem up to him.

“Is there a dog in the picture?” asked Dinky Dean, after deep thought.

There was — a small fox-terrier.

“Change him for a big St. Bernard,” advised the little boy. “Have Syd stand at the top of the stairs with his legs apart, listening, and have the dog come running between his legs and carry him down on his back!”

Which shows the way a gag man works, even if the suggestion wasn’t snapped up by Dinky’s proud parent.

One of the best authorities on gags is Charley Chase, the comedian who has made rapid forward strides in the past year with what may be called “legitimate” two-reelers.

Charley never begins a comedy without having the whole thing worked out down to the last fade-out. For weeks, Charley, his director and the gag man work over the story. As a rule, a serious situation is selected, the thing “planted,” then what is called the “big rally” (the wind-up in a flourish of hearty laughs ) is worked out. and the space between the start and finish is filled with mirth-provoking gags.

Charley’s latest picture, “Long Flivved the King,” is based on the serious situation of a man condemned to death who is, for a consideration, married to the heiress of a mythical kingdom in order that she may gain her country’s throne. he is pardoned, and the “big rally” concerns a revolution in the kingdom in which he has become ruler.

“Each gag must advance your story,” explains Charley, “or it doesn’t belong. If your audience has to say. after a big laugh. ‘Let’s see, what were they doing? Oh, yes, he was trying to get the girl!’ the gag should he omitted no matter how funny it seems.

“In a comedy, a ‘house laugh’ is what counts. The audience mustn’t smile or even chuckle, it must roar, or the house manager won’t think he is getting his money’s worth. In putting over laughs, frequently it’s timing that counts.

“Suppose I had some amusing business with a glass at this table and when it was over, I left. If we had to flash to another scene at once, the people would stop laughing at what I had been doing to find out what I was going to do next. I’d have choked the laugh. But if they give me a long shot going out of the room, the audiience will have time to laugh.

“Gags are very seldom new. Take the gag in my last picture, in which I draw from a very long scabbard a very short sword, and shake the thing to see if more won’t fall out. That’s evolved from stuff we’ve remembered from old stock-company days.

“A public is supposed to last seven years. At the end of that time, you can give them stuff that was too old to show them when they began. So the really valuable gag man is the one who has had lots of experience and can dig into his memory for what was funny to the last generation and vary it so that it’s funny to this one. “Here is the way we vary a gag:

“Lloyd Hamilton once used this one and it turned out to be the funniest seen up to that time. Two men were playing checkers, while a third, a stranger to both, looked on. One player, studying his move, reached a speculative hand toward a checker. The stranger shook his head. The man reconsidered, made another tentative move, and the stranger shook his head again.

“‘Um?’ observed the player and indicated a third piece. The stranger nodded. The move was made, whereupon the opposing player jumped all the other’s remaining checkers and won the game. The loser glowered at the stranger, who shrugged his shoulders, smiled and moved away.

Maybe you didn’t recognize this gag in a picture I made some years later. I had an old Ford I wished to sell. I took it to a dealer who had many other better cars for sale. When I had delivered it, a buyer came in and the dealer began to show him his wares.

“The buyer looked at a Rolls-Royce. I, standing back of the dealer, shook my head. The buyer, supposing I knew something against the car, decided against it and was shown another, at which I shook my head again. After they had gone thru the pick of the garage, they came to my old Ford. I nodded my head, the buyer bought it, started out of the place and the thing fell to pieces. I shrugged my shoulders, smiled and walked away.

“About the cleverest gag I ever had was that in a Christmas picture. I was a young man taking a Christmas tree home to my baby. I got on a street-car with the thing, had to move up among the passengers, knocking people’s hats off, tangling myself in their apparel and causing trouble generally. After a good deal of this, I got out, making the whole car-load get off first, with various mishaps, and then get on again.

“They left me with my tree and took the car on to the next corner where another man with a tree waited to get on. The car didn’t stop, but as it passed, the conductor leaned out with a pistol and shot the man.

“That originated from a gag Willie Collier [William Collier Sr.] once used on the stage, in which he and his wife went from place to place trying to rent an apartment. They had a little boy and nowhere would the landlord admit children. At last they found a perfect apartment, but the ban on babies was still up. ‘Come on, son,’ said Collier, leading the child off stage. You heard a shot and Collier came bounding back.

‘We can take it now,’ he cried. ‘We have no children!’

“There is no sure-fire gag. A thing may be funny in one situation and not in another. All you can do is to figure out why it is funny, where it is funny, when it is funny, and then do it and hold your breath.

“The rain-and-sunshine gag is an old-timer that has been overdone. It will have to wait for another public to grow up. It is the gag in which the comedian tries to fool the elements or some inanimate object. It began with the youth going to see his girl, walking out in sunshine, getting to the gate — then it rains. He goes back for an umbrella and the sun comes out. This happens several times and then he sneaks out in disguise.

“The silk hat that collapses when the comedian puts it on, and stands up when he takes it off, is a variation of this gag, as is also one I used, where a lock of hair stood up on my head. I started to cut it off and it lay down. I got ready to go and it stood up, etc. The gag has been done with garage doors and automobile tires, too.

“In ‘Long Flivved the King’ we had a gag concerning a real-estate man in my mythical kingdom who tried to sell me California real estate. He carried a grapefruit, and when I tried to eat it, it was arranged to squirt me in the eve like a seltzer bottle. However, we cut this out, since upon consideration we found it retarded the tale.”

Lonnie Dorsay [Laurence D’Orsay] is the comedy constructor with Mal St. Clair. The pair have made twenty pictures together and seldom or never use a script.

Perhaps they see a play or read a book and from it evolve a story. They see possibilities for comedy not in the original because of the different medium. In “A Social Celebrity,” however, the two started with the bare idea that Adolphe Menjou was to be a barber and built the picture from that premise, slight as it may seem.

Ray Griffith always works with his comedy constructors, who are at present Lloyd Corrigan and Reggie Morris. This comedian never uses a script, but has a working plot.

In “Hands Up,” for example, they took the Civil War, essentially a serious affair. Both Lincoln and Lee hear of a mine out West and send envoys to seize it for North and South, respectively. The gold falls first into the hands of the Union and then of the Confederates, and the gags deal with this transfer of right. When Ray finally gets possession unreservedly, the war is over.

One of the best gags in the picture concerns the two*girls between whom Ray cannot make up his mind. At last he joins the Mormons and takes them both to Salt*Lake*City as his brides.

One of the most difficult gags these constructors of comedy ever remember tackling occurred in “He’s a Prince.”

‘“The idea was to bring about a meeting — an accidental meeting — between Ray and the girl, whom he has met but once and whose name he does not know,” explains Mr.*Morris. “For three*days we thought, but there was nothing in the old brain. At last I remembered an old two-reeler where a fellow has a girl’s picture in a locket. Another chap says to him, ‘Let me fix you up with a sweetie,’ but the first fellow replies, ‘Nothing doing, I’ve got one,’ and shows the locket. ‘That’s my wife!’ cried the second chap — and the battle is on.

“I told Ray and we got our meeting.” Not the same way, however. Would you recognize the root in this?

The girl and her guardian go to a Paris cafe, but leave just before the prince and his companion arrive and seat themselves at her vacated table. The waiter hands them the menu, which he picks up from the floor. But instead of being the menu, it is actually the girl’s passport, which she has dropped from her purse. Thus he is able to trace her.

Perhaps the most amusing gag in Ray’s current picture concerns his car, which climbs a tree in an effort to miss another vehicle. The “kick” comes when Ray and his friend impersonate the cars and Ray climbs up the policeman who is acting as the tree.

Note to those interested:

Hector Turnbull, of Paramount’s West Coast Studios, says:

“A man with amusing ideas has a hundred-to-one better chance of breaking into studios and making good than a beautiful girl or a handsome young man — but his ideas must be really funny!”

Leaders in the Funny Business (1926) | www.vintoz.com