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ALCOHOL_COMEDY

                                  February 3, 2000
  
Once upon a time, on a bboard
far away, the subject of the        
movie "The Thin Man" came up,            
along with speculation that           The Thin Man movies are great,  
the prodigious amounts of             as is the Dashiel Hammett   
drinking was a bit of                 novel, as indeed are all the    
post-Prohibition euphoria.            Dashiel Hammett novels... though
                                      they're all great in different  
                                      ways.                           
Myself I think "alcohol comedies"                                  
are practically an identifiable          The "Thin Man" is           
sub-genre... if they're a                one of the last            
prohibition thing, I would guess         things that he                
they got their start around the          wrote: arguably              
beginning of prohibition (e.g. the       it's more             (book and film, 
Thorne Smith novel "Topper")             light-weight than     *both* released
rather than around the end.              the others because    1934)          
                                         he didn't really  
                                         believe in them   
               Compare to                any more.         
               "Cheech and Chong"                                      
               routines, or                     Instead of the implacable, 
   THORNE      The "Freak Brothers"             incorruptible hero        
               comics.                          determined to fight it         
                                                out on principle, we have 
                            Though the          the drunken Nick Charles,     
                            1920s may           married into money, and 
                            have been           nearly uninterested in 
I can't think of            the start           plying his original trade.
many contemporary           of the                                
alcohol comedies.           American                              
There was that              alcohol                  TAKEN_LIGHTLY
Dudley Moore                comedy,     
movie "Arthur",             but what    
but that was a              about, say 
while back.                 Gargantua                 
                            and                    Another prime example    
   Ah, but more             Pantagruel?            of the classic       
   recently there's                                American alcohol     
   Jackie Chan's                                   comedy would be the    
   "Drunken Master"                                now nearly forgotten    
   and related                                     stories of John J.    
   movies...                                       Malone, by Craig     
                                                   Rice.                
                                                   
                                                        
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