How Comedies Are Born: A strange little time capsule

Is this thing worth your time?

Honestly, only if you’re a complete nerd for 1920s Hollywood oddities. It’s a very specific vibe.

If you want a movie with a real plot or anything resembling a normal rhythm, you are going to hate this. It’s slow. Like, painfully slow at points.

It feels less like a movie and more like someone filmed a rehearsal that went off the rails. You’ve got a bunch of people sitting around Tom Kennedy’s house, and they are all desperate to be the funniest person in the room. It gets a little exhausting.

The "Process"

The whole premise is just writers brainstorming. It’s basically a meta-comedy before that was even a thing, but without the self-awareness that makes that stuff work today.

There’s this moment where they’re pitching ideas, and it’s just awkward. It feels like they’re trying to convince us that they’re geniuses. It didn’t work.

Compared to something tight like Angora Love, this movie just sort of drifts. It doesn’t have that same frantic, funny energy. It’s just… sitting there.

• Tom Kennedy looks like he’s trying to hold the whole thing together with his eyebrows.
• The dialogue feels like it was written by people who had never actually heard a human conversation before.
• There’s a weird amount of staring at the camera.

Sometimes a joke lands, but it’s mostly just people shouting over each other. It’s not exactly The Fate of a Flirt in terms of charm. It’s a bit rough around the edges, maybe a bit too rough.

I found myself checking my watch. Not because I was bored, exactly, but because I couldn't tell if the scene had been going for ten minutes or two hours. Time gets real weird in that living room. 🕰️

It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not even a particularly good movie. But it’s a fascinating look at how they thought comedy worked back then. Or, more accurately, how they thought people thought comedy worked.