I was recently thinking about how the posters, advertisements and taglines for movies - specifically “comedies” - in the 1970s seem to frequently be misleading. Either that, or what was considered a “comedy” back then is different from what is considered a “comedy” today. Here are some examples.
The film “Husbands” by John Cassavetes. Starring Peter Falk, Ben Gazarra and John Cassavetes. The tagline is “Husbands: A Comedy About Life, Death and Freedom.” This is the jovial poster for the film.
In reality, the tagline should be, “Husbands: Three belligerent drunks being extremely mean to everyone.” Because that’s basically what the movie consists of. It’s a great movie, in my opinion - quite interesting, and very well-acted. But there is nothing remotely funny about it. In fact, it is extraordinarily depressing. NO audiences, today, would consider this to be a comedy if it was shown in the theaters. It would be considered a depressing drama, with a FEW funny scenes. And yet, in 1970, it was billed as a comedy.
Another example: The Heartbreak Kid, 1972, starring Charles Grodin and Cybil Shepherd. Billed as a “Romantic Comedy.”
There is absolutely nothing romantic about this film whatsoever. Plot summary: charming sociopath dumps wife of three days on honeymoon to chase after blonde college girl. Sociopath cons girl’s family into letting him marry girl. Characters are obviously unhappy and unfulfilled, even at the end of the movie. There are certainly a few funny moments - a FEW - but far from being a romantic comedy, I think if you took a girl to see this on a date, she would run screaming from your car as soon as you tried to kiss her afterwards. And still - by 1970s standards this was considered a romantic comedy.
“Goodbye, Columbus” - same deal. Depressing movie with depressing ending. Unlikable female lead, unfulfilling relationship, and plodding story. And yet the poster for the movie makes it look like the most jolly laugh-fest of all time.
Am I onto something here? Have the standards of “comedy” changed since the 1970s?
I figured out a long time ago, after watching many, many episodes of Starsky and Hutch with my dad, that the pacing of 1970s movies is about 1/4 the speed of the pacing of movies now, and that no modern audience would have the patience to sit through 60 minutes of Starsky and Hutch, an “action” show that featured at least 15 minutes of men in plaid suits sitting around in wood-paneled rooms talking and smoking cigarettes for every two minutes of “action.” Is the same true of “comedy?” Did people in the 1970s simply expect to put up with a lot of dark, bleak, or boring material in a comedy film? The comedies today, by comparison, have some kind of gag every 60 seconds. They’re real “laugh-a-minute” type films, generally.
What changed? Did audiences just get more impatient?