Portland Public Library

Robert Benchley, and the knights of the Algonquin, produced for video by Bret Wood

eng

videorecording

MPAA rating: Not rated

Robert Benchley

65337971

produced for video by Bret Wood

136

Paramount comedy shorts 1928-1941

and the knights of the Algonquin

American humorist and satirist Robert Benchley began as a writer, but when Hollywood came calling, he adapted some of his most amusing pieces for film. In these wry filmic explorations of the headaches of everyday married life, and of the common man overmatched by seemingly mundane tasks, Benchley is often spoofing himself and the sophisticated, witty literati who made up the legendary Algonquin round table. The collection features another member of that group, Alexander Woollcott, as a fussy nightclub patron, and Donald Ogden Stewart, playwright and screenwriter, as a serious lecturer on fantastical, farcical subjects. This collection pays homage to the spirit that animated the New York literary scene in the 1920s and '30s, as preserved by Hollywood for America's enjoyment

general

live action

Knights of the Algonquin