How to Pretend to Be Drunk

I am a great admirer of Joan Crawford.  Believe me, I have no interest in besmirching Crawford's reputation as an actress.  But I cannot help but find fault with the drunk act that the actress performs in Sadie McKee (1934).  

It is not only that her silly performance is out of place in the otherwise melodramatic film.  The bigger problem is that the actress isn't at all believable.  Can you really accept that you are watching an intoxicated woman?  

Drunk comedy can be traced back to the earliest days of film.  The 1907 Pathé comedy Not' fanfare concourt (aka Our Band's Going to the Competition) involves a marching band that engages in mass drunkenness while celebrating their surprising victory at a band competition.  

Frank McHugh could have taught Crawford how to act drunk in an amusing but still credible way. 

Lilly Turner (1933)

The Irish in Us (1935) 

Manpower (1941) 

F Troop (1966, "Will the Real Captain Try to Stand Up?")

Film sources: 

Here Comes the Navy (1934)
Millie (1931)
The Irish in Us (1935)
Three Men on a Horse (1936)
Manpower (1941) (with Alan Hale)

Let's see a few other actor effectively convey comic intoxication.

Franchot Tone and Raul Roulien in The World Moves On (1934)

Herbert Mundin in Black Sheep (1935)

Film sources:

Roland Young and Charles Ruggles in This Is The Night (1932) 
Eugene Pallette in Friends of Mr. Sweeney (1934)  
Maureen O'Sullivan, Joel McCrea and Erville Alderson in Woman Wanted (1935) 
Billy Dooley in Calm Yourself (1935)
Brian Aherne and Walter Abel in Skylark (1941) 
Mary Boland and Greer Garson in Julia Misbehaves (1948) 

The master of comic drunkenness was Arthur Housman.

City for Conquest (1940) 

The man that Housman is helping to golf is Charles Irwin.

Film sources: 

Hello Sister (1933)
Public Hero No. 1 (1935)
Double or Nothing (1937)
Secrets of an Actress (1938)
Sergeant Madden (1939)
City for Conquest (1940) 

A Crawford peer, Claudette Colbert, provides a fairly convincing performance as an intoxicated woman in Torch Singer (1933).

I like this performance by Douglass Montgomery in Five and Ten (1931).

Alcoholism is at the center of the story in Merrily We Go to Hell (1932).

In addition. . .

While searching for Frank McHugh drunk scenes, I came across this funny scene of a sober McHugh greeting his wife and child at a train station.  

Indianapolis Speedway (1939)

The Hat

A hat can be an ideal prop for a comedian.

Buster Keaton made use of his hat both as a prop and a marketing tool.

Especially popular of the hat routines was the hat mix-up.  I previously examined this routine in my second book, The Funny Parts, and several previous articles, which can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.  Yes, this sort of comic business turns up often.  

Here are a few new examples.

Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939)

Lover Come Back (1946) 

Road to Rio (1947)

The Green Man (1956)

Film sources:

Easy to Love (1934)
His Brother's Wife (1936)
Bulldog Drummond's Bride (1939)
Dry Rot (1956)
The Green Man (1956)
Uncle Buck (1989)

Next, we have the hat try-on routine, which I also discussed in previous articles.  

Boireau au harem (1912)

Me and My Gal (1932)

Pardon My Past (1945)

A Run for Your Money (1949)

The Jackpot (1950) 

Pollyanna (1960)

Jackie Gleason and Hedda Hopper

Sydney King and Freddie Davies 

Here is  a good example of the routine (although the picture quality is not the best).

The Million Dollar Derby (1926) 

I have compiled a few other examples in the following video.

Film sources:

Coiffures (1896)
Les apprentissages de Boireau (1907)
Boireau au harem (1912)
A Run for Your Money (1949)

"Plucky Daisy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Of course, humor can also come from simply breaking hats.

Colgate Comedy Hour (December 2, 1951)