Photo: Lillian Elliott and Max Davidson in “Call of the Cuckoo.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2012.
America has always been the land of immigrants. From when this part of the world was a mere colony to other countries, this nation has been a haven for the oppressed, weak, and dreamers, and grew mightily with this influx of people. The largest years of immigration occurred from the late 1800s into the early decades of the twentieth century. New forms of entertainment like vaudeville arose, catering to many of these immigrants, and employing ethnic humor. Many ethnic groups such as Italians, “Dutch” or German, and Jews,were stereotyped or parodied through dialect, expression, or movement in a way that revealed the common foibles of each group, how alike each were. Most of these stereotypes were carried over into film, with people like Weber and Fields excelling as “Dutch” comedians and George Beban as Italian.
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