Join the Athenaeum Film Fan Club for our monthly comedy movie with free popcorn and soft drinks.  This month features three silent film comedies. With an introduction by host Damian Ryan. 

This month we feature America’s favorite comedy teams.

There has been no shortage of comedy acts in American history, but perhaps the most famous and popular of them all is The Three Stooges, an act that has become synonymous with slapstick. Three bumbling but likable fools getting into all sorts of trouble due to their inability to think or behave properly, Moe, Larry and Curly quickly became a hit in comedy shorts on screen. Even as other similar acts like Abbot & Costello went on to make full length films, the Stooges continued to star in shorts.

By the 1920s, English comic Stan Laurel had been in dozens of films and American Oliver Hardy had appeared in hundreds, but it was not until they formed a duo together in 1926 that they began to truly be noticed. Once they did, however, Laurel & Hardy became one of the most famous comedy teams in American history, with a career that spanned 4 decades and included over 100 combined shorts and feature films. Even today, nearly 60 years after their last performances together, Laurel & Hardy are still popular, alongside legends like The Three Stooges and Abbott & Costello, and their routines are still watched across the globe.

Ironically, one of America’s most famous comedy duos, and the performers of the country’s most famous skit, came together in part because Lou Costello had already failed to cut it in the film industry. In fact, Costello had appeared in a Laurel & Hardy film in 1927 before meeting his partner, Bud Abbott, on the burlesque circuit in New York City. 

This event is free, ADA accessible, and open to the public.