In my search for a comedic film, I found that the movie Get Smart is one of the best that I have seen. It has everything that a funny movie should have like physical comedy and jokes. The character Maxwell Smart makes everything seem funny, even in the most dangerous of situations. There are so many things that this movie has that just makes people laugh the whole way through. I don’t believe that it has anything in common with the text that we have read besides Freud, Perelman and maybe Roth. The way jokes are made up and the way they are said.
In the film Maxwell Smart wants to be a spy for CONTROL to fight the forces of evil, who is KAOS. With that he wants to save the nation and its people. This is kind of what Alex from “Portnoy’s Complain” tries to do in helping people with his job, even if the circumstances are different in the story line. Max’s dreams come true when CONTROL headquarters is attacked by its arch-enemy, the terrorist organization KAOS, which is lead by a man named Siegfried, in retaliation for CONTROL’S infiltration of KAOS. In that dangerous situation there was confusion going around and because of it Max hit the Chief of control which was one of the things caused by him being clumsy, just like Charlie Chaplin did in his work with physical comedy.
There were situations in the movie where names were mistaken and said in a funny way. For instance, when the main agents of CONTROL were in the safe room having a meeting after the CONTROL headquarters was attacked, there was a joke made from the name of one KAOS agent named Kristik. It was the same in Perelman’s story of “Why a Duck?” were Chico mistakes viaduct with why a duck. There is a lot of play on words in this movie. Like when Agent 99 and Max are on the plane to Moscow, Max gets into trouble and gets handcuffed by a police officer on the plane when he needed to go to the bathroom he said to the officer something like I have to squeeze the lemon. That is a clear view of play on words. Also, there is the scene where Max infiltrates Siegfried's bomb factory pretending to be one of them. Siegfried says, "How do I know you're not CONTROL?" Max responds, "If I were CONTROL, you'd already be dead." "If you were CONTROL, you'd already be dead," says Siegfried. Max says, "Neither of us is dead, so I am abviously not from CONTROL." Shtarker says, "That actually makes sense."
In Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious it says that when jokes are made with three people there are usually two that gang up on the third. There is a situation in the movie where two other agents who think are the best gang up on Max to make jokes out of his expense, jokes that he can’t really make a comeback from without the help of his friend Agent 23 who is always looking out for him. Max has two sayings that are always funny they are would you believe… and missed it by that much. Those are always funny with the action that he was trying to do. For instance, when Max and Agent 99 swing towards the window of the next building they hit the wall and Max says, "Missed it by that much!" Also, when he is keeping a look out for Agent 99, the bead curtain on the door way ends up falling with the beads scattering every where. When Agent 99 says, "Did I hear something?" Max says, "Yes, there were some tap dancers in the hallway."
In conclusion, I believe that this movie is one of the best and it’s actually funny with all the action and dialogue. Max’s sayings are always funny and so are the ways he is clumsy that makes things seem funny in the most dangerous situations. Also the play on words in the movie plays a big part with the action to make it funny. There are certain things in the movie that can be compared with Freud, Roth, and Perelman.
