Murray Burnett was a high school teacher and playwright from New York City. Burnett and Joan Alison wrote the play Everybody Comes to Rick's, which was the basis for the movie Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
In the summer of 1938, while on vacation from his job as English teacher at a vocational school, Murray travelled to occupied Vienna to help Jewish relatives there. His experiences in Vienna inspired him to write a play about a cynical bar owner in Casablanca, Morocco named Rick. Rick eventually helps an idealistic Czech resistance fighter escape with the woman Rick loves.
When Burnett and Alison had failed to find a Broadway producer, they sold the play to Warner Brothers for $20,000. Warner Brothers handed the script to the screenwriters Howard Koch, Julian and Philip Epstein, who changed the title to Casablanca.
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Anonymous2006-09-06 22:00
Most comedians are Jewish. This creates a pretense of the "comedic Jew" who can be safely laughed at. By turning Jewish mannerisms into acceptable behavior on film and television, the public becomes more accustomed to Jews and has less fear of them.
Examples include Woody Allen, Gene Wilder, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr, Lewish Black, Andrew Dice Clay, Al Franken, Rodney Dangerfield, most actors in Mel Brooks films, the Three Stooges, the Marx brothers, Jerry Lewis, Lorne Michaels, Rob Schneider, Pauly Shore, Jon Stewart, and many others. Jewish comedy has become so ingrained in American culture that most Americans think nothing of it, becoming familiar enough with the actors to regard their mannerisms as simply normal.
Saturday Night Live is a good example of Jewish-American humor supported by a revolving door of Jewish-American actors, promoting familiarity of personalities rather than humor itself. For example, seeing a comedian in a movie or program means they must be funny, because they are already cast as a comedian regardless of the role or quality of the movie/show itself; audiences are expected to treat them as established and funny on a subconscious level, treating their Jewish expressions and mannerisms as comical.
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Anonymous2006-09-06 22:07
Notice a Saturday Night Live episode or a movie starring Saturday Night Live actors, and you'll notice they aren't saying or doing anything funny. Instead, they speak or show personality quirks that the audience is expected to find funny, with viewers conforming to laughter in order to reassure themselves that the actor is indeed funny, because the actor is supposed to be funny.
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Anonymous2006-09-06 22:11
One form of this takes place as referential humor, by mentioning or displaying another actor. Some films merely require a cameo appearance by a comedian in order to trigger laughter or slight chuckles upon their appearance on screen, before they have said or done anything. This reinforces the perceived comedic status of the actor simply for being a recognizable face associated with comedy.