ABSTRACT
The holidays are over at Nutbourne College. The masters are assembled in Dr Wetherby Pond’s study when Rainbow, the porter, informs them that one hundred extra trunks have arrived. Most of the domestic staff leave, and because of the new arrangements, the masters sleep in the attics. It is important to remember that not all the best film comedies of the sixty years under review came from America. In sheer weight of tins of film, the Americans led the comedy race for some forty years. The most popular of the Italian comedians was probably Toto, who looked like a cross between Keaton, Somerset Maugham, and Claude Rains, and claimed descent—rather seriously—from the Emperor Constantine of Byzantium. Humour which depends on the humiliation of others, or of animals, is not encouraged. In fact, many of the amusing gags were lifted from other, older films.
