WES D. GEHRING is Professor of Film at Ball State University and Associate Media Editor at USA Today magazine. He is the author of a dozen books, including Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance (Greenwood, 1986), Personality Comedians as Genre (Greenwood, 1997), American Dark Comedy (Greenwood, 1996), Populism and the Capra Legacy (Greenwood, 1995), and Handbook of American Film Genres (Greenwood, 1988) He has also written biographies of W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy.