The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture

From its founding in 1912, the short—lived Keystone Film Company—home of the frantic, bumbling Kops and Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties—made an indelible mark on American popular culture with its high—energy comic shorts. Even as Keystone brought "lowbrow" comic traditions to the screen, the studio played a key role in reformulating those traditions for a new, cross—class audience. In The Fun Factory, Rob King explores the dimensions of that process, arguing for a new understanding of worki...