Charlie Chaplin and Eric Campbell in Easy Street (1917)

Comedy began centuries ago, with the theatre of Moliere, and is a medium that can get anybody to react. I thought it could be a good way to teach the history of the language of early cinema," says film editor Jethu Mundal. With his new course, Comedy in Early World Cinema, Mundal, a faculty member at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, is set to introduce comic nuggets from the dawn of cinema in Europe and America to participants, especially those who are not film students. While the era was full of narrative and technological innovations, the delights of early world cinema could be an acquired taste. What better than the capers of Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, then, to pave the path for us?