Before Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields, American comedy was innocent. After they left their hilarious smudges on the genre, comedy was anything but. Here in a captivating book comparing and contrasting these two premier American comics is the history of how flimflam came to prevail as a major comic form. These two comic geniuses excelled at a new brand of shtick, antiheroic humor that killed off the tame demeanor of their many predecessors in show business. By derailing the comedy of innocence, Marx and Fields brought film comedy to its Golden Age.