Please, pardon my inexperience. I'm fairly new to the #TCMParty and the "golden age of comedy," the question does ask of.
1. My perspective on cinema as a whole stands on, just that, perspective. As long as a story is well told, it is good. Arguments can, have, and will be made regarding the validity and superiority of certain eras, some are undeniable (practical vs. CGI, springs to mind). In comedy, however, I say that is the most interpretive. For me, I love slapstick just as much as I love any other form of comedy, but my mom and friends speak otherwise. Slapstick wasn't always such an acquired taste, which to me raises an eyebrow as to what is the "golden age of comedy," or better put, the best age. I personally don't think there is one. There are truly well-defined phases, the slapstick-heavy early 1900s certainly were one, but I don't necessarily believe it is an all-encompassing, makes-everyone-guffaw kind of an era.
2. That said, of well-defined phases, pure visual comedy, for me, has never simply stopped at 1930. For behold, I present to you: the cartoon. The cartoon to me is the perfect example of how slapstick, even if not by a living thing, continued past its early years. I think about Tom & Jerry and how, while it was clearly in sound, did not detract or affect the heavy, HEAVY use of physical, purely visual comedy. The same can be said, of course, in any cartoon of today and any given film past Week One of this course.
3. Finally, documentaries, compilation films, and essays DO make an impact on the greater legacy of the silent film era. The reverence for such legends as Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and others from modern folk like our own Greg Proops in itself adds something to the general wide reverence to the era. Essays, to me, matter, most emphatically, and clearly lay out the significance of the time, historically or in their often substantial description of the era's comedic successes. I hearken back to The Dissolve which I've just now started to revisit, and I recall how a carefully-crafted essay can change the way you look at or recall a certain film, film era, or aspect you wouldn't otherwise have.
Of course, that's just my two cents. I don't know as much as you guys, nor am I as slapstick-ly educated (yet).
