Claudia Preschl's study focusses on female performers in comedies between 1910 and 1918. The book is a contribution to the rediscovery of this early "other" cinema in which comediennes such as "Rosalie", "Léa" or Asta Nielsen played a decisive part. Lachende Körper describes the variety of preposterous body-language and shows how anarchistic body-politics and rebellious strategies of Gender in Early Cinema can be decoded for today.