BS: Favorite Comedy Films

Subject: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 May 06 - 09:10 PM

Watching funny movies is good for your health. Here are some of my absolute favorites over the years...

Groundhog Day
Love at First Bite
A Fish Called Wanda
Ruthless People
Annie Hall
Play It Again, Sam
Roxanne
The original Pink Panther films with Peter Sellers
Any of Charlie Chaplin's great movies

Got any to add to the list?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 May 06 - 09:31 PM

The entire series of the 'Carry On' movies are now being released on DVD.

Be afraid!
Be VERY afraid!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST,allan s.
Date: 06 May 06 - 09:34 PM

All the Marx brothers films

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 06 May 06 - 09:50 PM

Oh Brother Where Art Thou
Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines
Carry On Up The Khyber
Life Of Brian
Monty Pythons Holy Grail
Caddyshack
Airplane
Blazing Saddles

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Pseudolus
Date: 06 May 06 - 10:00 PM

Groundhog Day
Galaxy Quest

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: number 6
Date: 06 May 06 - 10:51 PM

Ones not mentioned that come to mind ..

What's New Pussy Cat

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

The Mouse that Roared

Dr. Strangelove

Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Cluin
Date: 06 May 06 - 10:53 PM

The Legend of Boggy Creek

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: bobad
Date: 06 May 06 - 10:57 PM

The Party with Peter Sellers

Movies with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau

John Candy in Trains, Planes and Automobiles and Uncle Buck

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: LadyJean
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:06 PM

Like my father before me, I'm a Marxist. I mean of course a follower of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. (That guy Carl wasn't as funny.) My favorites are Night at the Opera, Day at the Races, and the glorious Duck Soup!
Bringing Up Baby is another favorite. Then there's My Favorite Wife.
More recent films include: What's Up Dock, Any of Peter Sellers Pink Panther Movies, Peter Sellers The Party, Peter Sellers The World of Henry Orient.
The Full Monty was wonderful. I don't think I've seen a good comedy since then. Though Broken Flowers had it's moments.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:08 PM

Dr Strangelove
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
This Is Spinal Tap
Best in Show
Waiting for Guffman
Muppets Take Manhattan
Princess Bride
Life of Brian & aforementioned Python
Ditto Marx Bros, especially Duck Soup
Philadelphia Story
Bringing Up Baby
Some Like it Hot
Ghostbusters (but only the original)
A Christmas Story
Catch 22
Harold and Maude
Tootsie
Love and Death
Annie Hall
Animal House
Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein
Fargo
Raising Arizona
Blues Brothers
Pee Wees Big Adventure
Cradle Will Rock
Airplane
The Big Bus
Stripes
Kentucky Fried Movie
Earth Girls Are Easy
MASH
Being There
Great Dictator
Moonstruck
Harold & Maude
My Little Chickadee
The Ritz
Manhattan
Cat Ballou
Beverly Hills Cop
Dinner at Eight
Beetlejuice & every damn thing Burton ever made
The Jerk
The Birdcage

Actually, I could on and on...the above are just my fave (mostly) American comedy film list...then there is

Waking Ned Devine
The Snapper
Brazil
Local Hero
Full Monty
The Commitments
Little Voice
Bend it Like Beckham
Billy Elliot
Love Actually
War of the Buttons
Agnes Brown
Amelie
Il Postino
Everybody's Famous

Like I said, I could on...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Severn
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:31 PM

Some oldies:


Buster Keaton in "The General" or most anything silent before he went to MGM.

Harold Lloyd in "Safety Last"

W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick, You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" or "It's A Gift"

"Arsenic And Old Lace"

"Harvey"

Laurel & Hardy-"Sons Of The Desert" "The Music Box" (a short)

Our Gang/Little Rascals-"Freewheeling", "The Kid From Borneo", "High Neighbor" (shorts)

Abbott & Costello-"Hold That Ghost"

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:34 PM

Yes, yes! The Bank Dick too!

And my fave Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:35 PM

Eat Drink Man Woman
Like Water for Chocolate

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:42 PM

Cat Ballou
McClintock
The Python movies
The Pink Panther series
MASH
No Time For Sergeants
Mr. Roberts

...actually, 'most all that have been listed above.

Why is it that the best comedies have within them the seeds of high tragedy? Or did Aristotle answer that in The Poetics?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 06 - 11:52 PM

Oh! and Bob Roberts too.

Crooklyn
Bamboozled
Rocky Horror - how could I forget that one?
The Sting
High Fidelity
Wayne's World

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 07 May 06 - 12:01 AM

The Frisco Kid
Garbo Talks
I'll Do Anything

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 06 - 12:02 AM

Cecil B Demented
Pecker
Network
Flesh Gordon

and all those other trash genre flicks

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Surf Nazis Must Die
Reefer Madness
etc etc

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Bert
Date: 07 May 06 - 01:15 AM

A load of stuff from England in the Fifties.

Happiest Days of our lives (Parts of which were filmed at the school I went to and one year Margaret Rutherford came and opened our sports day)
The Lavender Hill Mob
The Lady Killers (much funnier than the recent Tom Hanks Remake)
Happy Ever After
The Belles of St. Trinians
The Runaway Bus with Frankie Howerd and Petula Clark

Then there were those Danny Kaye Films.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Alan Day
Date: 07 May 06 - 03:22 AM

I agree with you on one Bert
The Ladykillers (with Mrs Lopsided)
Night Owls Laurel and Hardy (The Pianola switch on)

Al

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: mrdux
Date: 07 May 06 - 03:30 AM

a few more:

My Man Godfrey (the one with carole lombard)
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
His Girl Friday
Kind Hearts and Coronets

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Alba
Date: 07 May 06 - 06:35 AM

Modern Times
Good Morning Vietnam
Local Hero
Sons of the Desert
The Lady Killers (original not remake)
Fargo
A day at the Races/A night at the Opera
Withnail and I
The Philadelphia Story
Whisky Galore
The Big Lebowski
I married an Axe Murderer

Impossible to list all the Films that make me laugh. No doubt they will be and are on someone else's list

J

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: alanabit
Date: 07 May 06 - 07:39 AM

School for Scoundrels
Support Your Local Sheriff
Spinal Tap
Too many others to recount...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Ernest
Date: 07 May 06 - 12:59 PM

Billy Wilders "one two three"

"Dead Men don`t wear plaid"

others have been mentioned before

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: heric
Date: 07 May 06 - 01:35 PM

Waking Ned Devine
The Full Monty
Fargo


New to the List:
Raising Arizona
My Cousin Vinny (best law film ever)
Evolution (kids)
Bad Santa (sorry)
Bandits (the critics hated it)
Eddie Murphy Raw

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: heric
Date: 07 May 06 - 01:44 PM

oh, and Lost in America ("Nice dam.")

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: autolycus
Date: 07 May 06 - 02:04 PM

A few not mentioned so far.


   Hellzapoppin' with Olsen and Johnson, wsondefully zany

   Monsieur Hulot's Holiday(Jacques Tati)

   Mr.Mum (aka Mr.Mom)(John Hughes film with Michael Keaton.

   Little Murders, with Alan Arkin - brilliant black comedy

   a short made by Pierre Etaix bout a man trying to write a letter, can't recall the title. Hilarious.

   Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (W.C.Fiels)

   Top Secret ! (underrated follow-up to the one that made me laugh most - Airplane!, by the same team)

   Slacker (Richard Linklater)


   Otherwise, more votes here for the Marx Brothers, The Pink Panther,Blazing Saddles, Laurel and Hardy's Music Box, Fish Called Wanda, Dr.Strangelove ("You can't fight in here, this is the War Room"), Catch-22.


   Nearly forgot The Great Race, funny the first time, so-so the second, funny the third. Also What's Up,Doc? (Streisand's finest comic hour.)


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: autolycus
Date: 07 May 06 - 02:08 PM

Knew I'd forget at least one - The Producers - no, the original whith Wilder and Mostel.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 May 06 - 02:37 PM

I forgot to mention Howard The Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: curmudgeon
Date: 07 May 06 - 02:39 PM

All of John Waters' films.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 07 May 06 - 04:02 PM

All jaques Tati films but particularly Mr Hulot's Holiday, and all laurel and hardy.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 May 06 - 06:38 PM

Apparently that was the plural form of "favorite." And there are a lot of seriously non-funny films in some of those lists.

I have a few films that are the favorites to pop in the player on a rainy day when I'm working around the house and treating it more like radio. Many have been listed, none are particularly new. One that I laugh at all the way through is You Can't Take it With You (George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart). The Barrymore version is very good, but there as a tv version on A&E years ago with Jason Robards that was also top notch.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 06 - 06:39 PM

Groove Tube

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: RangerSteve
Date: 07 May 06 - 08:01 PM

The TV version of "You Can't Take it With You" (the Jason Robards version mentioned above) is superior to the movie. THe movie dropped some characters and added a few serious scenes not in the original.

Also by the same authors is "The Man Who Came to Dinner", the movie is great but there's also a TV version on DVD with Nathan Lane that beats the movie version by a mile.

My all-time favorite comedy, if I had to choose one, would be "Harvey" with James Stewart. It's probably the gentlest, most satisfying movie I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 07 May 06 - 10:42 PM

The Palm Beach Story - for me the exemplar of screwball comedy. I nearly wet my pants every time I see the scene in the private railroad car. Claudette Colbert is deliciously manipulative in a naive sort of way. The ending is a little lame, but it only keeps the movie from being perfect.

His Girl Friday
The Court Jester
Sitting Pretty (the original Mr. Belvedere film)
Teahouse of the August Moon
and a bunch other folks have already mentioned

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 May 06 - 11:02 PM

Not a bad choice in the bunch. Guest mentioned the Groove Tube.....now often forgotten but hilarious and an early work for Richard Belzer and Chevy Chase.

The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd. You have to love Harold Lloyd, a true genius..........Cary Grant was a wonderful comedic performer and I think the first "leading man" type who realized his comic potential ala Leslie Nielson and others later. Danny Kaye, completely underrated......

The guys who came out of Sid Caesar's staff are some of my favorites.....Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen........Add in later days the beautiful stuff done by Guest and Levy and their gang of improv pros....................

Like I said, I haven't seen a bad choice here and yeah Hawk....I like Howard the Duck myself!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Ron Davies
Date: 07 May 06 - 11:14 PM

In addition to lots of the above

It Happened One Night
Clueless

and some others, often about music--especially with audition sequences, as in

The Commitments
The Fabulous Baker Boys

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: chazkratz
Date: 07 May 06 - 11:24 PM

I'll admit I skimmed the list quickly, but I'm still amazed not to have seen "Young Frankenstein" here. Another I think nobody mentioned (perhaps nobody saw) was "The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob." Danny Kaye, of course: "The Inspector General," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," jeez, what were all the rest? I'm glad someone mentioned "My Cousin Vinnie," and recognized it as a great legal thriller as well as a fantastic comedy. Joe Peschi is absolutely outrageous as the night-school lawyer, and Marissa Tomei wonderful as his fiancee. I wish Peschi would do more comedy and fewer Mafia flicks--and the world can do well without any more "Lethal Weapon" schlock.

I liked someone's choice of "Love, Actually." Did anyone say "Sean of the Dead"?

--seed

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 May 06 - 11:33 PM

In the 60's Sean Connery did an obscure one called "A Fine Madness". It's quite funny, but was not appreciated by a public who thought of him only as James Bond at the time, and did not relate to the idea of him doing a comedy at all.

I was delighted to be reminded of "Raising Arizona"...one of the greatest comedies ever, and it had slipped my mind entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 06 - 11:43 PM

Alll but one of the greats have been snapped up...

Hey, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World" has to rank up there with the best...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 08 May 06 - 01:44 AM

mrdux, thanks for listing "Kind Hearts and Coronets." There's one that shouldn't be forgotten. Too brilliant!

Did anyone mention Danny Kaye's "The Inspector General?"

If so, sorry. My eyes are filming over with the cavalcade of misty-moisty memories from the plethora of posts.

If not: Danny Kaye's "The Inspector General."

Elmer

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: chazkratz
Date: 08 May 06 - 02:12 AM

Oh, here's another, although it may qualify more as a tragicomedy: "King of Hearts," another of the great antiwar films. And one more I just thought of--painfully funny: "Where's Poppa?"

Charles

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: alanabit
Date: 08 May 06 - 02:24 AM

I'm with Ranger Steve on "Harvey". I forget the name of the wonderful actress, who played the sister, but she was brilliant too. It may well have been James Stewart's best film. My children played the DVD over and over again, proving that it is timeless.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Little Robyn
Date: 08 May 06 - 03:02 AM

There are several Peter Sellers movies mentioned above.
My alltime favourite is there already - The Party.
I still roll on the floor when he starts on the 'birdy num nums'.
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Essex Girl
Date: 08 May 06 - 08:36 AM

Apart from my favourites - Harvey, Bringing up Baby & The Party -, there are two more great Ealing comedies, The Titfield Thunderbolt and Passport to Pimlico.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: clueless don
Date: 08 May 06 - 11:41 AM

Has anyone mentioned "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" yet? Was 1 a good year?

And Danny Kaye in "The Court Jester", if only for the scene involving the vessel with the pestle, the chalise from the palace, and the flagon with the dragon (which one has the brew that is true?).

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 May 06 - 12:28 PM

The one I don't find all that funny is "Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Too noisy, frantic, and relentless for my taste, but it does have a few inspired moments here and there.

"The Gods Must Be Crazy" is a good one.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 May 06 - 01:08 PM

I also kind of like "Crocodile Dundee" (the first one).

I find it interesting that such "classics" as the "Francis the Talking Mule" and "Ma and Pa Kettle" series aren't mentioned, and I don't think anything by Martin & Lewis has been either.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 08 May 06 - 01:19 PM

Oh my we have neglected to mention The Castle - Australia's own Braveheart - a man of principal who will stand up to government oppression at all costs. Too damned funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 May 06 - 01:21 PM

HEY ALANABIT

..........Alan, the actress in question who played Veta Louise was Josephine Hull and I agree on her brilliance. Like many others who have enjoyed acting on the amateur college and community theater level where "Harvey" is a staple, I too have done the play and the performances of almost all the actors in the movie are almost always attempted to be mirrored by us amateurs. BTW, the only actor I ever saw do a great job on the Elwood P. Dowd character besides Jimmy Stewart was Art Carney and his was a different and equally compelling performance. It was a wonderful and wonderfully funny play and movie which gives us a great piece of hard earned life philosophy:

"In this world you have to be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. For years I was smart......I recommend pleasant."

Perhaps you have also seen Ms. Hull in the movie of "Arsenic and Old Lace" where she palys one of the two Brewster sisters who poison the poor and lonely men who apply to rent a room with their spiked Elderberry wine and bury them in the basement. I mentioned Cary Grant as a fine comedic actor and he shows it in "A&OL."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Comedy Films
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 May 06 - 01:21 PM

RangerSteve, I had the same thought in rapid succession after listing You Can't Take it With You" (and I agree--the Robards version is better, but anything with Jean Arthur is always good!). I love The Man Who Came to Dinner. They weren't confident enough that Monty Woolley could pull it off by himself so they had Bette Davis join the cast, but he was magnificent in the role. I'll have to look for the Nathan Lane version. And I watched Harvey many times as a child, but haven't seen it in a long time. I'll have to pick it up at the library.

My son is a fan of the James Garner western farces Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter. A lot of subtle stuff buried in the slapstick, particularly in the first one.

SRS