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We did best romances, now how about best comedies? I think I'll split the comedies into types of comedies. I'm going to leave out foreign film comedies, because I strongly feel that subtitles can never really capture humor.

Black Comedies:

Dr. Strangelove

Sunset Boulevard

Psycho (Hitch always felt it was, and the more I watch it the more I agree)

Wag the Dog

Romantic Comedies:

It Happened One Night

Shop Around the Corner

Annie Hall

When Harry Met Sally

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Roman Holiday

City Lights

Screwball Comedies:

His Girl Friday

Bringing Up Baby

The Awful Truth

Twentieth Century

(yes three out of the four star Cary Grant, who IMO was unmatched in this genre)

I'm leaving out The Lady Eve because I haven't seen it yet but I've heard it's wonderful.

Farce Comedies:

Some Like it Hot

The Graduate

Young Frankenstein

Musical Comedies:

Singin' in the Rain

My Fair Lady (I know this movie has some flaws but it's certainly funnier than the vast majority of musical comedies)

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Psycho (Hitch always felt it was, and the more I watch it the more I agree)

I guess it's a sure bet that canbelto is not Janet Leigh's screen name!

I'd add Blazing Saddles (category Farce), although its humor may have only regional appeal. My sister saw it in Colorado and was rolling in the aisles :rofl: -- alone -- amidst an otherwise silent audience. :shhh:

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ok, i'll play:

BUFFALO 66

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

A FISH CALLED WANDA

UNCLE BUCK

BLUES BROTHERS

HARVIE KRUMPET (stopmotion)

SWINGERS

THE VISITORS (FRA) - Remade in the US as JUST VISITING, starring Jean Reno and as two medieval knights who land in modern France.

UNIVERSITY OF LAUGHS (JPN) - Stars Yakusho Koji (from SHALL WE DANSU) in a dialogue intensive movie about a comedic playright trying to get his play ok'd by the gov't censor. The Censor's intention is to rid it of all humor but ends up making it funnier.

GETTING ANY? (JPN) - Takeshi Kitano as a guy trying to get laid in a wacky over the top Japanese movie that jumps from Zatoichi to Kurosawa to Godzilla.

WATERBOYS (JPN) - High school boys Synchro (synchronized swimming). Has some of the weirdest and funniest scenes as well as a winning ending syncho scene!

SWING GIRLS (JPN) - by the director of WATERBOYS. This time, it's high school girls swing band.

KUNG FU HUSTLE (HK) - parody of old school Shaw Bros Kung fu movies.

SHAOLIN SOCCER (HK) - Antoher Stephen Chow movie about kungfu + soccer.

GOD OF COOKERY (HK) - Stephen Chow as a tv cooking master.

SUMO DO SUMO DON'T (JPN) - By the director of SHALL WE DANSU. College Sumo.

ARAHAN(KOR) - Korean "Kung fu"-ish comedy comparable to KUNG FU hustle.

TAMPOPO (JPN) - About the search to create the perfect bowl of Ramen.

MAYONAKA NO YAJI-SAN KITA-SAN (JPN) - indescribable wacky comedy about a drug addict and a gay man who travel from Edo along a highway.

MY NEIGHBORS THE YAMADAS (JPN, animated) - A Ghibli movie featuring a "typical" japanese family.

-goro-

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Can't forget Laurel and Hardy: Big Business and Do Detectives Think?, at the very least. And Buster Keaton's The General.

Also Christopher Guest: This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best of Show, A Mighty Wind. Or are you making a distinction between satire and comedy?

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Local Hero.

I kinda wish the "adolescent comedies" had remained forgotten. Oh, well.

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TAMPOPO (JPN) - About the search to create the perfect bowl of Ramen.

I hadn't realized that I had put this is in the category of "romance" (as well as gastro-porn) instead of comedy. It has such wonderful humor.

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Local Hero.

Definitely Local Hero. I also loved the Canadian film Perfectly Normal, about a repressed brewery worker who plays goalie on his company's hockey team and is an opera lover. It was only Catherine Naglestad's extremely moving performance of the final duet (with Pollione) in Norma that make me forget to think of the parallel scene in the movie, which was both touching and funny at the same time.

Meryl Streep gives a very funny performance of an analyst whose 23-year-old son dates Uma Thurman's 37-year-old character in Prime, but the movie was rather sappy.

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Ok, I forgot satire:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Austin Powers (but only the first in the series)

Best in Show

and finally, some of the great SNL performers, like Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy.

Oh, and animated comedies:

Finding Nemo (although that's more of a comedy-drama)

Toy Story 1 and 2

Lady and the Tramp

Shrek 1&2

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A few comments. I’m limiting my remarks to movies I think really belong to the “very best” category.

“It Happened One Night” inaugurated the era of screwball along with “Twentieth Century” and although it is a love story it should really be classed with the screwball comedies, IMO.

Groundhog Day. One of the few pictures – made by an alumnus of Saturday Night Live that is good by any standard. I think it will be a classic. Bill Murray’s best performance, too.

We haven’t mentioned any drawing room comedies. The movie of Frederick Lonsdale’s “On Approval” with Clive Brook and Googie Withers is a true classic. “The Reluctante Debutante” is definitely not, but it does have Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison partnering each other in a dazzling display of light comedy technique. They make daredevil feats of timing and delivery look effortless. What Harrison can do with an inflection or a reaction shot is amazing, just amazing.

Some Like It Hot is a nearly perfect farce. (Interesting that one of its nearest rivals, Tootsie, also has cross dressing as a central element of the plot.)

M*A*S*H broke the mold of the service comedy genre and it still makes me laugh every time.

Best black comedy: Kind Hearts and Coronets, with Dennis Price eliminating eight versions of Alec Guinness. (canbelto, I’d suggest Sunset Boulevard is actually a pretty straightforward melodrama with some bizarre comic trimmings.) Most overrated black comedy: Monsieur Verdoux.

The Lady Eve. Henry Fonda at his most appealing and Barbara Stanwyck at her best (“I’ve been British.”)

Unfaithfully Yours, with Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell. Another by Preston Sturges. Harrison is an egomaniacal conductor obsessed with the possibility of his wife’s infidelity.

Best screwball comedy: Tough to choose, but I’m inclined to nominate “My Man Godfrey,” which contains elements of some rather savage satire, as the best screwballs often did. William Powell is perfect as the perfect butler, Carole Lombard reaches one of her personal bests, and the supporting cast is awesome.

I do not find any of the Mel Brooks pictures really good as a whole, although Young Frankenstein comes closest. The Frankenstein plot gives it a structure his other movies lack, and I have never laughed harder in my life than I did at Wilder’s and Peter Boyle’s rendition of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” I fear I thought “The Producers” was pretty bad – some good ideas not developed, and Zero Mostel is way too much. And I’m sorry, carbro, but I thought “Blazing Saddles” was stupid, just plain dumb and not that funny, except for Alex Karras punching out the horse.

Buster Keaton’s “The Navigator.” I went to see it at a repertory theatre after it had passed its 75th birthday, and the theatre was rocking with laughter.

I almost forgot National Lampoon's Animal House, which I also think has staying power. (It's generally regarded as the progenitor of all the grossout comedies to come, but it really isn't like that.)

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dirac, I'm going to have to disagree with you about Sunset Boulevard. I think basically it's a black comedy, but like many great comedies, has some very touching moments. The Norma Desmond character has become iconic as a symbol of an out-of-touch has-been star. Her over-the-topness makes her both funny and pathetic. There are lots of touching moments in Sunset Boulevard, perhaps the most touching is when Norma visits the Paramount studios and she's recognized by a few members of the crew and she starts to cry. Her meeting with Cecille b. deMille is also very touching. But basically I think this is a black comedy, with too much sardonic humor to make it a melodrama.

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Well, I wasn’t thinking “touching” so much as “soppy,” with Holden doing that “’Tis a far, far better thing I do” routine, sending his girl off to the fiance she doesn’t love because Holden is tainted because of his affair with Swanson or something. My hunch is Wilder wanted a boffo ending without alienating the audience from his hero by a) having him leave with the girl while poor Swanson goes bananas or b) having him reject a nice girl for moola. A genuine black comedy would have him send the girl away because, much as he loves her, he loves bespoke suits more.

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For improvised 1930's comedies add

She Married Her Boss with Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas with the person/people who live in the department store window

Also: Bizarre Bizarre by Marcel Carne with Louis Jouvet and the great scene of the empty milk bottles piling up to show the progression of the affair between the kitchen maid and the milkman

Sullivan's Travel's about the director of "Hey Hey in the Hayloft" and "Ants in Your Pants of 1942" wanting to do socially significant films and hitting the road as a homeless man to see what real life is like.

Along with Dirac, definitely Buster Keaton, and the Reluctant Debutante was an absolute favorite for me as a kid. It made up for the sluggish movie version of My Fair Lady.

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Sullivan's Travel's about the director of "Hey Hey in the Hayloft" and "Ants in Your Pants of 1942" wanting to do socially significant films and hitting the road as a homeless man to see what real life is like.

Quiggin, that's a classic, too, but since I'd already listed two Preston Sturges pictures I thought it would be overkill. "Hail the Conquering Hero," "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," etc. -- the list goes on. "Sullivan's Travels" has Joel McCrea, too, and I always thought he was an undervalued actor.

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Unfaithfully Yours, with Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell.  Another by Preston Sturges.  Harrison is an egomaniacal conductor obsessed with the possibility of his wife’s infidelity.

I literally almost busted a gut when I saw "Unfaithfully Yours" the first time. I was just a kid watching TV at 1AM or so, and laughed so loud when Harrison was trying to fake a murder recording thay I woke up my parents.

The use of music is brilliant.

I'll add "Yojimbo" to the list.

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Walther Matthau comedies always make me laugh, and I would put two of them on this list.

The Elaine May directed and written "A New Leaf" from 1974 is a forgotten gem of a movie. Matthau's performance as Henry, a spoiled selfish dandy who suddenly finds himself broke is hilarious as is May's naive nerdy heiress. Henry's plot to marry the heiress and then murder her for her money is pure black comedy and the ending is a rather sweet and unexpected surprise.

Also, "The Bad News Bears" is very good. Everyone's performance is right on, from the kids to Matthau's hangdog Buttermaker.

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Matthau is irreplaceable. I saw the Bad News Bears remake on cable recently and it only reinforced this sentiment. From what one reads, the revival of "The Odd Couple" with what I would imagine to be a seriously miscast Nathan Lane would do the same.

klingsor writes:

The use of music is brilliant.

I'll add "Yojimbo" to the list.

Agreed on both counts. Interesting to note that Unfaithfully Yours was a major bomb when it came out.

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dirac, John Lahr in the latest New Yorker agrees with you about the casting of Nathan Lane as Oscar (and Matthew Broderick as Felix, for that matter): "From a commercial standpoint, since the limited engagement is already virtually sold out, the tandem's magic has worked. From an artistic one, however, Lane and Broderick can't claim the same victory. There's something essentially wrong in their casting, and it shows in the play."

"'[Oscar Madison's] carefree attitude is evident in the sloppiness of his household,' the stage directions read. Lane, however, is not at ease in his body, his nerviness is parat of his campy comic appeal. You can put in in sneakers, flip his Mets cap backward, and drape his portlly body in an unbuttoned shirt, but, no matter how you alibi it, Lane still has the metabolism of a hamster. He is at home with the frenetic, not the athletic. ... The nervous alertness that rightly belongs to the meticulous Fellix has been usurped by Lan'e snappy, Energizer Bunny performance, and Broderick has no choice but to play against the attack of his co-star. Here, Felix becomes a laid-back character -- so laid-back, in fact, that he seems at times almost absent."

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The Producers--with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. I saw Lane and Broderick in the musical, but neither of them were comparable to the originals. Mostel had an underlying 'craziness' , an obsessiveness that made his portrayal so appealing. Lane came across as a good con man, and Broderick gave a pretty good imitation of Gene Wilder.

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