Thursday, November 08, 2007

The Observer's 50 Best Comedies Ever




Screening on Thursday, November 08, 2007

1 Comments:

Blogger Fong Kok Hoong said...

The last laugh: your favourite 50
When we asked readers to pick their top comic movies last month, hundreds of you voted. Here is your top 50 - ranging from The General, made in 1926, to this year's Hot Fuzz - with quite a few surprises thrown in.

Reviews by Philip French, Mark Kermode, Jason Solomons, Akin Ojumu and Killian Fox
Sunday July 22, 2007
The Observer
1. Life of Brian
Directed by Terry Jones, 1979
You say: The Pythons realised the caste system of Rome was exactly the same as the English public-school system, and made a comedy epic out of it.
Huwtube, on the Observer blog
We say: Shot on the Tunisian sets built by Lord Lew Grade for his reverential TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, then disowned as blasphemous by its distributor, Lew's brother Sir Bernard Delfont, this daring, dazzling comedy was picked up by the HandMade company of George Harrison, composer of 'My Sweet Lord'. Playing multiple roles, the Python team satirise Hollywood biblical movies, gullible fanatics, public-school education, half-baked student radicalism and sadomasochistic religion. It even throws in a touch of sci-fi fantasy. But in the margins, Christ (played by Kenneth Colley) emerges with dignity. An irreverent, subversive, humane film, for life against death, for the individual against the state. And very British.
PF

2. Airplane!
Dir. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980
You say: The daddy of the comedy spoof. The first time I saw serious acting this funny.
Daryl Cockburn, Ayrshire
We say: Hollywood's Seventies obsession with all-star disaster movies received a hubristic spoofing at the hands of the Zucker brothers and their Kentucky Fried partner Jim Abrahams. They struck comic gold chipping away at the Airport series of films, based on Arthur Hailey's bestselling novels.
JS

3. This Is Spinal Tap
Dir. Rob Reiner, 1984
You say: A razor-sharp satire of rock'n' roll, as relevant now as it was then.
Daniel Creed Dowbon, Reading
We say: From guitar amps that go 'up to 11' to album covers that could be 'none more black', Rob Reiner's genre-defining 'rockumentary' is an endlessly quotable gem. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are so convincing as the gormless Brit rockers Spinal Tap - whose various drummers have succumbed to spontaneous combustion and bizarre gardening accidents - that some American audiences didn't even realise the film was a joke. Smell the glove!
MK

4 Some Like It Hot
Dir. Billy Wilder, 1959
You say: It has the best last line in movie history - 'Well, nobody's perfect,' says Joe E Brown on learning the girl he's courting is actually a man (Jack Lemmon) - and some of Hollywood's best comedy writing.
Hazel Rea, Colchester
We say: Wilder had a bad time directing the wayward Marilyn Monroe; co-star Tony Curtis said love scenes with her were 'like kissing Hitler'. But their experience perfectly reflected that of Curtis and Lemmon as the anxious musicians joining an all-girl band to escape lethal Prohibition-era mobsters - a fast-moving farce using the plot of a gangster thriller. Touching perfection, this masterpiece has delighted audiences and critics since it opened.
PF

5. Withnail and I
Dir. Bruce Robinson, 1986
You say: Every line in this movie is a gag and the characters are Shakespearean!
Stuart Knight, London
We say: Bruce Robinson's tale of two down-and-out actors who go on holiday 'by mistake' has inspired a true cult following - from the pilgrims who make misguided pilgrimages to Penrith, to the stoners who play the Withnail Drinking Game (match every drink taken on screen - including lighter fluid!) with hospitalising results. Richard E Grant and Paul McGann are fabulous as the titular leads, with lascivious support from Richard Griffiths.
MK

6. Blazing Saddles
Dir. Mel Brooks, 1974
You say: Delivers a blistering attack on racism and mob stupidity, proving that irony can be a much more powerful weapon than outrage. Graham Warwick, Ipswich
We say: Originally developed as a star vehicle for Richard Pryor (who gets a co-writer credit), Mel Brooks's western pastiche proudly waves an anti-racist flag in the fart-filled air. Cleavon Little plays the sophisticated black sheriff saving a town of dumb white folk from evil railroaders with the aid of Gene Wilder's 'Waco Kid'. Brooks cameos as the Gov William J Le Petomane, while Madeline Kahn sets the screen alight as Lili von Shtupp.
MK

7. The Big Lebowski
Dir. Joel Coen, 1998
You say: A practically perfect film whichever way you slice it, its language games, surreal dream sequences and cast of brilliantly observed grotesques make it irresistible.
Neil Dean, Sittingbourne
We say: The Dude abides in this wonderful pastiche of Californian noir, as Jeff Bridges gets drawn into a rug-related mystery with more tangled threads than anything Philip Marlowe ever had to contend with. Nihilists, weirdo artists and pederastic bowlers are just some of the oddities he meets along the way. The Coen Brothers have been justly lauded for this surreally stylish comedy, also starring John Goodman as a volatile Vietnam vet.
KF

8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Dir. Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975
You say: Aside from being endlessly quotable, it is the perfect showcase for the Python talents.
Kathryn Dray, Hull
We say: Life of Brian may win more accolades, but Holy Grail is the true Python masterpiece. Co-directors Gilliam and Jones conjure a splendidly pestilential air as King Arthur (Graham Chapman) goes on his coconut-fuelled holy quest. Highlights include the limb-lopping battle with the Black Knight ('What are you going to do, bleed on me?') and the infamous French taunt; 'I fart in your general direction.'
MK

9. Duck Soup
Dir. Leo Mccarey, 1933
You say: The perfect, anarchic antidote to 20th-century capitalist-induced oppression.
David Brown, London
We say: In the Marx Brothers' final Paramount comedy before Zeppo bowed out and the other three donned designer straitjackets at MGM, they run riot in Freedonia where the incomparable Margaret Dumont installs Groucho as anarchic president. Probably the peak of their career and the only occasion they worked with a great director. In Hannah and Her Sisters Woody Allen cites it as one of the things that make life worth living.
PF

10. Young Frankenstein
Dir. Mel Brooks, 1974
You say: It still makes me weep with laughter and I cannot to this day understand how the 'I ain't got no body' gag always works; it shouldn't, it's so obvious.
Orla Houlihan, Dublin
We say: Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks were rightly Oscar-nominated for writing this wonderful homage to the black-and-white heyday of horror. Handsome cinematography and authentic production design lend a touch of class to the deliciously broad comedy, as Wilder's latter-day Dr Frankenstein gets back to his Promethean roots. Timeless sequences include the monster's toe-tapping rendition of 'Puttin' on the Ritz', which will presumably feature in the forthcoming stage musical.
MK

11. The Producers
Dir. Mel Brooks, 1968
You say: This is just so outrageously funny all the way through.
David Wheatley, Margate
We say: After sketch writing for Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks made a brilliant debut as a writer and director with this sparkling 1968 comedy about Max Bialystock, a scheming Broadway impresario (Zero Mostel) and a snivelling accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), who concoct a plan to get rich by producing a flop called Springtime for Hitler. Brooks later remade the film as a Broadway musical, winning a record number of Tonys, and in 2005 he adapted the musical into a film.
JS

12. Shaun of the Dead
Dir. Edgar Wright, 2004
You say: Sublime humour mingled with moments of grossness. Hilarious and scary. Best use of a Queen song.
Joanne Harris, Wellington, New Zealand
We say: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg brought British comedy back to life with a jolt in this violently funny film, dubbed a 'zom-rom-com' by its makers. Shaun and his mates don't realise at first that London's denizens have been transformed into blank-eyed zombies; then all comic hell breaks loose. Sharp gags and erudite cinema references mix with gore to create one of the smartest black comedies of recent years.
KF

13. Groundhog Day
Dir. Harold Ramis, 1993
You say: Bill Murray shows off his comic genius.
Rosemary Golding, Ludlow
We say: Bill Murray established himself as a genuinely skilled comic actor in this ingenious 1993 hit directed by his Ghostbusters partner, Harold Ramis. Murray plays morose weatherman Phil Connors, who finds himself living the same day over and over again, he first has gleefully malevolent fun (cue a running gag with old schoolmate Ned Ryerson) and then learns how to love Andie MacDowell. One of the smartest comedies of the Nineties, it's rich with philosophical ideas explored through sarcasm: 'What if there really is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.' Although my favourite is: 'I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over...'
JS

14. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1964
You say: Probably the benchmark for political satire in cinema and delightfully dark in tone and humour.
Brian Crawford, Belfast
We say: In this devastating satire on the Cold War, the arms race and Mad (mutually assured destruction), insanity is in the air, on the ground and in Ken Adam's subterranean War Room (which Reagan asked to see when he arrived at the White House). A stylistic triumph, occasionally over the top, but consistently and painfully hilarious. A pity Peter Sellers didn't play the bomber pilot as well as Group Captain Mandrake, President Muffley and the eponymous scientist.
PF

15. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Dir. John Hughes, 1987
You say: Steve Martin and John Candy's finest work. Brilliant interplay between the two as they fight, argue and moan their way across America.
Matthew McCann, Liverpool
We say: As the Eighties progressed and his stardom grew, Steve Martin toned down his manic comedy act. Here, he is the straight man to John Candy's accident-prone shower-curtain-ring salesman. Meanwhile, director John Hughes was moving from teen comedies to more adult fare, although he didn't lose his broad sense of humour in this road movie. The highlight occurs when the odd couple share a motel bedroom and wake up together in a compromising position.
Martin: 'Where's your other hand?'
Candy: 'Between two pillows...'
Martin: 'Those aren't pillows!'
AO

16. The Man with Two Brains
Dir. Carl Reiner, 1983
You say: An absolute classic. Any film with the line 'I couldn't fuck a gorilla' gets my vote. Genius.
Francaise, blogger
We say: Famed doctor Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin), inventor of screw-top cranial surgery, falls in love with Anne Uumellmahaye's disembodied brain (voiced by Sissy Spacek) after misguidedly marrying voluptuous 'scum queen' Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner) for lust. David Warner chews the plasterboard scenery as rival mad-scientist Dr Necessiter, while Martin gets to recite the worst poem in the English language: 'The pointy birds are pointy pointy. Anoint my head, a-nointy, nointy.'
MK

17. There's Something About Mary
Dir. Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1998
You say: My introduction to the new wave of film comedy. I couldn't believe anything could be so puerile, but I couldn't stop laughing.
Richard Peach, Alvechurch, Worcestershire
We say: Although notorious for its zipper and 'hair-gel' scenes, the Farrelly brothers' smash-hit rises high above the gross-out standard thanks to a bounty of superb gags and a career-making performance from Ben Stiller. Cameron Diaz stars as Mary, the object of a high-school crush that grows into an obsession for Stiller's hapless Ted. But he's not the only one obsessed. Matt Dillon also stars.
KF

18. Annie Hall
Dir. Woody Allen, 1977
You say: A perfect blend of comedy and neurosis that only Woody Allen is capable of.
Ian Cook, Stockport
We say: Allen's biggest critical and commercial success, this Oscar-winning semi-autobiographical comedy in which Allen, his ex-lover Diane Keaton and best friend Tony Roberts play versions of themselves. His first authentic hymn to his native New York, it created an influential new genre, 'the relationship picture', natural successor to the Thirties comedy of remarriage. This bittersweet picture exhilarates while declaring that love inevitably fades and only memories last for ever.
PF

19. Dumb and Dumber
Dir. Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1994
You say: Never has Wordsworth's assertion that 'the child is the father of the man' been more amusingly proved.
David Scher, New York, USA
We say: You can hold it responsible for the glut of stupid humour that has cheapened American comedy since 1994, but the Farrelly brothers' debut has gags to make even the loftiest humour purist splutter. I defy you to watch the stomach-assaulting 'Turbo Lax' scene or the inspired coda, involving a coach full of neglected bikini models, while maintaining a straight face.
KF

20. Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy
Dir. Adam Mckay, 2004
You say: More anarchic than most mainstream comedies, it is laugh-out-loud funny.
Richard Harris, London
We say: Will Ferrell's post-Saturday Night Live career was assured after the success of this first solo comic film. Although Elf's appeal will probably endure, Ron Burgundy, a macho Seventies San Diego news anchor flustered by the arrival of a woman co-anchor (Christina Applegate), is likely to remain one of his most-loved, and quoted, creations. Although the jazz flute scene is perhaps the funniest, the West Side Story-style rumble between rival news teams assembles a parade of US comic talent including Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn and, uncredited, Tim Robbins.
JS

21. Mr Hulot's Holiday
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1953
You say: Its mock-silent method is wonderfully suited to a study of human incompetence without being patronising; it's peerless.
Rob Dunster, Rugby
We say: Jacques Tati only directed nine films in his long postwar career and most of them featured his most memorable creation, Mr Hulot, the forefather of Mr Bean, a well-meaning but clumsy character baffled by the modern world. In this masterpiece he blunderingly negotiates the social niceties of a French seaside hotel armed only with a butterfly net and a wicked tennis serve. The fireworks at the end are a fitting finale.
AO

22. Shrek
Dir. Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001
You say: A highly sophisticated, animated comedy for adults masquerading as a kids' film.
Ian Westbrook, Folkestone
We say: We might be suffering Shrek fatigue this summer as the third film in this franchise swamps our cinemas. Back in 2001, this sly comedy became an instant classic, combining brilliantly rendered animation with a stream of knowing jokes about popular culture and fairytales.
AO

23. Best in Show
Dir. Christopher Guest, 2000
You say: Impossible now to watch any of Crufts on TV without thinking of Guest's masterpiece.
Alan Kerr, Bidford-on-Avon
We say: Spinal Tap frontman Christopher Guest directs this sublimely deadpan doggy-show docu-spoof, which lays bare the rabid insanity of canine competition. Co-writer Eugene Levy joins a cast of Guest-regulars, including Michael McKean and Parker Posey, all of whom retain straight faces amid the escalating madness. Guest's own 'naming nuts' soliloquy makes 'Macadamia' the funniest word ever.
MK

24. Kind Hearts and Coronets
Dir. Robert Hamer, 1949
You say: A wonderful satire of Englishness, and the film that confirms Alec Guinness as one of our best screen actors.
Jamie Glazebrook, London
We say: The most sparkling jewel in the Ealing Studios crown, this beautifully crafted black comedy by a great British Francophile is a wickedly accurate account of a class-bound society and compels us to sympathise with its Edwardian antihero as he moves ahead by murdering aristocratic relatives. Dennis Price is not overshadowed by Alec Guinness's tour de force, playing eight roles.
PF

25. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Dir. Larry Charles, 2006
You say: First film to reduce me to dribbling as I laughed uncontrollably: not a good film for a first date.
James Moore, Peterborough
We say: Sacha Baron Cohen's bigoted Kazakh reporter graduates to the big screen with a mission to offend as many Americans as conceivably possible. There's a gossamer-thin plot about meeting Pamela Anderson, but this is really about the real-life set-ups, from telling a feminist group that women have squirrel-sized brains to eulogising 'your war of terror' before an angered rodeo crowd. Shockingly funny.
KF

26. The General
Dir. Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman, 1927
You say: It's really something for a movie from the Twenties still to make us laugh and for the audience to connect to the characters.
Jon Wilde, Brighton
We say: Not even Jack Benny has obtained so many laughs while remaining deadpan as the great silent comedian dubbed 'Old Stone Face'. This American Civil War comedy about a Confederate engine driver defying northern guerrillas is Keaton's longest, best and funniest picture. The spectacular chases are as hair-raising as they are hilarious.
PF

27. A Fish Called Wanda
Dir. Charles Crichton, 1988
You say: Not a dull moment and all four principal actors deliver flawlessly throughout.
Robert Symington, Fernie, Canada
We say: Directed by Ealing veteran Charles Crichton in 1988 from a script by John Cleese, this surprise hit briefly put London back on the global film map, earning three Oscar nominations. The culture-clash farce has Americans Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline coming to quaint London for a diamond robbery and becoming involved with Cleese's uptight barrister, Archie Leach (a play on Cary Grant's real name, of course). The comic stuttering and bungling of fellow Python Michael Palin provided some slapstick relief, Curtis gave it the glamour, while Cleese and Kline's verbal sparring lent the enterprise wit, class and cultural insight. 'I love robbing the English,' says Kline, 'they're so polite.'
JS

28. Way Out West
Dir. James W Horne, 1937
You say: Human suffering is the staple ingredient of all good comedies; Laurel and Hardy present it with just the right measure of irony and dignity.
William Wilde, London
We say: The premise is as simple as ever. The hapless pair are hired to deliver the deeds to a goldmine to the daughter of a dead miner but unfortunately give it to the wrong woman. Cue: mad rush to put things right, cheesy song-and-dance routines and plenty of slapstick mishaps in frontierland. Arguably the duo's most enduring film.
AO

29. The Odd Couple
Dir. Gene Saks, 1968
You say: Few films are funnier than this, with Jack Lemmon's neurotic chalk and Walter Matthau's slob of a piece of cheese caught together in domestic unbliss.
Maggie Galpin, Manchester
We say: Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon had combined to good effect for Billy Wilder's The Fortune Cookie but it took this Neil Simon script to cement them as one of the great comic pairings. Lemmon's Felix Ungar is a neurotic New Yorker recovering from divorce by moving in to share a flat with his slovenly poker game friend, Oscar Madison. Their bickering forms the backbone to a sharply observed film about male friendship, sweetened with a touch of the usual Simon sentimentality. Matthau, brandishing a note: '"We're out of cornflakes. FU." Took me three hours to figure out FU stood for Felix Ungar.'
JS

30. The Ladykillers
Dir. Alexander MacKendrick, 1955
You say: It's as if God decided to give his wayward children a masterclass in black comedy. Never equalled.
Graham Hull, Nantwich
We say: Ingenious and very funny Ealing comedy with Alec Guinness as a criminal who rents a room from an elderly landlady while plotting and executing a robbery. Mrs Wilberforce is not as oblivious as she seems, however, and Guinness's ragtag gang disintegrates as they struggle to knock the old dear off. The superlative cast also includes Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom.
KF

31. The Blues Brothers
Dir. John Landis, 1980
You say: Music, action and divinely inspired silliness triumph over insurmountable odds. Just looking at Belushi makes me laugh.
Graham Low, Halifax
We say: John Landis's spectacular film became a cult for music fans as well as comedy fans. Jake and Elwood, the titular brothers, were originally created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd on TV's Saturday Night Live. Their own 1980 movie saw them saving their former orphanage from a closure by re-forming their blues band for a benefit gig. Hence a rounding-up road trip in the Bluesmobile, wearing their trademark shades and pork pie hats, encountering James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker. There's a cameo from Steven Spielberg, the most expensive filmed car chase and lots of gags.
JS

32. Arsenic and Old Lace
Dir. Frank Capra, 1944
You say: 'Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.' Old lady serial killers, horror pastiches and Cary Grant - what's not to love?
Jayne Harvey, Oxford
We say: Frank Capra's cheerfully macabre movie stars Cary Grant as a young newlywed revisiting his old family home in Brooklyn. Apart from two bachelor-poisoning aunts, a Teddy Roosevelt-impersonating brother who digs the graves and another serial-killer sibling who resembles Boris Karloff, the household is a picture of normality. Events unfold at chaotic speed and Capra applies his trademark light touch to the murderous material.
KF

33. Bringing Up Baby
Dir. Howard Hawks, 1938
You say: Terrific verbal wit and physical comedy.
Julia Henderson, Beverley
We say: Funniest of the three polished movies Cary Grant made with Katharine Hepburn and the epitome of the screwball comedy, a term coined in the Thirties to describe a new kind of romantic, fast-moving sophisticated farce in which Noel Coward meets Ben Hecht. Hepburn plays the dizzy socialite luring bewildered palaeontologist Grant from the beaten track of his bluestocking fiancee. The sexual innuendo includes the first mainstream use of 'gay'.
PF

34. A Night at the Opera
Dir. Sam Wood, 1935
You say: Cocktail of comic wit and slapstick from the masters of mirthful mayhem.
Jim King, Birmingham
We say: The Marx brothers milked their status as madcap outsiders in this high society satire. The plot involves their high-energy attempts to help an Italian opera singer make it big in the States. The wisecracks are rapid fire and occasionally surreal. 'That's what they call a sanity clause'; 'You don't fool me, there is no Santa Claus!' The romantic subplot is sickly sweet but it is easy to see why this remained Groucho's favourite.
AO

35. Kingpin
Dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly, 1996
You say: A sleazy Bill Murray and milking a bull. What's not to like?
James McCormick, Belfast
We say: During the Nineties, the Farrelly brothers emerged as the leading figures in ultra-broad, fraternity comedy. Kingpin borrowed liberally from unlikely sources - Witness and The Hustler - to create a coming-of-age film in which ace 10-pin bowler Randy Quaid, an Amish naif, and his sleazy trainer Woody Harrelson unite to take revenge on Bill Murray. Worth seeing for Murray's outrageous hairpiece alone.
AO

36. The Naked Gun
Dir. David Zucker, 1988
You say: The only film that has ever had me crying with laughter in the cinema.
Mark Allen, Glossop
We say: Based on a series of six TV programmes called Police Squad, which spoofed classic American shows such as Dragnet, the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team (ZAZ) expanded the concept into a movie largely due to the revived popularity of Fifties actor Leslie Nielsen as Lt Frank Drebin. A scene-stealing doctor in Airplane!, Nielsen's new creation filled the void left by Inspector Clouseau, and Drebin's haplessness was his comic virtue. The film's success - two less witty sequels followed - owed much to the revelatory comic playing of Priscilla Presley as Drebin's romantic interest Jane. 'Nice beaver,' smiles Drebin, gazing up at Jane on a ladder. 'Thanks,' she says producing a stuffed beaver, 'I just had it stuffed.'
JS

37. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Dir. Stanley Kramer, 1963
You say: Never before or since have such an array of film's greatest comedians been brought together.
Bill Needle, Kansas, USA
We say: The overuse of the word 'mad' is justified by this hellzapoppin' chase film starring Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy. When a thief careens off a highway in the Californian desert, he tells witnesses about $350,000 buried under a 'big W' in a park. Then he dies, leaving them to scramble for the money. Anyone with an aversion to slapstick should run a mile, but this nonsense of the gloriously silly variety. A sequel, with an extra 'mad' in the title, is rumoured to be in the works.
KF

38. Raising Arizona
Dir. Joel Coen, 1987
You say: Classic script, superb actors, beautifully filmed.
Stephen Baker, Birmingham
We say: Fans usually cite The Big Lebowski as the Coen brothers' funniest, but this cracking comedy about the pitfalls of baby-kidnapping tickles as many ribs. An ex-con (Nicolas Cage) and an ex-cop (Holly Hunter), unable to conceive a child, decide to relieve a local furniture magnate of one of his quintuplets. Visually flamboyant, this film contains one of the most hilarious chase scenes.
KF

39. Team America: World Police
Dir. Trey Parker, 2004
You say: Loses energy at the end but until that point, death, sex and stupidity all combine to create an assault on common decency.
Seanan Oliver Manfred Kerr, Dublin
We say: Thunderbirds go to hell in a movie that the British censors succinctly categorised as containing 'strong language, violence, sexual references and sex - all involving puppets'! South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone deftly defecate on Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Kim Jong-il et al as Team America attempt to avert a disaster that will be like '9/11, times a hundred... 91,100!'
MK

40. Trading Places
Dir. John Landis, 1983
You say: Brilliantly executed double act from Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.
Richard South, London
We say: This delightful social comedy has two old Hollywood stars (Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy) manipulating two young ones (Murphy, Aykroyd). Jamie Lee Curtis and Denholm Elliott bring sanity to the proceedings.
PF

41. American Pie
Dir. Paul Weitz, 1999
You say: Extremely crude teenage flick, in terrible, cringey taste. But that's what makes the humour so great.
Rachael Smith, Barnstaple
We say: Four high-school friends vow to lose their virginity before prom night, prompting much desperation and partying. The iconic scene features Jason Biggs inserting his penis into his mum's freshly baked apple pie and being caught by his dad.
JS

42. Hot Fuzz
Dir. Edgar Wright, 2007
You say: Great British slapstick humour.
Linda Holder, St Austell
We say: What happens when you transplant a police buddy-movie in the Bruckheimer style into the sort of sleepy West Country town usually reserved for polite English murder mysteries.
KF

43. Love and Death
Dir. Woody Allen, 1975
You say: More laughs per minute than any other film, right up to the last scene.
Ian Henry, Bangkok, Thailand
We say: The last and most ambitious of Allen's 'early funny ones', this reworks The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment and War and Peace, with Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and Bergman's Seventh Seal thrown in.
MK

44. Meet the Fockers
Dir. Jay Roach, 2004
You say: Oh so cringeworthy. Everyone's worst nightmare!
Julia Butler, Bideford
We say: Sequel to Meet the Parents tops the original because of inspired casting. Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman play Ben Stiller's hippie parents who outrage uptight Robert De Niro.
AO

45. Sleeper
Dir. Woody Allen, 1973
You say: Probably Woody Allen's best pure comedy.
Dylan Williams, Sheffield
We say: Health-food nut Miles Monroe (Allen) is cryogenically frozen, then thawed out in a topsy-turvy future where smoking, deep fat and hot fudge are officially good for you and sex requires the use of an 'Orgasmatron'.
MK

46. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Dir. Trey Parker, 1999
You say: Remarkably intelligent, politically perfect, with an unreasonable number of classic scenes and great songs.
Rob Hunt, London
We say: When our cartoon kids ape the swearing they hear in a Canadian film, their parents declare war on Canada. The film's enduring genius stems from brilliant pastiche musical songs.
JS

47. Stir Crazy
Dir. Sidney Poitier, 1980
You say: Pryor and Wilder, a double act from heaven!
Kevin Gough, Norwich
We say: Framed for a bank robbery, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder end up in prison, where the fun starts. The best movie of a sparkling partnership.
AO

48. The Music Box
Dir. James Parrott, 1932
You say: Timeless and hilarious.
Jonathan Lyndon Owen, Burnley
We say: Laurel and Hardy are cinema's greatest double-act. This was their greatest film, in which they attempt to deliver a piano up a flight of steps.
PF

49. Tootsie
Dir. Sydney Pollack, 1982
You say: Dustin Hoffman makes it so funny because he makes it believable.
Ann Hutchinson, London
We say: A ripplingly inventive film which comments on the spectrum of New York showbiz while giving Hoffman a knockout role.
PF

50. Uncle Buck
Dir. John Hughes, 1989
You say: John Candy is an underrated comic genius.
John O'Reilly, London
We say: High japes as the titular character gives up his bachelor lifestyle to become an emergency babysitter.
AO

Philip French's verdict
Straight laughs beat history lessons
First off, it's an honest list. No one eager to impress you with their sophistication would name Meet the Fockers, Uncle Buck, American Pie and Kingpin as their favourite comedies. There's a lot of post-Animal House in-your-face farce here. Secondly, it largely reflects the tastes of younger readers or those more likely to send emails or post on our blog than dispatch a letter.
It's overwhelmingly an Anglo-American, monoglot list. The only non-English speaking talent is Jacques Tati, Enoch Powell's favourite comedian, and he's represented by Mr Hulot's Holiday, where there's no intelligible dialogue in any language. This was perhaps predictable (indeed I did predict it in the introductory piece to this poll last month). Sad, but not entirely surprising, is the absence of Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest figures in cinema history, but currently out of fashion. Still, this is a selection of readers' favourite films, not a historical survey of film comedy. Thus the disappointing absence of such classic exponents of screen comedy, makers of milestone movies, as René Clair, Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor, while Leo McCarey is here for Duck Soup but not for his screwball comedies, and Frank Capra is represented by the atypical Arsenic and Old Lace, not one of his 1930s comedies of populist social comment. As for Britain, the great music-hall comics Will Hay and George Formby no longer seem to make the grade, but then neither do the more recent Norman Wisdom, Rowan Atkinson (in his Mr Bean persona) and the Carry On team.
It's good to see the laidback put-on artists Steve Martin and Bill Murray recognised. But I'm surprised that Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Martin's brilliant film-noir spoof, hasn't made the cut. Because if there is one outstanding feature of this list it's the post-modernist liking for the jokey pastiche, the allusive, parodic, comically parasitic comedy that links at least a quarter of these pictures - films that depend, for instance, on a knowledge of the genre conventions of horror flicks, biblical epics, westerns, police-procedural movies, disaster flicks and documentaries.
PF

Monday, November 12, 2007 9:20:00 PM

 

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