The Movie Forums Top 100 Comedies Countdown

Cool! Caddyshack was my #22 and even though I saw it when it was first released, I still find it funny to this day. I find myself looking forward to different parts every time I break it out. All the comedians had their moments to shine but one unexpected pleasure for me when I first saw it was how hilarious Ted Knight would be. I think he takes the comedy prize of the movie, quite frankly. And I don't mind the gopher at all. And yeah, the movie still has me quoting lines like...





The Jerk is another one that I saw upon initial release and I saw it again several months ago and still laugh myself silly. Like a lot of MoFos, I love Steve Martin when he's more unhinged and lets loose, although he's great in his more, um, serious comedies like Roxanne and Bowfinger. "For one dollar, I'll guess your weight, your height, or your sex." Also endlessly quotable!





My list:
#4.The In-Laws
#8.Stripes
#11.Arsenic and Old Lace
#14.Animal House
#18.Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
#22.Caddyshack

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Yeah, Steve Martin is great. I've always liked Bowfinger quite a lot. Speaking of 1999...I thought Galaxy Quest would make it - it has quite a following. Guess not. Looking orward to the master list when all is said and done. Someone mentioned a posting of #s 101-110. I think right before the top 10 would be cool? Or heck, post them now!

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Right there with you, my man. I had His Girl Friday at my #8. I've seen it numerous times, and it never disappoints.
Here is one of two brief commentaries of mine on the picture:

"His Girl Friday is one of the great classic screwball comedies, itself a remake of The Front Page(1931) with Adolph Menjou and Pat O’Brien. In “Friday”, they changed the sex of Pat O’Brien’s Hildy Johnson character to a female, and cast the electric Rosalind Russell against Cary Grant’s Walter Burns. The pairing turned out to be one of the all time best. Ralph Bellamy played Hildy’s hapless fiance who can’t seem to accomplish their marriage.

The Howard Hawks directed barn burner flies by in a flurry of machine gun dialogue and goofy setups. Hawks reportedly went over budget by insisting on take after take to get the actors to speed up their lines ever quicker. Hawks reportedly wanted Clark Gable for the role Grant played, and Gable would have been great. But it’s hard to imagine anyone barking out dialogue as quickly and humorously as did Grant. Russell was down the list of stars desired for Hildy, but her performance kept up the pace perfectly with Grant. If anything she was a little too hard nosed. Hawks had wanted Carole Lombard for the part, and she would have fit the bill while displaying more feminine softness.

Despite having different directors and writers, “Friday” and Arsenic and Old Lace have several things in common. Both were screwball comedies; Grant’s character in each was a New York newspaper man; both casts were tasked with exceeding their normal abilities; there were references to popular actors of the day in the dialogue (“ you look like Ralph Bellamy” and “look like Boris Karloff”); both scripts were warned to be toned down a little by the Production Code; in the original Front Page script, when the fugitive sticks his head out from the rolltop desk Walter Burns (Grant) refers to him as a “Goddamn turtle”, but in “Friday” the line is changed to “mock turtle”; in “Arsenic” Grant’s (Mortimer’s) last line is “I’m the son of a sea cook”, but the real line was “I’m a bastard”--- censored by the Code.

His Girl Friday stands the test of time slightly more so than does Arsenic and Old Lace, but both are prime examples of first rate comedy productions from Hollywood’s golden age."

The Graduate became almost an instant classic, largely due to Benjamin being seduced by Elaine's mother, Mrs. Robinson. But I never thought the film was that funny, and believed Hoffman's Benjamin to be too pretentious, and often over the top. Most of that was in the writing. I never could understand how it became so wildly popular. It was my generation, but I couldn't get swept up in the enthusiasm for this film.

I wrote a full review of The Graduate but this sums up my problem with the film:

Meh. Not a huge fan of either The Jerk and Caddyshack. Yeah they are funny but...

I saw Caddyshack years ago, but I didn't like it. I usually like Bill Murray, but I found him annoying in this movie, and I've never liked Rodney Dangerfield, so I haven't had a desire to rewatch it, and I doubt my feelings would change for this movie.


I've seen The Jerk several times, most recently for a Comedy HoF here, but I just seem to dislike it more each time I watch it. I'm hit or miss with Steve Martin, and this movie was a miss for me.

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I only have hope left for 3 movies on my list, so unless it's one of those 3, it's not likely to make the countdown.

No votes. When I think of Caddyshack, I think of Sam from Freaks and Geeks declaring that "half of it rules and half of it sucks", which is a really astute assessment of just how utterly uneven it is. As noted, the nominal A-plot about Danny Noonan is a slim thread with which to connect all manner of comical setpieces (and even then stuff like Carl fighting the gopher is virtually a movie of its own with how little it has to do with anything else) and it really is a movie that lives and dies from gag to gag. That being said, it puts together an eclectic enough cast of characters even outside of its main foursome - as funny as Chase, Murray, and Dangerfield get to be, somehow it's Ted Knight as the pretentious Judge Smails who is my pick for the funniest character in the film. The Jerk is pretty solid as well.

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It's not making the countdown. I bet only me and you voted for it, or maybe you didn't vote for it, though I know you like the movie.

While I still really enjoy the film, I also prefer the cast from the tv series. Now it has had a lot more time to develop its characters and their relationships, but the performances were great from the very start. I think they're a more well-rounded bunch, and I love Colin Robinson and the (lack of) energy he brings to scenes. I even made a Nadja costume last Halloween, which was the first female character I've done in ages.

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"When asked about movies, characters and actors that inspired her, she came back with a unique retort, “The Chatty Cathy part in Planes, Trains and Automobiles [where Steve Martin tells John Candy he talks too much]. You go from laughing hilariously at Steve Martin to your heartbreaking for John Candy in that one scene, and that was, I think, the first time that I saw that you could do both,” Stone explained. “Also Harold and Maude — Ruth Gordon was a big one for me. The moment where she’s sitting by the tree and she sneezes when he sees her for the first time? That was huge.”

It appears that although her taste is quite varied, it is also rooted in the world of classic cinema. Stone raised on gems from the past, so when she was asked about the very first movie she remembers watching, she replied: “It’s my dad’s favourite movie. Laughter is what symbolises love to me because of watching The Jerk with my dad. I think that’s partially why I do comedy.”

When it comes to her rooted inspirations, we have both Planes, Trains and Automobiles and The Jerk to thank, which might be a bit of an odd combination, but you can see the style reflected in her somewhat vintage, slapstick humour, especially on the early edge of her career."

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I'm with you. I didn't think the movie was "funny" except for some occasional dark humor, generating more of a knowing smirk than a guffaw, but I also thought that Benjamin was so insufferable that it kinda bothered me that the little shit wasn't killed in a fire to end the film. I don't know if that's what they intended but I disliked him so much it was hard for me to care about his story.

I had a different Brooks film on my list, but I don't think it will show up at this point...

I think you'll be surprised at most of the movies on my list when I reveal it after the countdown. I included the movies that make me laugh the most, so a lot of great movies were left off of my list because they make me smile more than they make me laugh.

Groundhog Day and Life of Brian is my prediction today.

I’ll guess Airplane and This is Spinal Tap.

My guesses aren't changing until I say they do or if they actually show up.