The Movie Forums Top 100 Comedies Countdown

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No movie was on and off my list so many times as Blazing Saddles. It ultimately didn’t make the cut for me but clearly didn’t need my help making the top ten. The whole third act in the studio back lot is unmatched.



I came to see Blazing Saddles a couple of years ago, but I liked it a lot. Had it on my short list, but ended up cutting it. Still, I think it stayed with me more afterwards. Here's something I wrote about it:

"What holds the film together for me is the excellent chemistry between Wilder and Little. Both actors play off each other effortlessly and with ease, creating a bond that feels genuine without losing the funny. The two are rounded out by a charmingly sexy Madeline Kahn, and a bunch of bad guys led by Harvey Korman and Slim Pickens. Most, if not all the performances are effective.

To sum it all, Blazing Saddles wasn't as hilarious as I expected it to be, but it still manages to find a balance between its edgy, boundary-pushing content, the amount of visual gags, and the charm of its main cast."

Seen: 68/91

My ballot:  
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Blazing Saddles, so NOT on my list


Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)

I found nothing funny about Mel Brooks' character, the governor. Though I did find plenty stupid about his on screen time. Sorry, but crossing your eyes for a joke last worked on me in grade school. Same with the GOV on the back of his coat, if that was suppose to be funny I didn't laugh. And there was a lot I didn't laugh at in this comedy, I mean 5 minutes of fart jokes isn't funny to me.

I did like Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder's scenes together. Those scenes especially the first one in the jail were funny because both men have natural comic talent and didn't rely on cheap gags to get a laugh.

Blazing Saddles reminds me of one of the most beloved comedies of the 1980s...Airplane!. BTW, I hated Airplane!, same style of broad comedy. If you like broad vauldeville style comedy than this movie might be right for you, it wasn't for me.




We have come to the top ten MoFo Comedy favorites. I will reveal one film a day to finish the countdown. Hopefully we will have a surprise or two in the final ten.
At this point the only thing that would register as "surprising" is if there weren't any more surprises. But surprising or not, there are about six-hundred movies that got votes and clearly ain't gonna show at all. Here are a couple more definite no-shows from my ballot...


OSS-117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is a very funny movie and a spot-on spoof of the earliest James Bond flicks, made by the same team that triumphed a few years later at the Oscars with The Artist. I truly adore The Artist, but its Oscar backlash was pretty severe and I knew its reputation here at MoFo left it with less than no chance of making the Top 100. But I hoped there might be just enough support for this gem to put it in the spotlight as a counterpoint to Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, which I assumed would make it (it did, at #96). Myers' megahit has become part of the culture ("Yeah, Baby") and spawned two sequels, but while the root of those films is clearly a love for Connery's Bond as well as the Matt Helm movies starring Dean Martin and the Flint movies starring James Coburn, there is not much attempt to recreate those worlds. Austin Powers exists in his own, dayglow, Burt Bacharach universe that in its visual design is closer to "Laugh-In" than to Dr. No. On the other hand Hazanavicius and company make OSS-117 look and feel as if it had been made in 1961 and not found until the 21st century. While not essential, I often appreciate that level of detail in my parodies. It works with hilarious results here.

I wrote this in the Spam Citizen Rules' Comedy Countdown Ballot thread...
Extremely funny, a goofy yet witty send up of the initial Bond-era films. The same team that later went on to Oscar glory with The Artist, this is much broader and sillier while really nailing the look and feel of the early 1960s. For my money better than Top Secret! or Austin Powers or any of the others that have aimed for similar targets. There is a sequel, OSS-117: Lost in Rio, but it isn't as perfectly achieved the second time around. The original is a scream.
I had OSS-117: Cairo, Nest of Spies at number twenty-four on my ballot.


Joe versus the Volcano got decidedly mixed reviews upon its release in 1990, though Roger Ebert was one prominent, vocal supporter. It did OK at the box office, at least making its money back, finishing 34th for the year. That put it well behind the three big blockbusters that topped the chart in Ghost, Pretty Woman (DNP), and Home Alone (#97) and it made almost the same money as Danny DeVito's dark comedy The War of the Roses (DNP). But with the roll its star Tom Hanks had been on and with direction and the screenplay coming from John Patrick Shanley, the celebrated NY playwright who had won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Moonstruck (DNP), maybe expectations were too high? Or the tone just never landed for too many? This initial pairing of Hanks and Meg Ryan was dwarfed by the popularity of their next outing, Sleepless in Seattle (DNP), and though not a smash even You've Got Mail (DNP) sometimes seems more highly regarded than Joe.

That is all just prologue to say that when I loved this romantic, comic fable from the opening shot onward it felt very much like "the rest of the world" either didn't give a greasy sh!t or even worse actively HATED the flick. It developed a cult status over the years via cable and VHS and now seems to have a genuine following. Not enough of a following here at MoFo to get it anywhere near the Top 100, but I love the movie. While strategically my vote would have been more useful elsewhere I had to declare my love for this funny, weird, sweet, super-stylized bit of celluloid storytelling. It was number twenty on my ballot. "I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?...I'm not arguing that with you...").

Holden’s Ballot
3. After Hours (#29)
4. His Girl Friday (#26)
5. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (#20)
6. Singin’ in the Rain (#50)
7. Rushmore (#54)
9. Bringing Up Baby (#22)
10. The Graduate (#27)
12. Raising Arizona (#23)
13. The Palm Beach Story (DNP)
15. One Two Three (#86)
16. The Blues Brothers (#21)
17. Defending Your Life (DNP)
20. Joe versus the Volcano (DNP)
22. This is Spın̈al Tap (#13)
24. OSS-117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (DNP)


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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Blazing Saddles is Mel Brooks at his raunchiest and most-surreal. Screw politically-correct. He and his screenwriters go out of their way to offend everyone, and the performances are pitch-perfect, from Cleavon Little's Soul Brotha Sheriff to Gene Wilder's laid-back gunfighter to Madeline Kahn's Marlene Dietrich-impression from Destry Rides Again. Brooks also highlights the fact he's making a movie at every turn, with nods to Looney Tunes ("Candygram for Mongo"), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (badges and beans) and weird biker, blaxploitation and KKK references ("Hey, where the white women at?") that it seems normal that it all ends up at the Warner Bros. Studio and sound stages and a movie theatre playing Blazing Saddles itself. It's not Brooks' funniest but it is his most-anarchic.



The Trouble with Harry is my #24.


Hitch gleefully spins a tale about a dead body that almost everybody believes was personally killed by them and gets buried and unburied over and over. Yes, the film is a black comedy, but it does have plenty of trademark Hitchcock suspense as well as some of the funniest dialogue you'll ever hear. It takes place in New England during the fall, and Brenda and I both agree that it's probably the film which most resembles what our honeymoon looked like with all those striking autumnal colors. I don't want to get into too many details, but Harry causes trouble for an elderly hunter (Edmund Gwenn), a spinster (Mildred Natwick) who likes him, a painter (John Forsythe) with a devilish tongue, and a pretty young mother (Shirley MacLaine). This is not only the first Hitchcock film with a Bernard Herrmann score, but it's also MacLaine's film debut and an early flick for the boy (Jerry Mathers, the Beave from "Leave it to Beaver") who plays her son and steals all his scenes. The humor in Harry, especially from the John Forsythe character, is hilarious and surprisingly-modern. It may take just a little bit to really get going, but this film is generally underrated in the Hitchcock oeurve.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is my #23.



I love this movie for many reasons. Basically, I love seeing Looney Tunes mix it up with Disney icons. The Donald Duck/Daffy Duck routine is particularly sweet. I love the fact that you can make a legit film noir and have the majority of the characters toons. I also love the contrast between Bob Hoskins' Eddie Valient's downer and Charles Fleischer's Roger Rabbit's upper. Plus any movie that has sex bombs Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit is a must-see.

Kathleen Turner's sultry voice is perfect for the woman who married Roger because "he makes me laugh". Add to that, Amy Irving's singing voice for Jessica's show-stopping number "Why Don't You Do Right?", turns Eddie into Jell-O. Christopher Lloyd and the Weasels are particularly despicable villains too. If you don't know, the script was intentionally devised to have echoes of Chinatown in its depiction of an L.A. scandal, so it's not a kiddie movie at all; at least unless you're just a kiddie at heart.

When all is said and done, I just enjoy the fact that someone had the audacity to make this entertaining film. To tell you the truth, nothing tops the opening cartoon, Somethin's Cookin'. If you haven't watched it, here goes...



My List

1. Richard Pryor Live in Concert [#113]
5. Back to the Future [#35]
6. The Graduate [#27]
11. Harold and Maude [#46]
13. One, Two, Three [#86]
16. It's Such A Beautiful Day [#62]
17. A Fish Called Wanda [#38]
20. City Lights [#11]
21. Tootsie [#108]
23. Who Framed Roger Rabbit [DNP]
24. The Trouble with Harry [DNP]
25. Ruthless People [My One Pointer]
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Victim of The Night


I feel like we have to preface all speculation about this list with, "This has been wacky as fu*k and neigh on impossible to predict", BUT...on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1970s List Blazing Saddles finished at #33 (238 points on nineteen ballots) while Young Frankenstein was #15 (360 points on twenty-seven ballots). Now that list was compiled eight years ago (wow), and these things can certainly shift over time, especially due to the constant shuffling of the voting pool. But even though at most these two titles are going to be separated by nine spots this time, I would still expect Young Frankenstein to finish higher.

Of course on that list Blazing Saddles also finished behind Annie Hall (#30) and Harold & Maude (#27) and if it is in this Top Ten (it is) it certainly lapped them as they placed at #19 and #46 respectively.

We will know for certain in the next nine days.

BTW, on that The MoFo Top 100 Movies of the 1970s the highest ranking comedy was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It finished two spots higher than Young Frankenstein at #13 with 444 points on twenty-eight ballots (out of ninety-nine). For whatever that is worth.
It's a good point.

It always went back and forth with my cohort but I think we finally settled on Saddles.




Joe versus the Volcano got decidedly mixed reviews upon its release in 1990, though Roger Ebert was one prominent, vocal supporter. It did OK at the box office, at least making its money back, finishing 34th for the year. That put it well behind the three big blockbusters that topped the chart in Ghost, Pretty Woman (DNP), and Home Alone (#97) and it made almost the same money as Danny DeVito's dark comedy The War of the Roses (DNP). But with the roll its star Tom Hanks had been on and with direction and the screenplay coming from John Patrick Shanley, the celebrated NY playwright who had won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Moonstruck (DNP), maybe expectations were too high? Or the tone just never landed for too many? This initial pairing of Hanks and Meg Ryan was dwarfed by the popularity of their next outing, Sleepless in Seattle (DNP), and though not a smash even You've Got Mail (DNP) sometimes seems more highly regarded than Joe.

That is all just prologue to say that when I loved this romantic, comic fable from the opening shot onward it felt very much like "the rest of the world" either didn't give a ***** or even worse actively HATED the flick. It developed a cult status over the years via cable and VHS and now seems to have a genuine following. Not enough of a following here at MoFo to get it anywhere near the Top 100, but I love the movie. While strategically my vote would have been more useful elsewhere I had to declare my love for this funny, weird, sweet, super stylized bit of celluloid storytelling. It was number twenty on my ballot. "I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?...I'm not arguing that with you...").
I'm a big fan of this one! Weird and somewhat absurd, but also deep and profound in its existential subtext. I would venture to say that the film was... ahead of its time and it would probably be slightly better received now.



Victim of The Night
Well, I'm surprised but, as we keep saying, the list is full of surprises.

Blazing Saddles, probably the funniest movie I've ever seen and also a film I think is important vis a vis racism and America and racism in film, was my No.1.



Well, I'm surprised but, as we keep saying, the list is full of surprises. Blazing Saddles, probably the funniest movie I've ever seen and also a film I think is important vis a vis racism and America and racism in film, was my No.1.
As much has changed from the previous lists, it appears that collectively MoFo still gives the edge to Young Frankenstein. How much of an edge we will discover together. Mel Brooks now officially has three films on the countdown: The Producers (#83), Spaceballs (#58), and Blazing Saddles (#10).



Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is my #23.



I love this movie for many reasons. Basically, I love seeing Looney Tunes mix it up with Disney icons. The Donald Duck/Daffy Duck routine is particularly sweet. I love the fact that you can make a legit film noir and have the majority of the characters toons. I also love the contrast between Bob Hoskins' Eddie Valient's downer and Charles Fleischer's Roger Rabbit's upper. Plus any movie that has sex bombs Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit is a must-see.

Kathleen Turner's sultry voice is perfect for the woman who married Roger because "he makes me laugh". Add to that, Amy Irving's singing voice for Jessica's show-stopping number "Why Don't You Do Right?", turns Eddie into Jell-O. Christopher Lloyd and the Weasels are particularly despicable villains too. If you don't know, the script was intentionally devised to have echoes of Chinatown in its depiction of an L.A. scandal, so it's not a kiddie movie at all; at least unless you're just a kiddie at heart.

When all is said and done, I just enjoy the fact that someone had the audacity to make this entertaining film. To tell you the truth, nothing tops the opening cartoon, Somethin's Cookin'. If you haven't watched it, here goes...

I'm still kicking myself for forgetting this one. It probably would've been in my top ten, though looking at the 101-120 list, I guess it wouldn't have made a difference if I had included it. Such a great movie.



I think my favorite stretch of movies, and this will probably hold even with the top 10 revealed, looks to be the stretch from 50 (Singin' in the Rain) through 45 (Being John Malkovich).

It included two movies from my list (Brazil, Heathers), one HM (Malkovich), and all of the others are at least interesting from some angle.



Speaking of my comedic taste possibly being summed up as, "darkness, no light," how would we respond to the curveball of the Lego Movie showing up in the top 10?


I'd mainly be surprised by it just because no one's been mentioning it. But people really loved that thing when it came out (I was... comparatively more tepid, though I always do chuckle when people quote the lyrics to Batman's musical choices).

/Just thinking of what out of left field curve balls could still really take us by surprise. (Why someone is throwing a curveball from left field, I don't know. Seems like an inefficient way to throw a ball that far).



Speaking of my comedic taste possibly being summed up as, "darkness, no light," how would we respond to the curveball of the Lego Movie showing up in the top 10?


I'd mainly be surprised by it just because no one's been mentioning it. But people really loved that thing when it came out (I was... comparatively more tepid, though I always do chuckle when people quote the lyrics to Batman's musical choices).

/Just thinking of what out of left field curve balls could still really take us by surprise. (Why someone is throwing a curveball from left field, I don't know. Seems like an inefficient way to throw a ball that far).
I loved The Lego Movie, but it didn't make my ballot. The Lego Movie is better than some of the films that have already made the countdown though, so I wouldn't object to it. I was expecting there to be more animated films on the list. I keep secretly hoping Frozen shows up...Olaf is funnier than a lot of the actors who have films on the list.



We shall see when all of the stats are revealed, but if I had to guess I would bet the likes of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Rango, Shrek, and several PIXARs all got more/higher votes than The LEGO Movie. It definitely isn't popping up in the Top 10.



You can't say comedy without saying " Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Believe this is the first time the film has been mentioned.

My prediction for tomorrow.
I think much too dated for too many MoFos. If Criterion had released in on DVD in 1999 instead of 2014 it may have had time to build its status with the youngest generations. It ain't gonna be Top 10 material here. It isn't more known, loved, or respected than Some Like it Hot. Not in general, and not here at MoFo.



I think much too dated for too many MoFos. If Criterion had released in on DVD in 1999 instead of 2014 it may have had time to build its status with the youngest generations. It ain't gonna be Top 10 material here. It isn't more known, loved, or respected than Some Like it Hot. Not in general, and not here at MoFo.
This, saddens me...



Victim of The Night
You can't say comedy without saying " Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Believe this is the first time the film has been mentioned.

My prediction for tomorrow.
Funny you say that, I used it as the descriptor for what I considered to be a "true comedy". But it didn't make my ballot. I don't think it's making the list, considering what's still out there, but I've been wrong about 50 times already.