Best Decade for Comedies

[oman]

On another board someone was arguing that the 80s were the best decade for comedies. My gut reaction where that there were lots, and there was quantity, and I liked the John Hughes films, but it didn't strike me as having quality better than either the 70s or 90s.

Is there a recognized "Golden Decade" of movie comedies?

[GringoTex]

30s: Lubitsch, Hawks, McCarey, Cukor, Marx Bros, Astaire/Rogers, Thin Mans, Chaplin...

[royalstilton]

the 70s - Mash; M.P. & Holy Grail; Animal House; Blazing Saddles; Annie Hall; Young Frankenstein; Bananas; Silver Streak; Everything You Wanted...Sex; The Jerk...and I like Sleeper.

or 80s - Fast Times; Tootsie; Beverly Hills Cop; Caddyshack; This is Spinal Tap; Lost in America; Arthur; Airplane; Fish Called Wanda; Ghostbusters; M.P. Meaning of Life; Private Benjamin; 3 Amigos; Stir Crazy; and maybe Broadcast News...

[Via_Chicago]

30s: Lubitsch, Hawks, McCarey, Cukor, Marx Bros, Astaire/Rogers, Thin Mans, Chaplin...

QFT. If I'm making a list of favorite comedies from the 1930s, it would include:

The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch, 1931)
Trouble in Paradise(Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
The Impatient Maiden (James Whale, 1932)
I Was Born, But… (Yasujiro Ozu, 1932)
One Hour With You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)
Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)
By Candlelight (James Whale, 1933)
The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933)
Passing Fancy (Yasujiro Ozu, 1933)
Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, 1934)
The Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg, 1934)
The Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)
The Good Fairy (William Wyler, 1935)
Sylvia Scarlet (George Cukor, 1935)
Remember Last Night? (James Whale, 1935)
Hands Across the Table (Mitchell Leisen, 1935)
Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935)
Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935)
Swing Time (George Stevens, 1936)
The Story of a Cheat (Sacha Guitry, 1936)
The Great Garrick (James Whale, 1937)
The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937)
Easy Living (Mitchell Leisen, 1937)
Swing High, Swing Low (Mitchell Leisen, 1937)
Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)
Holiday (George Cukor, 1938)
Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)
Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939)

...And this is just my list. I'm not even taking into account a few major 1930s comedies, which I either haven't seen, or which I simply don't much care for (It Happened One Night, American Madness, etc.). A few of the films above aren't strictly comedies, but have enough comedic elements that they could fit into the category (The Bowery, Scarlet Empress, etc.).

Also, just look at the depth and breadth of the films. There are anarchist comedies, screwball comedies, sophisticated comedies, action comedies, etc.

[royalstilton]

QFT. If I'm making a list of favorite comedies from the 1930s, it would include:
I'm going to venture a guess that the 90% of the people born after the war (1945) haven't seen more than 10% of those films, so, while they may be excellent, they are nearly irrelevant.

[Demosthenes]

Bride of Frankenstein is a comedy?

[Crimson Ace]

Bride of Frankenstein is a comedy?
She made me laugh:

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd130/NxtGildaRadner29/Broadway/boyle-kahn-frankenstein.jpg


:D

[SirManchester]

2000's. - Bad Boys II, Transformers, Transformers II, The Island, Pearl Harbor

[riverplate]

Bride of Frankenstein is a comedy?

I've seen Bride referred to as a "comedy" before. If that's included, so should The Invisible Man (James Whale 1933). Some parts of it are a hoot.

[GringoTex]

I'm going to venture a guess that the 90% of the people born after the war (1945) haven't seen more than 10% of those films, so, while they may be excellent, they are nearly irrelevant.

No, those comedies form the foundation and inspiration for all comedies that came after. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and all the others directors whose movies you list have watched all of those films.

Your ignorance of those films is what's irrelevant.

[Via_Chicago]

No, those comedies form the foundation and inspiration for all comedies that came after. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and all the others directors whose movies you list have watched all of those films.

Your ignorance of those films is what's irrelevant.

QFT.

I've seen Bride referred to as a "comedy" before. If that's included, so should The Invisible Man (James Whale 1933). Some parts of it are a hoot.

I just did that to illustrate a point about the type and diversity of comedies in the 1930s. I would consider Bride a horror movie just as soon as I would a comedy, but both labels would be very limiting (just like Sylvia Scarlet is as much a melodrama and a woman's film as it is a comedy).

[Caesar]

QFT.
This has to be my least favourite messageboard habit.

[Matt in the Hat]

This has to be my least favourite messageboard habit.

+1.

[billyireland]

+1.
qft.

[Caesar]

Screw all of you.

[royalstilton]

No, those comedies form the foundation and inspiration for all comedies that came after. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and all the others directors whose movies you list have watched all of those films.

Your ignorance of those films is what's irrelevant.
if you thought about it, instead of flaring up, you would have said my ignorance was relevant.

my point, and you've skillfully managed to emphasize it, is that the people who recognize the art and genius in the films of Whale and Lubitsch, in these times, not in the 30s, are what we might narrowly call film snobs.

i think "Little Shop" is one of the best romantic comedies ever made, but you're correct about my not having seen most of the films on VC's list.

i didn't say anything about the quality of those films. what i said, and i stand by it, is that so few people know them that it would be exceptionally difficult, except among cognoscenti, to get consensus on their relative artistic worth.

[oman]

The interesting thing is the idea of whether a comedy is a hoot or if it is ********ing funny.

I think most of the comedies I see before I was born (and yes, the 1930s fall into that) fall into the category of "hoot".

Not till the movies of the 70s (Monty Python) am I busting a gut.

A Lubitsch Comedy is obviously a different animal than Repo Man.

I started watching lots of movies in the 80s, and while I agree that there were a number of directors who were spitting out comedies then, and I can count them off, I actually thought 70s comedies were stronger. The 90s weren't bad and I actually think there are some funnier movies this decade than thge nineties.

But all of that is a function of when I was born, mostly. The studio system obviously had an effect, I would think, on the variety and number of comedies that were coming out.

It's hard not to be drawn to some of the elegance of the 30s.

[Via_Chicago]

Oman, I think part of what you've said is true, and that probably has to do with culture and age. Of the films I've listed, only a few are really side-splittingly funny, but then, very few films in general are side-splittingly funny (at least in my experience). For example, while I might bust a gut watching Mitchell Leisen's Midnight, other people might not. A lot of the really great humor in that film though, depends in large part upon the viewer's investment in the material in combination with a meticulously constructed and delivered scenario. There were times when I was laughing before the punchline because I knew what was coming. That, to me anyway, is part of what makes a great comedy truly great.

Edit: I've actually been thinking about what makes the '30s a more interesting decade than just about any other and I think there are a few reasons. First, there is sheer volume. More films were being made in the 1930s than ever before, particularly in Hollywood. Major studios were putting out thirty or more movies every year. In comparison, the average studio today puts out between eight and ten features per year. Second, few of the genre niches existed in the 1930s that would come to define Hollywood films forever thereafter. Westerns were only in their infancy, the "epic" hardly existed, and the idea of making "women's films" or simply a "comedy" just did not enter into the equation. This is why so many of the films I listed roam all over the place - their audience was everybody. I re-watched The Smiling Lieutenant again last night and I was just struck by how often the film changes tones - light-hearted musical comedy, romance, melodrama, straight comedy. This doesn't mean that all movies of the era were like this, but the vast majority of them were. It's very rare that you find a 100% melodrama like McCarey's Love Affair. Even McCarey's Make Way For Tomorrow (about which Orson Welles famously said that it "could make a stone cry") has moments of light comedy.

i didn't say anything about the quality of those films. what i said, and i stand by it, is that so few people know them that it would be exceptionally difficult, except among cognoscenti, to get consensus on their relative artistic worth.

Consensus over what? An answer to oman's original question? You'll never get consensus since people have vastly different senses of humor. Aiming for general consensus on issues of taste is, to put it frankly, stupid, since what you'll be left with is largely middlebrow rubbish. Now, if you'd like to put the argument in your terms, we can reframe the question: Which decade was best for comedies? The '70s, '80s, '90s, or '00s? But that's not what oman was asking (and that answer would probably depend to a great degree on the age of the person answering).

[spejic]

No, those comedies form the foundation and inspiration for all comedies that came after. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and all the others directors whose movies you list have watched all of those films.But that has no bearing on whether the 30's films were actually funny, which is what oman was asking. Influential does not mean better than what was influenced, nor better than what came after that was not influenced.

[royalstilton]

Gringo's comment that all subsequent comedy is founded on the films mentioned is essentially a truism. The same might be said about drama. Prior to the 1930s, comedy was much more prevalent than drama, because silent movies lend themselves to comedy. You can be campy in a comedy, but campy in drama doesn't play well, and silent movie acting was pretty broad.

As to consensus, again my point has been made that what you are about is an elitist view that has little resonance with people who go to films for entertainment. I would never argue that Three Amigos is great cinema, but it's a silly, funny film.

If being popular is middle-brow, so be it.