Just a very quick note to correct something I ran across on YouTube while looking for something else.
It claimed that Woody Allen’s “Love and Death” is “the funniest film of all time,” which it is not.
It’s Woody Allen’s funniest film, (“Bananas” is second, followed by “Play it Again, Sam”). It’s also, to stretch a point, the funniest comedy ever to lampoon uberserious Russian novels of the 19th century. But that’s all that can be said, except that in the larger category of best comic films of all time, it comes in at a respectable No. 7.
I won’t elaborate. I’ll just copy and paste what I wrote three years back (in a post in which I regretted having failed to put Howard Hawkes’ masterpiece “His Girl Friday” on my overall movie Top Five, although it made my Top Ten), and then we’ll move on:
- His Girl Friday — Yay, it’s at the top of the list! And deserves it.
- Young Frankenstein — Some would choose “Blazing Saddles.” I would not. Have you seen that one in the last few decades? It doesn’t hold up. This does.
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — I was looking at the AFI list of the supposed top 100 funniest movies in American cinema, and at No. 79 they had “The Freshman,” from 1925. Which I’ve never seen, but I did see “The Freshman” from 1990, and it was awesome. I mean, come on, Brando playing a guy who just happens to look like the Godfather? Still, it was not star Matthew Broderick’s best. Ferris was. And it didn’t even make this stupid list. Which is lame.
- This Is Spinal Tap — You can talk mockumentaries all day, but this is the granddaddy of them all, and the best ever. Because it goes to 11.
- Office Space — In a category by itself.
- My Man Godfrey — Another screwball comedy, but I think there’s room for this one and Friday both. It’s certainly different enough.
- Love and Death — Say what you will about Woody Allen (and there’s a good bit of creepy stuff to say), but I’ll paraphrase the fan from “Stardust Memories:” I really liked his early, funny ones. And the best of all was “Love and Death.” That’s what Tolstoy and Dostoevsky really needed — a few laughs.
- The Graduate — Yeah, this one is on my Top Five best ever. But it’s the only one of those to make this list. Yet I’m not sure it should be here. Was it really a comedy exactly? It’s the most category-defying of the truly great films.
- Groundhog Day — I had to get a Bill Murray in here, and I chose this one.
- The Paper — Initially, I had American Graffiti here. Or maybe Trading Places, which so brilliantly combined two Mark Twain stories, and two of his best. But I decided to end up where I started — with a film about newspapering that I could really identify with. Funny thing is, some serious journalists hated this film for some of the same factors that might cause someone to reject “Friday” — they were afraid it made us scribes look bad. But again, it was brutally dead-on caricature. Sure, we were more serious and principled that this. But I really, really identified with the Michael Keaton character, who at least had this going for him: He wasn’t as bad as Walter Burns, not by a long shot. Not as funny either, though…
I remain comfortable with those choices, although I hate that “Minions” didn’t make the list (I’m always torn on the last movie I pick). Maybe I should do a Top Five Animated Movies list…
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Whoever posted that video did not lead with the funniest lines from the movie. Perhaps they appeared after the 4 minutes I watched — saving them for the last — but I wasn’t patient enough.
To save you the almost 10 minutes you’d have to watch to prove me wrong about that, here are the actual funniest lines, or some of them:
Soldier: He was from my village. He was the village idiot.
Boris: Yeah, what did you do, place?
…
Sonja: Alright, let’s say that there is no God and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses, well, well, what prevents you from murdering somebody?
Boris: Well, murder is immoral.
Sonja: Immorality is subjective.
Boris: Yes but subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Not in any rational scheme of perception.
Boris: Perception is irrational, it implies immanence.
Sonja: But judgement of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstract and empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.
Boris: Yeah, I’ve said that many times.
(the video included part of that, but not the best part)
…
Drill Sergeant: One, two. One, two. One, two.
Boris: Three is next, if you’re having any trouble.
…
Boris: Isn’t all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed? The difference is that all men go eventually, but I go six o’clock tomorrow morning. I was supposed to go at five o’clock, but I have a smart lawyer. Got leniency.
…
Napoleon: Do you find me attractive as a man?
Sonja: Yes, I think that’s your best bet.
…
Boris: If, by some mistake, I’m not killed tomorrow, would you marry me?
Sonja: What do you think the odds are?
…
Sonja: I truly think this is the best of all possible worlds.
Boris: It’s certainly the most expensive.
…
Countess Alexandrovna: You are the greatest lover I’ve ever had.
Boris: Well, I practice a lot when I’m alone.
…
Soldier: Oh, God is testing us.
Boris: If He’s gonna test us, why doesn’t He give us a written?
…
Boris: [Critiquing the Hygiene Play] I was never interested, though the soldier delivered his lines with gusto, and the woman had a delightful cameo rôle. A droll satire of contemporary mores. A puckish spoof aimed more at the heart than the head!
…
I’ll stop now.
I hadn’t seen it in years and it got a bit lost in my memory between earlier films (Bananas and Sleeper) and some of the slightly later famous ones like Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors. But I recently rewatched it over the summer and agree with you that it is superbly funny, at the very peak of all his films. There’s also the visual gag of the “small piece of land”—- “This land is not for sale…someday I hope to build on it!”
In the category of classic comedies (pre-our-lifetimes) I’m a big fan of the films of Preston Sturges, who was a huge influence on Allen and also to some extent the Coen brothers and others. My personal favorite among Sturges’ films is “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.”
My comedic tastes run more toward the Farrelly brothers… There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin, Shallow Hal are in my top 10 (probably 5) but I did write a long paper on Woody Allen films in my freshman year composition class. I prefer the Manhattan and Annie Hall (” “I used to be a heroin addict. Now I’m a methadone addict”.) stage of his career but my favorite, favorite, favorite Allen film is Zelig.
Well, Zelig’s good. Ditto with Annie Hall. Manhattan creeped me out at the time, but the quality of filmmaking caused me to place it on the level of Annie Hall for years. Then we saw the real-life charges of him engaging in even creepier behavior than in Manhattan, and I turned away from liking it at all.
No doubt you’re right. I don’t dispute that Annie (and even Manhattan) are superior films to the earlier works, which are more slapstick and like a hastily assembled filming of a standup routine.
But when I want a real LAUGH, I go to Love and Death and Bananas, and if they aren’t available, Sleeper. I like that “The Rebel Song” appears in that, as well as in Bananas. And when I had my stroke and they showed me the image of the damage to my brain, I WANTED to respond with a quote from Sleeper: “My brain? That’s my second favorite organ!” Fortunately, I had enough gray cells left to realize the medical personnel might see that as offensive — if not as evidence of greater damage that would require further investigation.
One more point — my favorite film of his other than his early comedies has been “Hannah and Her Sisters.” I haven’t seen that in 39 or 40 years, though, so I can’t say if I still like it without seeing it again…
Midnight in Paris was pretty good…
It’s inconceivable that you don’t have *The Princess Bride* as #1! 🙂
I won’t quibble with your list, but What’s Up, Doc? is my nominee for any list of comedies. I might have put Young Frankenstein at number one. Pretty much any film with Madeline Kahn could be on this list. You’re also missing Airplane!. But I’m not quibbling.
Well, I put Young Frankenstein at No. 2! And I would have put it at No. 1 if not for my personal liking for a good newspaper movie.
I have to confess that I haven’t seen “What’s Up, Doc?” I’ve never been a Ryan O’Neal fan — or much of a Streisand fan, either. So I just never went to see it. I may also have been put off because I love Bugs Bunny, and I don’t think people should be stealing his signature line. I know Bugs Bunny, and you, Ryan O’Neal, are no Bugs Bunny!
Thanks so much for chipping in! And could you send me your email address! You have mine, right? I tried to email you the other day, but it was your old work address, so it bounced back…
What’s Up, Doc? also features Madeline Kahn and Kenneth Mars, both from Young Frankenstein, so you may find it tolerable. It includes one of the top 5 chase scenes ever filmed.
Yes, I’ll contact you off-blog.
Inspector Kemp? Well, then, maybe I should check it out… 🙂
Grounhog Day is unfolding right now. No matter what #47 does, he cannot escape his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. His personal attorney, Pam Bondi, and his enforcer, Kash Patel, can’t bury the demand for full release with the victims’ name redacted. The thousands of victims are demanding justice.