Comedy in Movies

The Odd Couple (1967)

Here’s an onscreen mistake that makes the misplaced apostrophe in The Last Man on Earth look like a huge, movie-wrecking blunder. (more…)

Harvey (1950)

In Henry Koster’s 1950 comedy Harvey, James Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, a good-natured sort who’s befriended Harvey, a giant invisible rabbit. At least, he seems to be a giant rabbit, by the way that Stewart spends the film looking up at him. (more…)

Local Hero (1983)

The iconic red telephone box featured in Bill Forsyth’s 1983 comedy Local Hero was just a prop: the tiny town of Pennan in Aberdeenshire didn’t actually have a phone box.

There’s nothing unusual about that, but in this case, life soon followed art as film fans and tourists lobbied BT to install one. And so they did, although in a slightly less dramatic position than the film’s booth. (more…)

The Ladykillers (1955)

The original 1955 Ealing film of The Ladykillers featured Alec Guinness as the leader of a band of robbers who find their plans scuppered by Mrs Wilberforce, an elderly widow. Alec Guinness also appears in a second, minor role in the film. (more…)

Zelig (1983)

There isn’t much film footage of author F. Scott Fitzgerald around, so it’s always a treat to see him crop up in Woody Allen’s 1983 faux-documentary comedy Zelig. (more…)

Bataille de Boules de Neige (1896)

I’m sure that if you looked hard enough online, you’d find all kinds of nonsense written about symbolism and social order in this short film from the Lumiere brothers. Theory and analysis are all well and good, but at times they can rob a film of its more simple pleasures. (more…)

Le jardinier et le petit espiègle (1895)

Dating back to 1895, the Lumiere brothers’ Le jardinier et le petit espiègle is generally regarded as the first fictional film ever made. (more…)

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

When Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) invents a seemingly indestructible fibre in Ealing’s satire The Man in the White Suit, he soon finds himself on the run from capitalists and workers alike. Finding himself locked in the attic of one of the factory owner’s houses, he makes his escape by lowering himself to the ground on a single strand of his special fibre.

You might think that this was done by rotating the set 90 degrees, Batman style, but you’d be wrong: (more…)

Passport to Pimlico (1949)

As the citizens of Pimlico celebrate their new-found independence from Britain in Ealing’s postwar comedy, they keep the pub open late, and it’s not long before the thorny issue of licensing hours comes up. When a police chief asks for the landlord’s identity card, it’s torn up in front of him. (more…)

The Trouble With Harry (1955)

Hitchcock’s disarming comedy The Trouble With Harry is based on a novel by Jack Trevor Story, which was set in England.

Transposing the story across the Atlantic, Hitchcock wanted to set it in a rural New England community, complete with Vermont’s golden autumn leaves. (more…)