By classic I mean in the black and white era or roughly before 1960. I find that these gems are relatively unknown in the US which is a pity because they are among the finest comedies ever produced.
I thought I would list a few of them that I really liked and leave the thread open for others to offer their suggestions or comments.
1)Kind Hearts and Coronets: One of the greatest comedies ever made. Dennis Price plays a lower-class man whose mother married “beneath her” and was therefore disowned by her family. However he is still in line to inherit the title if his other relatives on his mother’s side die so he decides to kill them off one by one! All of them are played by Alec Guiness in one of most famous roles. Watch out also for a delightful cameo by Miles Malleson as a verbose prison guard.
Passport to Pimlico: This movie is a good example of how to do a “feel-good” movie right. There is a great deal of warmth and fun in this film but it never irritates in the way that Hollywood films so often do. The story is about how a suburb of London finds that it belongs to the ancient kingdom of Burgundy and secedes from the rest of Britain. Highly improbable of course but highly entertaining nevertheless.
Whiskey Galore: Another feel-good comedy but once again beautifully done. A Scottish town during WW2 is desperately short of booze because of rationing until a ship carrying whisky is wrecked off the coast. Still they must find a way to outwit the kill-joy government officials.
4)Lavender Hill Mob: Alec Guiness plays a timid bank employee who decides to pull off a massive bank robbery with the help of his new-found friends.
The Man in the White Suit: An inventor invents a fabric which never wears off. Both the bosses and the unions are scared that it will ruin them and try to destroy the invention.
All these films incidentally were made by Ealing Studios which had a remarkable run in the late 40’s and 50’s.
Not obviously of the genre but one I’ve always loved is The Lady Vanishes.
Aside from its more obvious appeals (Hitchcock, Lockwood, Redgrave, a nicely evocative ‘eve of war’ atmosphere), there are two great British characterisations from Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford as the cricket obsessed Caldicot and Charters (desperate to get back to England for the (cricket) Test Match but finding themselves increasingly embroiled in the central spy plot).
It is probably more commonly remembered for being a spy-on-the-train Thriller (and its Director) but, nonetheless, I do like to think it stands it ground with more obvious comedies. However, it’s a film I grew up with so perhaps my view is tainted with (those) fond memories.
I’d also mention the wonderfully idiosyncratic series of St Trinian’s films. I started a thread recently but as that sank alarmingly, I’ll just reprint some of my OP here:
*Alsitair Simm, in his capacity as Headmistress Miss Millicent Fitton <snip>
The sublime Joyce Grenfell’s unrequited love as Police Sergeant Ruby Gates, Beryl Reid and Irene Handl (Miss Harker-Parker) as Mistress’s, George Cole as the Cockney Spiv Flash Harry, Terry Thomas as the owner of the bus company, Lionel Jeffries as all things dodgy. Then there was Culpepper-Brown, Professor Canford and the John Le Mesurier character, all from the Ministry…the list goes on. Sublime.
And finally there were the girls and the school uniforms…oddly, they look even more engaging as time goes by… *
Beautiful nonsense !
It’s slightly off topic, but I used to live near Ealing and it was amazing to see the locations that some of the films were shot at - I mean the streets of Ealing and Acton and the local parks etc.
If we’re not limiting ourselves just to film, I’d like to mention the best sit com ever made: Dad’s Army. I love Dad’s Army - it was funny, poignent, and brilliantly written. Everything a comedy programme should be.
And **Pergau - my other half lives in Ealing and I’m there every other weekend. It’s cool innit?
Most of the above are known collectively as the “Ealing Comedies”.
It’s years since I’ve seen any of them, but other classics that spring to mind are the Titchfield Thunderbolt (IIRC something to do with local people keeping a small train line open because of licensing laws being different on trains), Genevieve (about a London-Brighton classic car race), which has plenty of wonderful moustache twirling from Terry Thomas. “I say, Princess, you’re bang on.” And Laughter in Paradise, with the first main screen appearance of Audrey Hepburn (as a match seller).
The Naked Truth fits the bill perfectly. It’s a very wicked black comedy about blackmail and murder, featuring one of Peter Sellers’ funniest performances. Check it out!
Having recently watched every goddam movie Kay Kendall ever appeared in, I can highly recommend Genevieve and Simon and Laura, two light 1950s comedies that have aged very well.
Of the movies mentioned in this thread, this is definitely my favorite. Great cast and great script. Winner of the BAFTA awards in 1956 for Best British Actress and Best British Screenplay.
I love Ealing Comedies. There are a couple which I always believed to be of Ealing make, but I now find I’m wrong: one is The Captain’s Paradise, starring who else, Alec Guinness. His costar is a youthful and beautiful Yvonne De Carlo. It’s a story of the British captain of a ferry between the Rock of Gibraltar and the coast of Morocco, and his efforts to maintain a proper British wife on Gibraltar and a red-hot flamenco dancer mistress in Morocco. I don’t see it on that Ealing Comedies list.
The other is Hobson’s Choice, a funny, intelligent movie starring Charles Laughton as a bossy boot shop owner father of three daughters. One of his daughters decides to stand up to him, and the actress almost upstages Charles Laughton, the one and only time I’ve ever seen this happen in one of his movies. I see now that it was directed by David Lean, so I understand why it’s so good. Now I’m off to my Home Film Festival website to see if I can track this one down and watch it again.