In the thread about Gene Hackman, someone mentioned Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles not being as funny when rewatched recently. I concurred - there were elements in those that would simply not fly, these days. Lots of changes in social tastes (e.g. rape is NOT humorous, and it’s played for laughs in both of those).
But there are some older movies that are STILL enjoyable. Even if some of their concepts are outdated, the humor still works.
A couple that come to mind:
Some Like It Hot
One, Two, Three (someone younger might need explanation of the Berlin / Germany split).
I watched the early Marx Brothers movies again a while back (there’s a good box set of the Zeppo years) and though the filmmaking is sub-terrible, the performances and wordplay of Animal Crackers are still utterly sensational.
It’s been years since I’ve seen Young Frankenstein, but I find most of Brooks’ movies more fun to reminisce about than to watch. No shade on Brooks, I think comedy typically ages more quickly than dramas. I’m trying to think of an older comedy I watched recently and I’m drawing a blank. I saw Some Like it Hot for the first time about twenty years ago and it was funny. “Nobody’s perfect.” In my undergraduate American Culture class, we listened to a radio broadcast of Amos 'n Andy from the 1930s or 1940s and it elicited some chuckles from the class. Some of the gags were still funny.
In the case of Mel Brooks films, apart from the things that you mention that are not socially acceptable these days, the biggest issue is that the nature of that sort of parody has changed. The Gene Hackman thread mentioned that, in rewatching YF, there seemed to be a lot of dead space between the funny lines. I had a similar experience when I rewatched High Anxiety. The film seemed to move so slowly. It was frustrating waiting for the next gag. You can say the same about Blazing Saddles.
Airplane and films like it, with their joke and/or sight gag every few seconds pacing, really changed what we expect out of our genre parodies. In classic Mel Brooks, you may go as much as a minute between laugh lines. That seems incredibly poky by today’s standards.
This was the first thing I thought of. It’s such a great movie with comedic performances (the actress who plays bandleader “Sweet Sue”, Joan Shawleee, did mostly bit parts and TV guest roles but she is absolutely hilarious; “Bienstock!”) and the movie is perfectly paced between the ‘A’ plot of Joe and Jerry’s schemes and the ‘B’ plot of ‘Spats’ and Little Boneparte vying for control of the mob. Next to Sweet Smell of Success this is Tony Curtis’ best role, and of course Jack Lemmon nails it even if he makes for a really ugly woman in drag. Although the last line “Nobody’s perfect!” is what everyone remembers, my favorite is the exchange between Joe and Jerry:
I’m still much amused by The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The book, not the film.
I guess the question is whether or not it holds up for a new audience. If I gave a copy to a nerdy young teen today, would he thank me or send me off to bed with my applesauce?
We saw the Broadway version of this, back in 2023.
It was enjoyable enough, but did not have the charm or unrelenting comedy of the movie. And they BOTCHED THE LINE. Instead of ending with “Nobody’s Perfect”, there was a song between Oswald and Geraldine about “I’m perfect for you, You’re perfect for me”. Plus they missed a major marketing opportunity - I’d have bought stuff that said “Nobody’s Perfect”.
I saw it twice the year it came out, and it was not as funny the second time I have not tried to re-watch it since then.
It makes fun of the same sci-fi tropes and mocking of sacred cows (like Oolon Colluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters" entitled Where God Went Wrong , Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway) that are still present today. To the extent that a “nerdy young teen today” will still sit down and read a full length novel, I expect that the humor holds up quite well even if a few references like the origin of the name “Ford Prefect” and the gag about digital watches were barely even cogent to contemporary readers.
I’ll back this up by saying I showed it to my wife a few years ago and she enjoyed it. We watched the first couple of seasons before getting distracted by other things. Naturally, the initial entry point was the turkey episode but she liked it enough to want to watch the show in general.
Strange Brew (IME) is a strong 25 minutes followed by… not “bad” but people watching usually start talking amongst themselves more than following the movie.
I watched an episode of Barney Miller a few years ago and sat there, jaw agape, waiting for any sign of a punch line. It had some of the most bizarre pacing I’d ever seen in a sitcom. So your mileage may vary. WKRP is still pretty fantastic, thanks to the performances and the brilliant weird characters bouncing off each other. The main bit that hasn’t aged well at all for me is the concept that such an artificial-looking person as Lori Anderson was considered a sex symbol. I’ve never seen Soap so I can’t comment on that, but I’ve heard that Billy Crystal’s portrayal of someone who was the first gay character on U.S. network TV is pretty solid and surprisingly well-handled for the era.
I’m about to find out (though not with a teen). One of the elevator technicians at my office and I are both tattooed, both with a lot of SF movie images, so we’ve compared notes on our artwork. Partly curious because of my Hitch-Hiker’s tat, he’s reading the first novel and liking it so far. I’ve filled him in that there’s the radio show, the re-receroded records, the BBC miniseries, the adventure game and the bizarre Hollywood movie version, all of which are strikingly different, and he’s game to dive a bit deeper. I’m looking forward to hearing a modern first-time-reader of the novel show me how it lands today.
I re-watched it a few years ago, as well. Some episodes don’t hold up as well – particularly those that focus on the gender stereotyping that Bailey and Jennifer have to deal with – but overall, at least to me, most of the episodes are still quite good.
For me, Young Frankenstein is maybe the only Mel Brooks film that holds up today (but I wouldn’t argue against someone who didn’t feel that way).
I saw my first Marx Brothers movie just last year, A Night At The Opera, and found the humor more fresh than I expected. Absolutely masters of comedy.
For a more recent old movie (almost as far in the past today as A Night At The Opera was when I was born), I’d offer Planes, Trains and Automobiles as a classic. I admit I haven’t watched it in 5+ years, but I think it’s as perfect a “comedy with heart” movie as you can get.
Generally true, although there was a storyline about a “sex-change operation,” as it was called in those days, that conflated gay, transvestite, and transgender issues in a way that seems very clumsy today.
The Odd Couple movie is still funny, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in thier prime are great. Grumpty Old Men is pretty damn good too, can’t beleive its 32 years old now.
I have not tried to re-watch it since then.