# Your top two Black & White movies - one comedy, one drama. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2019, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154 "2019-04-28T01:19:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/61 "2019-04-28T20:47:21Z")
Drama: _Casablanca_ Comedy: _Young Frankenstein_ ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/62 "2019-04-28T21:43:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And, apparently it is possible to make a joke so subtle that nobody on the SDMB catches it. Yeah, but it looks like a typo. Here’s an apostrophe for you: ’ ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/63 "2019-04-28T22:20:38Z")
Actually, it was a typo… but I realized as soon as I made it, and decided not to fix it. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/64 "2019-04-28T22:25:30Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I’m torn between The Women (the original, obviously) and Some Like It Hot for comedy. > > My drama has to be Stage Door. I love _Stage Door_! So many wonderful actresses in that one. We’re always quoting the line about the calla lilies being in bloom again. Funny that the one actress who was supposed to be such a wonderful actress in the movie was about the only one who really wasn’t terribly successful in real life. And _The Women_ is great, too. You know that every character in the film is female? Even all the dogs in the beginning and the horse at the ranch in Reno? We love watching the dog bit over and over, because we have dachshunds. And they do have bad breath. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/65 "2019-04-28T22:42:35Z")
_Casablanca_ and _A Night At The Opera_. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/66 "2019-04-28T23:33:55Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > Comedy: _Bringing Up Baby_. The screwiest of screwball comedies. I wish I could forget this movie so I could experience for the first time again. Thanks for this rec. Decided to watch it this morning, and it was a hoot! I was really thrown for a loop by the “I just went gay all of a sudden” line, as it seemed – at least to me – that it clearly was not just using the term in the “happy” sense, given the situation in the film. But then I thought, maybe that’s my modern sensibility of the term kicking in. After googling it, it does seem to be that that was the first time the word “gay” meaning “homosexual” was used in at least American cinema (and apparently was an improvised line by Grant.) But I guess there’s enough plausible deniability that it got by the censors. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/67 "2019-04-28T23:47:06Z")
Yeah, I think by that time “gay” meant “gay” in the gay communities, at least in Hollywood, San Francisco, and New York. So when Cary said “gay” he meant “gay.” Wasn’t he gay, anyway? What a waste of the young Dyan Cannon… ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/68 "2019-04-29T00:03:07Z")
It’s possible that Cary Grant was bisexual, but there’s certainly no evidence that he was exclusively homosexual. He was married five times, and Wikipedia lists five other women that he dated for a while. It’s hard to tell whether to believe the claims that he had homosexual relations in addition. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/69 "2019-04-29T00:45:23Z")
While there are probably some great old black and white comedies, especially pre-code, I don’t know them, so I’m going with \*\*Young Frankenstein. **Although I’m not sure if it’s my top, no one has mentioned** Hud\*\*, yet, so I will. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/70 "2019-04-29T00:45:56Z")
For the interstitial space _between_ comedy and drama, I give you Spike Lee’s debut: [She’s Gotta Have It](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She%27s_Gotta_Have_It). ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/71 "2019-04-29T01:27:03Z")
Drama: _Metropolis_ or _The Big Sleep_. (Does _Metropolis_ count as drama? If I had to categorize it, I’d probably say Science Fiction.) Comedy: _Dr. Strangelove_, _The General_, or _My Man Godfrey_. > [@mhendo](#): > > Comedy: toss-up between _Young Frankenstein_ and _Dr. Strangelove_ > > Drama: _Fail Safe_ In 1964 there were two movies about accidental nuclear war. One of them had Larry Hagman and Dom DeLuise; the other was a comedy. > [@mhendo](#): > > _M_ (1931, Germany, dir. Fritz Lang) I just saw the 1951 remake of _M_ today. Not as good as the original, of course, but interesting. There were some familiar faces in it (a young William Schallert, for instance). And there’s a fantastic sequence shot in the Bradbury Building; I was just there a few months ago. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/72 "2019-04-29T01:38:53Z")
I definitely want to add _ **The Best Years of Our Lives** _ and \*\*\*The Music Box \*\*\*to my list. It’s easier for me to think of dramas, rather than comedies: _ **Objective: Burma** _, _ **The Purple Heart** _, _ **Town without Pity** _, and _ **Experiment in Terror** _, f’rinstance. And I heartily concur with _ **Anatomy of a Murder** _ and _ **Stalag 17** _. Has no one mentioned _ **Roman Holiday** _ yet? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/73 "2019-04-29T05:50:49Z")
_Young Frankenstein_/_Casablanca_ if \*YF \*is cheating, then _The Gold Rush_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/74 "2019-04-29T12:04:18Z")
Lots of good choices here, but I’m going with **A Night at the Opera** for comedy **The Seven Samurai** for drama ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/75 "2019-04-29T12:50:20Z")
Comedy: _Duck Soup_ (like I was going to choose something different, right?) Drama: I’m torn between _Casablanca_ and _The Maltese Falcon_. Ten or twenty years ago, it would have been no contest for _Casablanca_, but _The Maltese Falcon_ keeps getting better and better for me. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/76 "2019-04-29T14:00:21Z")
_Casablanca_ for drama (although Hitchcock’s \*Notorious \*is also terrific), and _Paper Moon_ for comedy. Both works of genius. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/77 "2019-04-29T17:47:22Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > _Casablanca_ for drama (although Hitchcock’s \*Notorious \*is also terrific), and _Paper Moon_ for comedy. Both works of genius. _ **Paper Moon** _ was filmed in B&W? ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/78 "2019-04-29T17:50:54Z")
Comedy: His Girl Friday Drama: Third Man ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/79 "2019-04-29T17:53:51Z")
Comedy: Dr. Strangelove Drama: The Third Man I could change my mind about the comedy, but The Third Man is my all-time favorite movie. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-two-black-white-movies-one-comedy-one-drama/833154/80 "2019-04-29T18:00:16Z")
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