Screwball Comedy Poll

[brooklynboy49]

I just thought it'd be fun to conduct a scientific poll to see what our favorite Screwball Comedy is. I think I've included all of the classics, but if I've overlooked any, I'm sure I'll hear about it

So, let's see how this goes. It's a tough choice, these are all worthy contenders and each is a great movie in its own right (IMO, of course).

Here are your choices:

Well, how do ya like that? Only "star members" can create polls. I'm not gonna let that stop me! I'll provide the list I had intended to include, just reply with your answer(s) and comments.

Before giving you the list, let me tell you who gets my vote -- My Man Godfrey. As great as all of these movies are, this choice was easy for me, Godfrey is one of my favorite movies, period. Then again, I could easily say that about any of these.

So, once again, here are the contenders (in no particular order):

My Man Godfrey
Libeled Lady
Bringing Up Baby
It Happened One Night
The Lady Eve

I'm aware that there are quite a few other movies that qualify as "screwball comedies", but I limited the list to what I feel are the five best of the genre. Feel free to write in your favorite if it's not on the submitted list.

I have one final comment -- I have watched You Can't Take It With You two or three times and just didn't care for it. I feel it tries too hard. And fails. That's just my personal opinion, and I suspect I'm gonna hear about it lol.

Anyway, that's why You Can't Take It With You isn't on the list. Others (e.g., Ball of Fire) are absent because, again, solely IMO, as much as I love 'em, they're just not in the same league as the five listed nominees.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

[longship]

1. My Man Godfrey. None other is close. nt

[JustAnotherGen]

2. It Happened One Night

Just for the blanket falling to the floor at the end!

[narnian60]

3. +1

Love the hitchhiking scene.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. I love everything about that movie!

Last edited Sat Mar 29, 2014, 07:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Her father is the best! - "You know the car is waiting . . . You don't have to go through with this"

[brooklynboy49]

8. That's my favorite scene, too :)

That and the scene immediately preceding it when Clark Gable lays claim to his forty-five dollars and 28 cents (or whatever the figure was) and when asked if he loves his daughter, he answers, "Yes, but don't hold that against me, I'm a bit screwy myself!" I love it!!

[cyberswede]

9. Great one!

My older sister turned me on to that movie when I was a kid. Love it!

[Little_Wing]

5. Gotta represent for my fave The Lady Eve

But it is hard to choose! The 30s were a great time for movies, weren't they?

[brooklynboy49]

7. Underappreciated, IMHO

Definitely the same dame!

I love The Lady Eve, it and Libeled Lady are not given their rightful due IMO.

And I totally agree that the mid-'30s to the late '40s saw more classic and entertaining movies made than any other period in the history of filmdom. (Although I must confess an almost equal love for movies of the '80s. Too many to mention, but it was an incredible decade for movies. Body Heat, The Princess Bride, Stand by Me, The Terminator, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Romancing the Stone. The list is endless. I didn't even scratch the surface!)

But, that earlier period still stands alone. Hell, 1939 alone saw more great movies made than have been made in most decades!

[TuxedoKat]

10. I Love The Lady Eve

What a great movie. There is one line from it that I love to borrow, substituting one word, when the situation allows:

At a dinner party at the rich father's house, one woman says after the meal, "The fish was a poem." I don't know why but that one line struck me as so funny.

The 30's-'40s is my favorite era for movies too.

[lupinella]

11. 1 vote (+2 write-ins!)

Vote out of the list offered: 'Bringing up Baby' - Cary Grant did screwball better than anyone, plus it has both a paleontologist and a leopard: seriously.

My 2 write-ins are my two favourite screwball comedies: 'His Girl Friday' and 'Arsenic & Old Lace'.

His Girl Friday has the most brilliant dialogue of classic comedy. It doesn't hurt that it has two of the greatest comedians at the top of their game. plus low-rent mafia-types, a kidnapped mother-in-law & it was directed by Howard Hawks. It is one of my two favourite films of all time. Cary and Rosalind are also my two favourite actors of classic Hollywood. Truly a master class in comedy.

Arsenic and Old Lace is the funniest film about insane serial killers ever made. This is the genius that occurs when family reunions go wonderfully wrong: a brother who believes he's Teddy Roosevelt, aunts who have a hobby of helping out older gentlemen with their elderberry wine made with arsenic, strychnine and just a pinch of cyanide and the other brother - the black sheep of the family who makes the others look down-right normal. It has a quote that I always use to describe my own relatives, "Insanity runs in my family, practically gallops!"

[Number9Dream]

12. W.C. Fields, Woody, Clouseau

W.C. Fields: Any number of scenes from his movies were hilarious. "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" & "The Bank Dick" were screwball terrific.

"Take the Money and Run", "Play It Again Sam", and "Annie Hall" by Woody Allen.

"The Pink Panther Strikes Again": The scene where Clouseau interrogates the staff is just one of several laugh til you cry scenes.