Whats THE funniest film ever..

[Sarah Kelly]

i was watching this peter sellers film,"The lavender Hill mob" i think it was called..in black and white,it just amazed me how BRILLIANT the characters were, and how funny the film was from such a simple idea.....It got me wondering how many other gems there were out there,being missed by people as being too old and perhaps dated....and thinking , were films BETTER then ( if you compare the old Tarzan films with johnny weisemuller against the newer versions,eg i love Brendam Frasier,hunky AND funny-but shit as tarzan!)... views on a postage stamp to...... x

[RoddersUK]

The farting scene in Blazing Saddles was the funniest I have ever seen. My missus was 7 months pregnant and she thought she was going to give birth right there in the cinema she laughed so much.

[Peter]

RoddersUK wrote:

> The farting scene in Blazing Saddles was the funniest I have
> ever seen. My missus was 7 months pregnant and she thought she
> was going to give birth right there in the cinema she laughed
> so much.
>
>

Even funnier if you watch it with subtitles.

[andy at handiwork]

Sorry Sarah, but Sellers isnt in the Lavender Hill Mob, though it is indeed one of the finest British comedy films.

You might have been watching The Wrong Arm of the Law, starring PS, a pretty decent Brit comedy of its type.



Trivia time. The final heist in Wrong Arm was shot outside what briefly became my favourite strip pub, The Lord Hill in Uxbridge.
BTW Sarah, I'm back.

[Guilbert]

If you would like to discover "older" films then if you have Sky the TCM channel (under Movies) shows a whole range of movies from the 1930s onwards.

Some older performers and films you may like are:

Marx Brothers. Wonderful anarchy that does not look dated today. Groucho was one of the THE funny men in movies.

Preston Sturges: Film director of many "screwball" comedies. TCM do show some of them. More here


Cary Grant: Appeared in many light hearted comedies like Monkey Business, Arsenic and Old lace, His Girl Friday, Bring up Baby etc etc

The Philadelphia Story. The original play on which the film High Society is based. Very literate but also very funny. Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart.

The Odd Couple (original film). Based on a stage play by Neil Siomn. Two divorced men share a flat, one a slob the other a tidyness fanatic. Very funny

That's a start, but I will post some more

[Guilbert]

>Sorry Sarah, but Sellers isnt in the Lavender Hill Mob, though it is
>indeed one of the finest British comedy films.

Maybe she was thinking of The Ladykillers



Alec Guiness was in both.

[Guilbert]

>Alec Guiness was in both.

Maybe I should say Alec Guinness

As I was told off for spelling Peter Sellers name wrong the other day.

[Guilbert]

There was a series of old English comedies given the name of the "Ealing comedies" as they were made by Ealing Studios.

Both Lavender Hill Mob and Ladykillers are Ealing Comedies, and here is a list of all of them.



One of the Ealing Comedy directors called Charles Crichton helped to direct the John Cleese film A Fish Called Wanda.

And did you know the character played by Cleese in the film is called Archie Leach, which is Cary Grants real name.

[andy at handiwork]

Probably more likely, yes. I still like Wrong Arm, though its not in the same league as the Ladykillers, which works as both crime comedy and as a celebration of tradition v modernism and probably as a comment on the return to conservatism after the defeat of Labour in 1951 a few years earlier.