To Be or Not to Be (1942), Some Like It Hot (1959), Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Thin Man (1934), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Harvey (1950), His Girl Friday (1940) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Screwball Comedy movies.
Storyline: Mame is an unconventional individualist socialite from the roaring 20's. When her brother dies, she is forced to raise her nephew Patrick. However, Patrick's father has designated an executor to his will to protect the boy from absorbing too much of Mame's rather unconventional perspective. Patrick and Mame become devoted to each other in spite of this restriction, and together journey through Patrick's childhood and the great depression, amidst some rather zaney adventures.—Ross Thompson <thompson@adobe.com>
Plot Keywords: aunt nephew relationship, based on play, masturbation reference, mountain climbing, guardian, pregnancy, dysfunctional family ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Returning from a year up the Amazon studying snakes, the rich but unsophisticated Charles Pike meets con-artist Jean Harrington on a ship. They fall in love, but a misunderstanding causes them to split on bad terms. To get back at him, Jean disguises herself as an English lady, and comes back to tease and torment him.
Plot Keywords: con artist, screwball comedy, snake, gold digger, victim, seduction, heartbreak ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Free-thinking Johnny Case finds himself betrothed to a millionaire's daughter. When her family, with the exception of black-sheep Linda and drunken Ned, want Johnny to settle down to big business, he rebels, wishing instead to spend the early years of his life on "holiday." With the help of his friends Nick and Susan Potter, he makes up his mind as to which is the better course, and the better mate.
Plot Keywords: holiday, based on play, engagement, wealth, ship, christmas, retirement ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Sexy, wisecracking nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea is a hot tomato who needs to be kept on ice: mobster boyfriend Joe Lilac is suspected of murder and Sugarpuss' testimony could put him away. Naive Professor Bertram Potts meets Miss O'Shea while researching an article on slang and in true romantic comedy fashion the two worlds collide. When Miss O'Shea hides out with Potts and his fellow professors, everyone learns something new: the professors how to cha-cha and Potts the meaning of "yum-yum"!—A.L.Beneteau <albl@inforamp.net>
Plot Keywords: screwball comedy, farce, moll, gangster, nightclub, singer, professor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A meek word processor in New York impulsively travels downtown to Soho for date with an attractive, but apparently disturbed young woman, and finds himself trapped in a nightmarishly surreal vortex of improbable coincidences and farcical circumstances.
Plot Keywords: black comedy, mistaken identity, mini skirt, short skirt, one night stand, mohawk haircut, burglar ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Before their divorce becomes final, Jerry and Lucy Warriner both do their best to ruin each other's plans for remarriage, Jerry to haughty socialite Barbara Vance, she to oil-rich bumpkin Daniel Leeson. Among their strategies: Jerry's court-decreed visitation rights with Mr. Smith, their pet fox terrier, and Lucy doing her most flamboyant Dixie Belle Lee impersonation as Jerry's brassy "sister" before his prospective bride's scandalized family.
Plot Keywords: divorce, piano, infidelity, based on play, screwball comedy, recital, racetrack ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.—A.L.Beneteau <albl@inforamp.net>
Plot Keywords: patriotism, apartment, washington d.c., camera shot of feet, female stockinged feet, stockings, taxi driver ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Kent, the unscrupulous boss of Bottleneck has Sheriff Keogh killed when he asks one too many questions about a rigged poker game that gives Kent a stranglehold over the local cattle rangers. The mayor, who is in cahoots with Kent appoints the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale, as the new sheriff assuming that he'll be easy to control. But what the mayor doesn't know is that Dimsdale was a deputy under famous lawman, Tom Destry, and is able to call upon the equally formidable Tom Destry Jr to be his deputy. Featuring a career reviving performance from Marlene Dietrich as bar singer Frenchie, which could well have been the inspiration for Madeline Kahn's "Blazing Saddles" character, Lili Von Schtupp.—Mark Thompson <mrt@oasis.icl.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: deputy, corruption, western town, card cheat, lawlessness, bar shootout, singer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Every winter, Michael J. O'Connor, the second richest man in the world, vacates his 5th Avenue mansion for his winter home in warmer climes. Every winter, Aloysius T. McKeever, a homeless man, and his dog moves into vacated mansions. This particular winter, McKeever meets Jim Bullock, an army veteran who has recently been evicted from his apartment and offers to share the mansion with him. It's not long before the mansion has a few more guests, including two of Jim's army buddies and their wives and children; runaway heiress Trudy Connor; her mother and even Michael J. O'Connor, himself.—L. Hamre
Plot Keywords: christmas eve, husband wife relationship, millionaire, police officer, impersonation, loneliness, squatter ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Polly Parrish, a clerk at Merlin's Department Store, is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a foundling. Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct, David Merlin becomes determined to keep the single woman and "her" baby together.—Diana Hamilton <hamilton@gl.umbc.edu>
Plot Keywords: screwball comedy, dance contest, new year's eve, male female relationship, fired from the job, father son relationship, impersonation ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers, wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can't remember--and she's pregnant. Norval Jones, the 4-F local boy who's been in love with Trudy for years, tries to help her find a way out of her predicament. Trudy complicates matters further by falling for Norval, and events snowball from there.—James Meek <james@oz.net>
Plot Keywords: cooking, farce, fight, flashback, flat tire, friendship, gas ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: While conducting a symphony orchestra, Sir Alfred De Carter imagines three different ways of dealing with his wife's suspected infidelity, then tries acting out his fantasies, but things do not go as well in reality as they did in his imagination.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: conductor, suspicion, daydream, light bulb, box, sneezing, microphone ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: While visiting Paris in 1908, upper class Lord Burnstead loses his butler playing poker. Egbert and Effie Floud bring Ruggles back to Red Gap, Washington. Effie wants to take advantage of Ruggles' upper class background to influence Egbert's hick lifestyle. However, Egbert is more interested in partying and he takes Ruggles to the local 'beer bust'. When word gets out that "Colonel Ruggles is staying with his close friends" in the local paper, the butler becomes a town celebrity. After befriending Mrs. Judson, a widow who he impresses with his culinary skills, Ruggles decides to strike out on his own and open a restaurant. His transition from servant to independent man will depend on its success.—Gary Jackson <garyjack5@cogeco.ca>
Plot Keywords: fish out of water, valet, self discovery, culture clash, small town, paris france, mother daughter relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it off the roof, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.—Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net>
Plot Keywords: screwball comedy, hobo, hotel, hunger, marriage proposal, mortgage, new york city ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Department store owner J.P. Merrick finds that several of his employees are unionizing to get more money and better working conditions. In order to find out who the organizers are, he gets a job at the store as a shoe salesman. Not realizing his true identity, he's befriended by Mary Jones and Joe O'Brien, the two ringleaders, and Elizabeth Ellis, a charming older woman with whom he develops a romance.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>
Plot Keywords: department store, detective, fired from the job, impersonation, marriage proposal, ship, strike ...
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