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List Of Comedy Films Of The 1940s
This is a list of comedy films released in the 1940s. American films 1940 *''The Bank Dick'' *''The Ghost Breakers'' *''The Great Dictator'' *''The Great McGinty'' *''His Girl Friday'' *''My Favorite Wife'' *''My Little Chickadee'' *''One Night in the Tropics'' 1941 *''Andy Hardy's Private Secretary'' *''Ball of Fire'' *''The Big Store'' *'' The Bride Came C.O.D.'' *''Buck Privates'' *''The Devil and Miss Jones'' *''The Flame of New Orleans'' *'' Great Guns'' *'' Here Comes Mr. Jordan'' *''The Lady Eve'' *'' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' *''Never Give a Sucker an Even Break'' *''Nine Lives Are Not Enough'' *''That Night in Rio'' *''Topper Returns'' 1942 *''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' *''The Major and the Minor'' *''My Sister Eileen'' *''The Palm Beach Story'' *'' Rio Rita'' *''Road to Morocco'' *''Ship Ahoy'' *''Tales of Manhattan'' *'' The Talk of the Town'' *''There's One Born Every Minute'' *''To Be or Not to Be'' *''Woman of the Year'' *''You Were Never Lovelier'' 1943 *'' Crazy Hou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the oldest genres in film and it is derived from the classical comedy in theatre. Some of the earliest silent films were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1930s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue. Comedy, compared with other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. In '' The Screenwriters Taxonomy'' (2017), Eric R. Williams contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character, and story. Therefore the labels "drama" and "comedy" are t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flame Of New Orleans
''The Flame of New Orleans'' is a 1941 comedy film directed by René Clair and starring Marlene Dietrich and Bruce Cabot in his first comedy role. The supporting cast features Roland Young, Andy Devine and Franklin Pangborn. It was the last of three films Dietrich made with producer Joe Pasternak who called it "in many ways, our most interesting." The movie was nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction by Martin Obzina, Jack Otterson and Russell A. Gausman. Plot The legend of "Claire of New Orleans" is born after two fishermen find a wedding dress floating around on the Mississippi River one day. The legend tells that the Countess Claire Ledux disappeared on her wedding day in the year of 1840, and when the dress was found, the people of New Orleans assumed that the bride had committed suicide by throwing herself into the river. This is how the story begins, and then we find out what really happened, as the story of Claire Ledux is revealed. When Claire arrives in New Or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rio Rita (1942 Film)
''Rio Rita'' is a 1942 American comedy film directed by S. Sylvan Simon and starring Abbott and Costello. It was based upon the 1927 Flo Ziegfeld Broadway musical, which was previously made into a 1929 film also titled '' Rio Rita'' that starred the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey. Kathryn Grayson (in her first starring picture) and John Carroll replace the 1929 version's Bebe Daniels and John Boles. Plot Nazi spies have infiltrated the Hotel Vista del Rio, a resort on the Mexican border. They plan to use a radio broadcast by a famous guest, Ricardo Montera, to transmit coded messages to their cohorts. Doc and Wishy are stowaways in Montera's car, who steal a basket of "apples" that turn out being miniature radios used by the spies. Rita Winslow, the hotel's owner and childhood sweetheart of Montera, hire Doc and Wishy as house detectives, who discover the Nazi codebook and give it to Montera. They are then kidnapped by the spies, and left in a room with a bomb set to explode, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Palm Beach Story
''The Palm Beach Story'' is a 1942 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the musical score, including a fast-paced variation of the ''William Tell Overture'' for the opening scenes. Typical of a Sturges film, the pacing and dialogue of ''The Palm Beach Story'' are very fast. Plot Inventor Tom Jeffers and his wife Gerry are down on their luck financially. Married for five years, the couple are still waiting for Tom's ship to come in. Anxious for the finer things in a life she's no longer enjoying, Gerry decides that they both would be better off if they split. Before she can act she ends up entangled with the Wienie King, a strange old man being shown round her apartment with his wife by a building manager anxious to rent it out from beneath his delinquent tenants. Sympathetic to her plight - and utterly taken by her youth and charm - the man gives her $700 f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Sister Eileen (1942 Film)
''My Sister Eileen'' is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Alexander Hall and starring Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne and Janet Blair. The screenplay by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov is based on their 1940 play of the same title, which was inspired by a series of autobiographical short stories by Ruth McKenney originally published in ''The New Yorker''. The supporting cast features George Tobias, Allyn Joslyn, Grant Mitchell, Gordon Jones and, in a cameo appearance at the end, The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard). Plot Anxious to help boost the career of her aspiring actress sister Eileen, reporter Ruth Sherwood of the ''Columbus Courier'' writes a rave review about her performance in a local play before it opens. When Eileen is replaced on opening night and the newspaper mistakenly runs the inaccurate review, Ruth is fired. Grandma Sherwood urges Ruth to move to New York City and Eileen decides to go with her. Relying solely on $100 given ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Major And The Minor
''The Major and the Minor'' is a 1942 American comedy film starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. It was the first American film directed by Billy Wilder. The screenplay credited to Wilder and Charles Brackett is "suggested by" the 1923 play ''Connie Goes Home'' by Edward Childs Carpenter, based on the 1921 Saturday Evening Post story "Sunny Goes Home" by Fannie Kilbourne. Plot After her first client, Albert Osborne (Robert Benchley), makes a heavy pass and refuses to take “No” for an answer, Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) quits her job as a Revigorous System scalp massager and decides to leave New York City and return home to Stevenson, Iowa. At the train station, she discovers she has only enough money to cover a half fare, so she disguises herself as a twelve-year-old girl named Su-Su. When two suspicious conductors catch her smoking, Su-Su takes refuge in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland) who, believing she is a frightened child, agrees to let her stay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942 Film)
''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' is a 1942 American screwball comedy film directed by William Keighley, and starring Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan and, as the title character, Monty Woolley. The screenplay by Julius and Philip G. Epstein is based on the 1939 play ''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. The supporting cast features Jimmy Durante and Billie Burke. Plot While passing through small-town Ohio during a cross-country lecture tour, notoriously acerbic New York radio personality Sheridan Whiteside breaks his hip after slipping and falling on the icy steps of the house of the Stanleys, a prominent Ohio family with whom he's supposed to dine as a publicity stunt. He insists on recuperating in their home during the Christmas holidays. The overbearing, self-centered celebrity soon comes to dominate the lives of the residents and everyone else who enters the household. He encourages young adults Richard and June Stanley to pursue their dreams, much to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1942 In Film
The year of 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, ''Casablanca''. Top-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1942 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: Events * January 16 – Actress Carole Lombard is killed in a plane crash west of Las Vegas while returning home to Los Angeles from a War Bond tour. * June 4 – ''Mrs. Miniver'', starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, opens at Radio City Music Hall in New York, in what will become a record-breaking 10-week run. The film becomes MGM's highest-grossing film of the 1940s. At the 15th Academy Awards, ''Mrs. Miniver'' wins six awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (for William Wyler), Best Actress (for Greer Garson) and Best Supporting Actress (for Teresa Wright). * August 8 – Walt Disney's animated film ''Bambi'' opens in United Kingdom. * November 11 – ''Road to Morocco'', starring Bob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topper Returns
''Topper Returns'' is a 1941 fantasy comedy thriller directed by Roy Del Ruth and written by Jonathan Latimer. The third and final installment in the initial series of supernatural comedy films inspired by the novels of Thorne Smith, it succeeds '' Topper'' (1937) and ''Topper Takes a Trip'' (1938). As in the prior films, Roland Young plays Cosmo Topper, a mousy banker who gets into trouble because of his ability to see and speak with ghosts, and Billie Burke plays his wife, who is constantly befuddled by his strange antics. The plot revolves around a murder mystery. Joan Blondell portrays a slain woman who seeks out the reluctant Topper and enlists his help in identifying her killer and saving her friend, played by Carole Landis. Most of the action takes place in a spooky mansion filled with eccentric characters, trapdoors and secret passages. The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Special Effects (Roy Seawright and Elmer Raguse) and Best Sound Recording (Elme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
That Night In Rio
''That Night in Rio'' is a 1941 Technicolor American musical comedy film directed by Irving Cummings and starring Alice Faye, Don Ameche (in a dual role as an American entertainer and an aristocratic businessman he is asked to impersonate temporarily) and Carmen Miranda. It is one of several film adaptations of the 1934 play ''The Red Cat'' by Rudolf Lothar and Hans Adler. Others are ''Folies Bergère de Paris'' (1935) and ''On the Riviera'' (1951). The original songs for the film were written by the musical partnership of Harry Warren and Mack Gordon. These include: "Boa Noite", "They Met in Rio (A Midnight Serenade)", "Chica Chica Boom Chic" and " I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi (I Like You Very Much)". Plot Larry Martin (Don Ameche) is an American entertainer in the Casino Samba in Rio de Janeiro. He has a skit in his show, making fun of the womanizing Baron Manuel Duarte (also Ameche). On one particular evening, the Baron and his wife, Baroness Cecilia Duarte (Alice Faye) come to see Larry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nine Lives Are Not Enough
''Nine Lives Are Not Enough'' is a 1941 Comedy-drama film directed by A. Edward Sutherland and written by Fred Niblo Jr. The film stars Ronald Reagan, Joan Perry, and James Gleason, with Howard Da Silva, Faye Emerson and Edward Brophy. The film was released by Warner Bros. on September 20, 1941. Plot A reporter tries to solve a series of boardinghouse murders. The dramatic main plot murder action is intermixed with farcical, farce and slapstick comedic elements. Cast * Ronald Reagan as Matt Sawyer * Joan Perry as Jane Abbott * James Gleason as Sgt. Sam Daniels * Howard Da Silva as J.B. Murray, City Editor * Faye Emerson as Rose Chadwick * Edward Brophy as Officer Slattery * Peter Whitney as Roy * Charles Drake (actor), Charles Drake as 'Snappy' Lucas * Vera Lewis as Mrs. Slocum * Ben Welden as Moxie Karper * Howard C. Hickman as Colonel Andrews * Cliff Clark as Lieutenant Buckley * Tom Stevenson as Charles * Paul Phillips as Hot-Foot * Joseph Crehan as Yates * John Maxwell (acto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Never Give A Sucker An Even Break
''Never Give a Sucker an Even Break'' (known in some international releases as ''What a Man!'') is a 1941 Universal Pictures comedy film starring W. C. Fields. Fields also wrote the original story, under the pseudonym "Otis Criblecoblis." Fields plays himself, promoting an extravagant screenplay he has written. As he describes the script to a skeptical producer, the often surreal scenes are shown. The title is derived from lines from two earlier films. In ''Poppy'' (1936), he tells his daughter, "If we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you just one bit of fatherly advice: Never give a sucker an even break!" In ''You Can't Cheat an Honest Man'' (1939), he tells a customer that his grandfather's last words, "just before they sprung the trap", were, "You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump." Fields fought with studio producers, directors, and writers over the content of his films. He was determined to make a movie hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
