Cinema - American films - Comedy

American cinema: Comedy (Page 1 of 10)

A Chump at Oxford (1940)

Alfred J. Goulding

Down to their last six dollars, Stan and Ollie are reduced to posing as a husband and wife to secure the post of butler and housemaid to the wealthy Vandeveers. Needless to say, Stan and Ollie’s attempts to help out at a dinner party end disastrously and the duo are soon back in the gutter looking for work... [More...]

A Damsel in Distress (1937)

George Stevens

Everyone at Tottleigh Castle knows that Lady Alyce Marshmorton is about to get married, but no one knows for certain who the lucky man will be. When the servants hold a wager, houseboy Albert bets that Lady Alyce will take as her husband a complete stranger, whilst the butler Keggs is confident that she will select her mother’s favourite, a jazz-loving buffoon named Reggie... [More...]

A Day at the Races (1937)

Sam Wood

Judy Standish is the unhappy owner of a sanatorium which faces closure unless she can raise the money to pay the mortgage. Her only hope is her wealthy client Emily Upjohn, an inveterate hypochondriac, but she has opted to leave the sanatorium when the doctors tell her that there is nothing wrong with her... [More...]

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Charles Crichton

London gangster George Thomason has masterminded the perfect jewel robbery, which he is about to put into action with his henchman Ken Pile, an animal-lover with a crippling stutter, and a pair of Americans - Wanda Gerschwitz and Otto West. The latter pretend to be brother and sister but are in fact lovers who intend to double-cross George and Ken after the robbery... [More...]

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Sam Wood

By donating money to Otis B. Driftwood, an opera promoter of dubious repute, wealthy widow Mrs Claypool hopes to buy her way into high society. Whilst in Milan, Driftwood signs up an unknown chorus singer, Riccardo, mistaking him for the great tenor Lassparri. The latter is signed up for the New York opera company by another promoter, Gottlieb... [More...]

A Night in Casablanca (1946)

Archie Mayo

A gang of Nazis in Casablanca are planning to secure the management of a hotel so that they can get their hands on the priceless art treasures hidden in one of its rooms. To do this, they murder a succession of managers of the hotel, but before their leader, Count Pfferman, can act, another manager is appointed in his place... [More...]

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Charles Barton

Chick Young and Wilbur Grey are baggage clerks who, one day, are asked to deliver two crates to a waxworks museum. According to the crates’ owner, these contain the last remains of Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. Sure enough, as Chick and Wilbur are unpacking the crates, the two horror fiends are revived... [More...]

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Charles Lamont

Two Americans, Freddie Franklin and Peter Patterson, find themselves stranded in Cairo, desperate to find the money so they can get back to their own country. They visit the archaeologist Dr Zoomer, hoping that he will give them the job of taking an Egyptian mummy he has discovered to America. Unfortunately, Zoomer has been killed and the mummy has been stolen by members of a mysterious sect... [More...]

Adam’s Rib (1949)

George Cukor

District Attorney Adam Bonner is far from pleased when he is called upon to prosecute Doris Attinger, a young woman who shot and wounded her husband when she found him in the arms of his mistress. The reason Adam is not pleased is because his wife, Amanda, who is also a lawyer, is convinced that Doris is the victim in the affair... [More...]

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

John Landis

David Kessler and Jack Goodman are two American college backpackers who decide to make a tour of Europe. Where better to begin than the bleak, soggy Yorkshire moors? As night falls, they enter an inn named The Slaughtered Lamb, hoping for rest and refreshment. Instead, they receive a deathly cold reception from a sinister collection of locals who, not liking foreign folk, drive them away with a warning not to stray on the moors... [More...]

Anchors Aweigh (1945)

George Sidney

Returning home to a hero’s welcome after WWII, navy personnel Clarence Doolittle and Joe Brady can hardly wait to get ashore and extract every last morsel of pleasure from their leave. But whilst Joe has a hot date lined up, Clarence is at a loose end and, worse, he lacks both experience and confidence in the woman-baiting department... [More...]

And Then There Were None (1945)

René Clair

Eight men and women, all unknown to each other, accept a mysterious invitation to an island estate. They are welcomed by two domestic servants, Mr and Mrs Rogers, who appear to be as ignorant of the reason for the meeting as the guests are. When they are all assembled together, they hear a strange message from their unknown host on a gramophone record... [More...]

Animal Crackers (1930)

Victor Heerman

Society dowager Mrs Rittenhouse is hosting an extravagant party at her Long Island mansion. The purpose of the party is to welcome back the famous explorer, Captain Spaulding, after his expedition to Africa, but the hostess cannot resist using the occasion to show off a priceless Beaugard painting, which has been given to her by her most fervent admirer, Roscoe W... [More...]

April in Paris (1952)

David Butler

A junior government official, Winthrop Putnam, sees his career aspirations evaporate when he realises that he has invited the wrong woman to represent the American theatre at an exposition in Paris. An invitation intended for the actress Ethel Barrymore is mistakenly sent to an unknown chorus line girl, Ethel Jackson... [More...]

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Frank Capra

Mortimer Brewster returns to Brooklyn to visit his elderly aunts Abby and Martha with the news that he has just got married. The last thing he expects to find in his old home is a dead body in the window seat. His aunts casually admit that this is the latest of their mercy killings. Whenever a solitary old man enters their house, they take it upon themselves to put him out of his misery, with a glass of elderberry wine laced with poison... [More...]

The Awful Truth (1937)

Leo McCarey

Jerry Warriner returns home after his holiday to find that his wife Lucy has apparently got herself romantically involved with her music teacher, Armand Duvalle. Lucy suspects that Jerry also has something to hide, because he clearly hasn’t been to Florida as he claims. The couple agree on an amicable divorce, and Lucy moves out to live in an apartment with her mother... [More...]

Babes in Toyland (1934)

Gus Meins

Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee are a pair of happy-go-lucky apprentice toy-makers in Toyland. They live in a giant shoe with kind Mother Peep and her daughter Bo, who is forever mislaying her sheep. One day, Mother Peep is visited by Silas Barnaby, a mean-hearted man who threatens to evict her and her tenants unless she pays her mortgage... [More...]

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

Irving Reis

Judge Margaret Turner is alarmed when her precocious 17-year-old sister Susan takes a sudden liking to forty-something artist Dick Nugent. When Margaret and the assistant district attorney find Susan in Dick’s apartment, Dick is arrested in the ensuing fracas. Margaret offers to have Dick released with no charges brought against him providing he goes on dating Susan... [More...]

Barefoot in the Park (1967)

Gene Saks

Paul and Corie Bratter are a pair of young newlyweds who can hardly wait to set up home together. Unfortunately, the home that Corie has chosen, a tiny fifth floor apartment in Greenwich Village, isn’t quite what Paul, a straitlaced trainee attorney, had in mind. Still, despite the lack of heating, the gaping hole in the skylight, the bedroom that is too small for a bed, the noticeable absence of a bath, the abundance of weirdo neighbours and the flight of stairs that looks like it was intended to train mountaineers, Paul and Corrie are soon settled into their new home... [More...]

Battling Butler (1926)

Buster Keaton

Alfred Butler is an effeminate aristocrat who, at his father’s prompting, goes off on a hunting trip in the mountains, in the hope that this will make a man of him. Leaving behind his comfortable home, accompanied only by his faithful valet and several lorryloads of creature comforts, Alfred embarks on his great adventure with enthusiasm... [More...]

1 2 3 4 5 ... 8 9 10 Next

A-Z