Comedy
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A: The fish. Much like that joke, comedy comes down to personal taste and what one finds funny or not. Some like their humour light and frothy and very generalised, while others like it to have an edge and go for a more twisted, darker humour. The motherlode of this genre can be scrolled below. Either way, we're sure there will be something for everybody in the subsections on the left.
Right: There's Something About Mary's hairdo...
Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man / Go to Mars (1951)
Director: Charles Lamont
Starring: Arthur Franz, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello
Meet the Invisible Man: Brand new detectives Bud Alexander (Bud Abbott) and Lou Francis (Lou Costello) agree to help prize fighter Tommy Nelson (Arthu... Read more
Louis De Funes ( Mr Leguignon Lampiste / Peek-a-Boo / The Bouncing Beauty / The Big Vacation ) (1951)
7.9/10
Director: Maurice Labro, Jean Loubignac, Robert Dhery, Jean Girault
Starring: Louis De Funes
Louis de Funes was one of France's original funnymen, with the rubber-faced prankster hitting his stride in French slapstick comedies of the 50s, 60s... Read more
Happy Go Lovely (1951)
6.5/10
Director: H Bruce Humberstone
Starring: David Niven, Vera-Ellen, Cesar Romero
A brisk and breezy musical comedy about an American theatre producer in Edinburgh who hires a young chorus girl in hopes that her millionaire boyfrien... Read more
People Will Talk (1951)
7.5/10
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Starring: Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain, Finlay Currie, Hume Cronyn, Walter Slezak, Sidney Blac...
Sparkling comic gem with moments of great poignancy stars Cary Grant as a physician whose belief in the curative powers of the mind seems too unorthod... Read more
The Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle: The Egg and I / Ma and Pa Kettle / Ma and Pa Kettle Go To Town / Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951)
Director: Charles Lamont, Chester Erskine, Edward Sedgwick
Starring: Claudette Colbert, Percy Kilbride, Fred MacMurray, Marjorie Main, Richard Long
First, the hillbilly husband and wife played by Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride are introduced in the all-time favourite barnyard comedy 'The Egg and... Read more
As Young As You Feel (1951)
6.6/10
Director: Harmon Jones
Starring: Monty Woolley, Thelma Ritter, David Wayne, Jean Peters, Constance Bennett, Maril...
John Hodges (Monty Woolley) is due to be 'retired' when he turns 65, but his family don't want him hanging round the house and traditional pursuits of... Read more
Father's Little Dividend (1951)
6.7/10
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Starring: Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Spencer Tracy, Don Taylor, Billie Burke
This sequel to the 1950 comedy hit 'Father of the Bride' finds Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett returning as Stanley and Ellie Banks, the parents of new... Read more
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
7.7/10
Director: Charles Crichton
Starring: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James
An excellent comedy with droll Alec Guinness, a timid bank clerk who has a perfect scheme for robbing a gold bullion truck, with a madcap chase climax... Read more
The Man In The White Suit (1951)
7.4/10
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Starring: Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker
Alec Guinness plays an unassuming lab assistant who invents a miracle fabric that can be woven into indestructible cloth. Few films have chastised ind... Read more
On Moonlight Bay (1951)
7.1/10
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Starring: Doris Day, Gordon McRae, Mary Wickes, Billy Gray
Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories make charming material for this Doris Day musical in which the bubbly blonde plays tomboy Marjie Wilson who moves to... Read more