Movies Favorite

Rating: (out of 1 reviews)

• Following the Comedy Trail: A Guide to Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang Film Locations

Nothing Sacred (1937) 1 hr 15 min, COLOR Starring: Carole Lombard, Fredric March; Director: William A. Wellman A doctor has told Vermont native Helen that she is dying of radium poisoning, and her plight draws the attention of NY reporter Wally. But then, the doctor informs Helen that she isn’t sick at all. She conceals the truth and is wined and dined by Wally. Once Helen finally confesses her secret, how will they handle the media circus they’ve created?

Life with Father (1947) 1 hr 58 min, COLOR Starring: William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor; Director: Michael Curtiz Based on a popular Broadway play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, this film explores family life in New York during the 1880s. Each scene is an amusing anecdote–for instance, the wife’s desperate attempts to have her despotic husband baptized. or the father’s awkward moments explaining the facts of life to his unimpressed son.

My Man Godfrey (1936) 1 hr 35 min, B&W Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard; Director: Gregory La Cava This wacky comedy classic takes a stab at high society. A pretentious wealthy family adopts “Godfrey,” a bum with a secretive past. Working as their butler, Godfrey becomes completely embroiled in their lives and soon takes charge. Later, he surprises the family with some shocking news.

Rating: (out of 4 reviews)

• Powell & Lombard: Comedy Collection

This set also contains the essential Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), in which Fields, as himself, attempts to sell an “impossible, inconceivable, incomprehensible” screenplay to the studio. Fields films are more deliberately paced than the Marx Brothers’ manic romps, all the better to savor Fields’ way with words (“what fulgent sunshine,” “this mundane sphere”). To quote Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles, he uses his tongue prettier than a , um, woman of ill-repute. This set’s bonus is a 1965 television special that, despite its sweetened soundtrack and lame antics by hosts Wayne and Schuster, offers a cornucopia of classic clips and some genuine insights into Fields’ comedy. A toast in anticipation of a Volume Three: May the next round contain Million Dollar Legs and Mississippi. –Donald Liebenson

Rating: (out of 55 reviews)

• W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Vol. 2 (The Man on the Flying Trapeze / Never Give A Sucker An Even Break / You’re Telling Me! / The Old Fashioned Way / Poppy)

It’s a Gift (1934) is a remake of Fields’s 1926 silent It’s the Old Army Game, and was the first sound feature devoted to Fields’s inimitable talent. As beleaguered husband and would-be orange farmer, Fields revives vintage routines from Vaudeville and Broadway, and his first encounter with Baby LeRoy is comedy gold. You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939) features Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy and Fields’s classic, still-hilarious ping-pong routine, while 1940′s My Little Chickadee matches Fields (as “Guthbert J. Twillie”) with Mae West, whose unforgettable on-screen banter with Fields shows no sign of their notorious off-screen animosity. In his raucous masterpiece The Bank Dick (also 1940), Fields is “Egbert Souse,” lowly bank guard, unlikely hero, and manic driver in perhaps the greatest slapstick car-chase scene ever filmed. Despite the regrettable absence of Fields’s final starring feature Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, this classy five-disc set is a veritable cornucopia of comedy, offering ample proof of Fields’s comic genius through classic one-liners, physical routines, memorable costars, and perfect bits of business that never grow old. –Jeff Shannon

Rating: (out of 53 reviews)

• W.C. Fields Comedy Collection (The Bank Dick / My Little Chickadee / You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man / It’s a Gift / International House)

Rating: (out of 37 reviews)

• The Doris Day and Rock Hudson Comedy Collection (Pillow Talk / Lover Come Back / Send Me No Flowers)