Comedy film is a genre of
film in which the main emphasis is on
humour. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending (the
black comedy being an exception). One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies. Comedy, unlike other
film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former
stand-up comic transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary (such as
Wag the Dog and
Man of the Year).
Types
A
comedy of manners film satirises the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal. However, the plot is generally less important than its witty dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back at least as far as
Much Ado about Nothing by
William Shakespeare.
In a "fish out of water"-style comedy, the main character (or characters) finds himself in an unusual environment, which drives most of the humor. Situations can be swapping gender roles, as in
Tootsie (1982); an age changing role, as in
Big (1988); a freedom-loving individual fitting into a structured environment, as in
Police Academy (1984); a rural backwoodsman in the big city, as in
Crocodile Dundee, and so forth.
A
parody or spoof film is a comedy that satirizes other film genres or classic films. Such films employ sarcasm, stereotyping, mockery of scenes from other films, and the obviousness of meaning in a character's actions. Examples of this form include
Blazing Saddles (1974),
Airplane! (1980), and
Young Frankenstein (1974).
The
anarchic comedy film uses nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor which often lampoons a form of authority. Films of this nature stem from a theatrical history of anarchic comedy on the stage. Well-known films of this sub-genre include
Duck Soup (1933) and
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).
The
black comedy film deals with normally
taboo subjects, including, death, murder, suicide and war, in a satirical manner. Examples include
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944),
Monsieur Verdoux (1947),
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949),
The Ladykillers (1955),
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964),
The Loved One (1965),
MASH (1970),
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983),
The War of the Roses (1989),
Heathers (1989),
Keeping Mum (2005), and
Burn After Reading (2008).
Gross-out films are a relatively recent development, and rely heavily on vulgar, sexual or "toilet" humour. Examples include
Porky's (1982),
Dumb and Dumber (1994),
There's Something About Mary (1998), and
American Pie (1999).
The
romantic comedy sub-genre typically involves the development of a relationship between a man and a woman. The stereotyped plot line follows the "boy-gets-girl", "boy-loses-girl", "boy gets girl back again" sequence. Naturally there are innumerable variants to this plot, and much of the generally light-hearted comedy lies in the social interactions and sexual tensions between the pair. Examples of this style of film include
It's a Wonderful World (1939),
The Shop Around the Corner (1940),
Sabrina (1954),
When Harry Met Sally... (1989),
Pretty Woman (1990), and
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).
It was not uncommon for the early romantic comedy film to also be a
screwball comedy film. This form of comedy film was particularly popular during the 1930s and 1940s. There is no consensus definition of this film style, and it is often loosely applied to slapstick or romantic comedy films. Typically it can include a romantic element, an interplay between people of different economic strata, quick and witty
repartee, some form of role reversal, and a happy ending. Some examples of the screwball comedy are:
It Happened One Night (1934),
Bringing Up Baby (1938),
Philadelphia Story (1940),
His Girl Friday (1940), and more recently
What's Up, Doc? (1972).
Hybrid genres
- Military comedy films, involve comic situations in a military setting. Examples of military comedy are The Secret War of Harry Frigg, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, Stripes, Up the Academy, MASH, Private Benjamin, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, Tropic Thunder, The Private War of Major Benson, and the boisterous Flagg and Quirt movies.
History
1895–1930
Comic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humor of these silent films relied on slapstick and
burlesque. A very early comedy short was
Watering the Gardener (1895) by the
Lumière brothers. In American film, the most prominent comic actors of the silent era were
Charlie Chaplin (although born in England, his success was principally in the U.S.),
Buster Keaton and
Harold Lloyd. In his native France and throughout the world,
Max Linder was a major comic feature and might qualify as the first true film star.
A popular trend during the 1920s and afterward was comedy in the form of animated cartoons. Several popular characters of the period received the cartoon treatment. Among these were
Felix the Cat,
Krazy Kat, and
Betty Boop.
1930–1950s
Toward the end of the 1920s, the introduction of sound into movies made possible dramatic new film styles and the use of verbal humor. During the 1930s the silent film comedy was replaced by dialogue from film comedians such as the
W. C. Fields and the
Marx Brothers.
Stan Laurel and
Oliver Hardy, who had made a number of very popular short silent films, used the arrival of sound to deepen their well-formed screen characterizations and enhance their visual humour, and went on to great success in talking films. The comedian
Charlie Chaplin was one of the last silent film hold-outs, and his films during the 1930s were devoid of dialogue, although they did employ sound effects.
Screwball comedies, such as produced by
Frank Capra, exhibited a pleasing, idealized climate that portrayed reassuring social values and a certain optimism about everyday life. Movies still included slapstick humor and other physical comedy, but these were now frequently supplemental to the verbal interaction. Another common comic production from the 1930s was the short subject.
Hal Roach Studio specialized in this form. While
Columbia was prolific, producing 190
Three Stooges releases, alone. These non-feature productions only went into decline in the 1950s when they were migrated to the television.
In the
United Kingdom, film adaptations of stage
farces were popular in the early 1930s, while the
music hall tradition strongly influenced film comedy into the 1940s with
Will Hay and
George Formby among the top comedy stars of the time. In England in the late 1940s,
Ealing Studios achieved popular success as well as critical acclaim with a series of films known collectively as the "Ealing comedies", from 1946 to 1956. They usually included a degree of social comment, and featured ensemble casts which often included
Alec Guinness or
Stanley Holloway. Among the most famous examples were
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949),
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and
The Ladykillers (1955).
With the entry of the United States into
World War II,
Hollywood became focused on themes related to the conflict. Comedies portrayed military themes such as service, civil defense, boot-camp and shore-leave. The war-time restrictions on travel made this a boom time for Hollywood, and nearly a quarter of the money spent on attending movies.
The post-war period was an age of reflection on the war, and the emergence of a competing medium, the television. In 1948 TV began to acquire commercial momentum and by the following year there were nearly a hundred television transmitters in American cities.
By the 1950s the television industry had become a serious competition for the movie industry. Despite the technological limitations of the TV medium at the time, more and more people chose to stay home to watch the television. The Hollywood studios at first viewed the TV as a threat, and later as a commercial market. Several comic forms that had previously been a staple of movie theaters transitioned to the TV. Both the short subject and the cartoon now appeared on the TV rather than in the theater, and the "B" movie also found its outlet on the television.
As TV became filled with family-oriented comedies, the 1950s saw a trend toward more adult social situations. Only the
Walt Disney studios continued to steadily release family comedies. The release of comedy films also went into a decline during this decade. In 1947 almost one in five films had been comic in nature, but by 1954 this was down to ten percent.
The 1950s saw the decline of past comedy stars and a certain paucity of new talent in Hollywood. Among the few popular new stars during this period were
Judy Holliday and the comedy team phenom of
Dean Martin and
Jerry Lewis. Lewis followed the legacy of such comedians as Keaton and Harold Lloyd, but his work was not well-received by critics in the United States (in contrast to
France where he proved highly popular.)
The
British film industry produced a number of highly successful film series, however, including the
Doctor series, the
St. Trinian's films and the increasingly bawdy
Carry on films.
John and Roy Boulting also wrote and directed a series of successful
satires, including
Private's Progress (1956) and
I'm All Right, Jack (1959). As in the United States, in the next decade much of this talent would move into television.
A number of French comedians were also able to find an
English speaking audience in the '50s, including
Fernandel and
Jacques Tati.
1960s–1980s
The next decade saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies including
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963),
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and
The Great Race (1965). By the middle of the decade, some of the 1950s generation of American comedians, such as
Jerry Lewis, went into decline, while
Peter Sellers found success with international audiences in his first American film
The Pink Panther. The bumbling
Inspector Clouseau was a character Sellers would continue to return to over the next decade.
Toward the end of the 1950s, darker humor and more serious themes had begun to emerge, including satire and social commentary.
Dr. Strangelove (1964) was a satirical comedy about
Cold War paranoia, while
The Apartment (1960),
Alfie (1966) and
The Graduate (1967) featured sexual themes in a way that would have been impossible only a few years previously.
In 1970 the
black comedies Catch 22 and
M*A*S*H reflected the anti-war sentiment then prevalent, as well as treating the sensitive topic of suicide.
M*A*S*H would be toned down and brought to television in the following decade as a long-running series.
Among the leading lights in comedy films of the next decade were
Woody Allen and
Mel Brooks. Both wrote, directed and appeared in their movies. Brooks' style was generally slapstick and zany in nature, often parodying film styles and
genres, including
Universal horror films (
Young Frankenstein),
westerns (
Blazing Saddles) and
Hitchcock films (
High Anxiety). Following his success on
Broadway and on film with
The Odd Couple playwright and
screenwriter Neil Simon would also be prominent in the 1970s, with films like
The Sunshine Boys and
California Suite. Other notable film comedians who appeared later in the decade were
Richard Pryor,
Steve Martin and
Burt Reynolds.
Most
British comedy films of the early 70s were spin-offs of
television series, including
Dad's Army and
On the Buses. The greatest successes, however, came with the films of the
Monty Python team, including
And Now For Something Completely Different (1971),
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and
Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979.
In 1980 the gag-based comedy
Airplane!, a
spoof of the previous decade's disaster film series was released and paved the way for more of the same including
Top Secret! (1984) and the
Naked Gun films.
Popular comedy stars in the '80s included
Dudley Moore,
Tom Hanks,
Eddie Murphy and
Dan Aykroyd. Many had come to prominence on the American TV series
Saturday Night Live, including
Bill Murray,
Steve Martin and
Chevy Chase. Eddie Murphy made a success of comedy-
action films including
48 Hrs. (1982) and the
Beverly Hills Cop series (1984–1993).
Also popular were the films of
John Hughes such as
Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He would later become best-known for the
Home Alone series of the early 1990s. The latter film helped a revival in comedies aimed at a family audience, along with
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels.
1990s–2000s
One of the major developments of the 1990s was the re-emergence of the
romantic comedy film, encouraged by the success of
When Harry Met Sally... in 1989. Other examples included
Sleepless in Seattle (1993),
Clueless (1995) and
You've Got Mail (1998) from the
United States, and
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994),
Sliding Doors (1998) and
Notting Hill (1999) from the
United Kingdom. Spoofs remained popular as well, especially with the
Scary Movie series and
Not Another Teen Movie.
Probably more representative of
British humour were the working class comedies
Brassed Off (1996) and
The Full Monty (1997). Other
British comedies examined the role of the
Asian community in British life, including
Bhaji on the Beach (1993),
East Is East (1999),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and
Anita and Me (2003).
Also there were "stoner" comedies, which usually involve two guys on an adventure with random things happening to them along the way. Big movies of this sub-genre would be
Dude, Where's My Car,
Big Nothing,
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and
Pineapple Express. These movies usually have drug-related jokes and crude content.
Another development was the increasing use of "
gross-out humor" usually aimed at a younger audience, in films like
There's Something About Mary,
American Pie and its sequels, and
Freddy Got Fingered. In mid 2000s the trend of "gross-out" movies is continuing, with adult-oriented comedies picking up the box office. But serious black comedies (also known as dramatic comedies or
dramedies) were performing also well, such as
The Weather Man,
Broken Flowers and
Shopgirl. In late 2006,
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan blended vulgar humor with cultural satire.
See also
