All tagged My Man Godfrey
People always ask me what my favorite film comedy is. I always reply, “Do you mean classic comedy or contemporary comedy?” If they answer, “classic”, I always reply with My Man Godfrey, one of the most sparkling, intellectual, and downright downright wacky film comedies of early Hollywood (it was made in 1936). If their answer is “contemporary”, I immediately announce Throw Momma From the Train as my choice. For the same reasons that I love My Man Godfrey, I marvel at the humor, timing, and insanity that just makes Throw Momma From the Train special. It allows itself to be entirely human and entirely wacko at the same time. It gets at the heart of who we are as people and how we let our egos control who we are. That’s funny stuff. We need to laugh at ourselves.
Classic comedy of the early Silver Screen. There is nothing quite like it. Whether it is Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, or William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man, there is a style and charm to how these classics were made. For my money, though, the one that grabs my heart with every viewing is the 1936 film My Man Godfrey. Starring William Powell and Carole Lombard, every moment in this film brims with wit and wackiness.
Have you ever been feeling sick or overcome with the blues and you needed something to shake you out of the funk that you are in? Of course, you have. One of the best ways to reassemble your deteriorating world is to curl up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and go on a movie comedy binge. They say that “laughter is the best medicine”, and “they” (whoever “they” are) are absolutely correct! For my money, here are a dozen film comedies that are guaranteed to make you feel better, no matter what is ailing you!
I am the first person to say that I prefer original musicals, with original stories, to those adapted from films, but realistically, most major musicals of yesteryear were adapted from plays. It was inevitable that we would turn to film as the basis for our musicals. Truthfully, there have been some artful and/or delightful musicals adapted from films that I have quite enjoyed. Among them are Carnival!, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, La Cage aux Folles, The Producers, Spamalot, Grey Gardens, and Little Shop of Horrors come to mind as fully realized adaptations that are augmented by the musical form.
