Comedy films you wish had a bigger impact

[Black_Bart]

I thought he was, I haven't seen it for over 20 years tho'.

[Norton Canes]

The Tall Guy, if it hasn't been mentioned already. Decent enough in places and could easily have caught on in a Four Weddings type way.

And that film the Outnumbered people wrote, with David Tennant and Billy Connolly. Thought that might have done better. Though I haven't seen it.

[zomgmouse]

Speaking of Billy Connolly, Still Crazy is widely underseen, especially considering the cast: Nighy! Connolly! Spall! Rea! And, er, Nail...! Written by Clement/La Frenais. Really funny film.

[Gulftastic]

Grosse Pointe Blank is a great film. I love the fight scene in it too. Pretty brutal.

One of my exes looks exactly like Minnie Driver, even has the coathanger jaw and everything. Sigh.

The other bloke in it was Cusack's real life Karate instructor, I think.

Despite the brutal nature of the fight, the bit that makes me wince the most is when they drop the would-be assassin's dead body down the steps head first. I know he's dead, but he lands head first.

And John Cusack is really tall. He makes Abraham out off of The Walking Dead look like a right short arse in their couple of scenes, whereas in TWD he looks to be a big guy.

[Shit Good Nose]

The other bloke in it was Cusack's real life Karate instructor, I think.

That "other bloke" being Benny Urquidez.  He's a bit more than Cusack's karate instructor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Urquidez

[Rizla]

The Bob & Doug McKenzie film "Strange Brew" is pretty great yet languishes in obscurity . I love the the film-within-the-film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4KTebUT6Mw

[George White]

Even more obscure than Strange Brew is another SCTV spinoff, the made-for-HBO mockumentary, The Shmenges - The Last Polka. IMO funnier than Spinal Tap, featuring John Candy and Eugene Levy as the titular Leutonian polka legends. A sort of parody of easy listening aimed at geriatrics, brilliantly done. Rick Moranis' cameo almost steals the show.

I absolutely loved Top Secret to shreds back in the eighties, and when it turned up on ITV over Christmas 1986 I watched the videotape so often it eventually wore out. A couple of years ago, I went looking for a DVD release in the hope that it would still be marvellous, only to find the R2 DVD was long out of print and the few traders on Ebay who had copies wanted a small fortune for it. Not to be deterred, I bought the R1 DVD and...

...Yeah, I can see why I loved it back then. It's fast-paced, it's packed to the rafters with gags, it's joyously silly, there's the marvellous part where the animated overhead view / road map turns into a game of Pac-Man, but overall it left me cold. I know the Airplane films managed to cram in parodies of all kinds of films in tandem with the central spoofing of airline disaster movies and Zero Hour, but Top Secret apparently couldn't decide if it wanted to be set in the early forties, the early sixties or the present day; if it wanted to spoof Elvis / rock and roll films or World War Two films; if it wanted to be Ripping Yarns or Kentucky Fried Movie, Monty Python or Mel Brooks... the net result was that I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to be watching half the time, a similar sensation that always prevented me from enjoying the Blues Brothers as effortlessly as other people seem to embrace it.

I still think the "Yes, I am Albert Potato" exchange is a fine example of schoolboy comedy done properly, though.

As for my own comedy films that I wish had a bigger impact, I'd go with the following...

The Last Remake of Beau Geste - Marty Feldman's utterly barmy mid-seventies vehicle with small and large parts for just about everyone in British comedy at the time. Apparently the final cut ran something like three hours and Universal realised that giving him free reign was a bad idea before Feldman himself brought in Jim Clark to whip the footage into its present shape, and even casual viewers can see a hell of a lot of recutting, reshooting and reshaping has gone on, but there's so much to enjoy and such a high level of invention that complaining about it seems churlish.

Better off Dead - Fair enough, it seems to be set in stone as an eighties classic now, but I'd love to see it fully embraced in the same way that things like the Breakfast Club and even Porky's are embraced as a very funny film in its own right, without the need to claim you like it for nostalgic reasons. It's just crammed with quotable dialogue, too - "I've been at this high school for seven years. I'm no dummy!"

The Last Remake of Beau Geste I agree is underrated. It also features my grandad in a cameo as Trevor Howard's coachman. He was the animal arranger at Ardmore studios.
Top Secret, I think the idea of the generic time period is something that occurs in a lesser extent in Airplane! and in Police Squad too. It's the 70s but informed via old Hollywood movies and 50s TV shows. Police Squad was made to look like a 60s cop show. And in Airplane!, the Bernstein score, the scene with the girl in 40s costume chasing the plane; the war" we hear speak of should be Vietnam, but with mentions of the Barbary Coast and knowing Zero Hour! and also the vintage uniforms, is clearly supposed to be WW2, even though Robert Hays is too young (while Robert Stack did serve in the Navy at the time). And this is lampshaded by the flashbacks being of early failed attempts at aircraft. It's eschewing a local timeframe in lieu of "rule of funny".

Peter Chelsom's early films, Hear My Song and Funny Bones are liked, but they need to be loved IMO. Both lovely films, and both capture the soul of British (and in HMS' case, Irish) clubland.

[zomgmouse]

Have people seen Loaded Weapon 1? That is a surprisingly great parody film.

[Alberon]

Loaded Weapon 1 is a good one though not an absolute classic. It pisses from a great height on anything that passes for a parody movie these days though.

[Glebe]

Not sure I've seen Loaded Weapon 1 all the way through... it's fairly broad, but there are some very funny gags.

[Shit Good Nose]

Big fan of Loaded Weapon.  Highlight is Frank McRae, ostensibly playing exactly the same character as he does in Last Action Hero.

[confettiinmyhair]

Hot Shots! Part Deux isn't really mentioned, it was a daring film made smack bang in the midst of the Gulf War and bumbling President Benson is a prototype version of Bush and Trump.

[Gulftastic]

Hot Shots! Part Deux isn't really mentioned, it was a daring film made smack bang in the midst of the Gulf War and bumbling President Benson is a prototype version of Bush and Trump.

A film that should always be mentioned when the question 'Name a sequel that is better than the original' comes up.

I love Hot Shots Part Deux a great deal.

[armful]

A film that should always be mentioned when the question 'Name a sequel that is better than the original' comes up.

I love Hot Shots Part Deux a great deal.

I hadn't seen Hot shots since I was a kid, I watched it last month and I was surprised how well it had aged, lots of genuine laugh out loud moments. Love or hate him Charlie Sheen has natural  comic timing. 
I cant recall Part Deux but if it's the  better  of the two  films I'm in for a treat when I bother to watch  it.   

[Small Man Big Horse]

Thanks to all those who recommended Dirty Work, despite liking Norm a lot I'd somehow never seen it, but really enjoyed it. It slightly tails of towards the end but the big finale works well and the last line is a fantastic one.

[greenman]

The other bloke in it was Cusack's real life Karate instructor, I think.

Despite the brutal nature of the fight, the bit that makes me wince the most is when they drop the would-be assassin's dead body down the steps head first. I know he's dead, but he lands head first.

Benny Urquidez, pretty famous karate fighter(as karate fighters go) and featured in the fights at the end of a couple of Jackie Chan films that are also pretty brutal...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r886GqswxBE

[GeeWhiz]

My love of middling Coogan effort The Parole Officer knows no bounds. I know a lot of people felt it was an under-cooked deal, but it's full of great one-liners and great farce. The vomit-coaster scene is brilliantly stupid, as is much of the heist finale. I'm not quite sure where it fit in the comedy landscape - I suppose basing it on a new character was never a solid career move - but, as with much of Coogan's Run, it's interesting to spot the seeds of Alpha Papa dwelling somewhere in the bathos-rich subversion of yer' typical crime story.

Well. I liked it.

[Puce Moment]

I would like to echo my adoration for Grosse Pointe Blank - a highly underrated film that I can watch so many times. The film is packed full of wonderful set-pieces and brilliant dialogue, and hangs on a really affecting central concept of 'returning'.

The shoot-out in the petrol station, the fight in the school - all wonderful moments. But there are some really nice observations as well - I love the moment when he stares into the baby's face, and the opening scene with Jeremy Piven in the car has brilliant dialogue.

The script is fucking tight as a squirrel's minge, but I rarely hear it being mentioned, and I never see it on TV.

[GeeWhiz]

I would like to echo my adoration for Grosse Pointe Blank - a highly underrated film that I can watch so many times. The film is packed full of wonderful set-pieces and brilliant dialogue, and hangs on a really affecting central concept of 'returning'.

The shoot-out in the petrol station, the fight in the school - all wonderful moments. But there are some really nice observations as well - I love the moment when he stares into the baby's face, and the opening scene with Jeremy Piven in the car has brilliant dialogue.

The script is fucking tight as a squirrel's minge, but I rarely hear it being mentioned, and I never see it on TV.

The baby's face scene is great, as is the stuff with Minnie Driver's dad.
Excellent stuff.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Idiocracy - I guess it has recently gained some interest in the run-up to Trump being elected, but this is such a razorsharp insight into our near or even present future. There are some brilliantly funny sections.

I thought that was a good idea executed poorly. It seemed cartoonish, which I guess is unsurprising given it was Mike Judge, he doesn't really seem to give his film characters any more depth than his cartoon characters, that worked really well in office space as it added to Peter's existential despair, but I'm not sure it was intentional.

Anyhow your mention of Trump has jogged my memory and I think Wag the Dog and Bob Roberts deserve to be in here, the latter now seeming to be extremely prescient.

[Gulftastic]

Goon, starring Sean William Scott

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goon_(film)

Caught it by accident one night on Film 4 and loved it. As it says on wikipedia, it can be seen as in bad taste now that the results of sporting head trauma is being more understood, but I really liked it. It's lack of

Spoiler alert

a 'do we really need to fight?' ending

[close]

pleased me no end.

And Josie & The Pussycats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josie_and_the_Pussycats_(film)

Again as noted on wikipedia, some critics didn't like the constant product placement. You can see it as having their cake and eating it, but I thought it played nicely to the theme of the whole movie. The spoof boyband 'Du Jour' is fantastic.

[Baby Of The Year]

It may well be S4C but I found Get Him To The Greek to be an unexpected hoot and one that's never mentioned.

Also films I have found to be rib ticklers without really being billed as such: Burn After Reading and The Informant.

Down Terrace?

[manticore]

Has Braindead had an impact? It's the most relentlessly funny and inventive film I've seen (apart from Airplane), at least once the scene has been set. The things you can do to the human (zombie) body!

And I'm hard to please, I really don't like films in general.

[hewantstolurkatad]

The Color Wheel never seemed to pick up the traction I had expected. Somewhat surprising considering Alex Ross Perry has become a bigger name than most the young directors of that period.

Whether it counts as a comedy is debatable I guess, but I'm endlessly surprised that American Movie seems to be one of those films that didn't pick up much of an audience beyond the initial hype period. Honestly unsure if I've ever met anyone who said they saw it. A ridiculously charming and funny documentary.

Several Bill Forsyth films have all but vanished from any kind of prominence. It'd be pretty hard to argue Local Hero didn't have an absolutely gigantic impact, but Comfort and Joy is a lovely sleepy beaut of an odd little film.

Girlfriends from 1978 isn't exactly super funny but iirc it was a bloody good film and as far as "films-by-women-about-women" go it was wayyyyy ahead of its time. Pretty depressing in a way that something like

Spoiler alert

Obvious Child

[close]

gets raves for being progressive when near 40 years earlier Girlfriends was there.

Babe, if it counts? Pretty bizarre that this film somehow slipped from being a  best picture nominee with the best reviews of the year to being just another film from your childhood in so many people's eyes.

Spike Lee can be absolutely ridiculously funny by times. A lot of it requires being very  ready for just how heavy handed he's going to be but when he hits it makes up for several wide misses each time. Chi-raq and Bamboozled immediately spring to mind, especially the former, there's some parts of it where I was simultaneously going "this is just fucking dumb" and absolutely loving it at the same time, Samuel L Jackson clearly having a fucking whale of a time narrating certainly helps.

[SteveDave]

And Josie & The Pussycats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josie_and_the_Pussycats_(film)

Again as noted on wikipedia, some critics didn't like the constant product placement. You can see it as having their cake and eating it, but I thought it played nicely to the theme of the whole movie. The spoof boyband 'Du Jour' is fantastic.

Seconded. There's a lot of druks humour for a supposedly kids film too. Parker Posey writing her initials in a massive pile of coke for one.

[mobias]

Good to see a lot of love Top Secret on here. I genuinely prefer it to Airplane. It just goes so far beyond it. Some of the scenes and gags in it are so unlike anything thats ever been done before or since. I've watched it hundreds of times since a very early age and almost each time I've found something different to utterly crap myself laughing at. There seems to be layers of ridiculousness to it and once you notice something it seems to lead other stuff going on that you perhaps hadn't noticed before. Airplane is a work of utterly refined comedic perfection but its not as detailed as Top Secret I don't think.

It has this scene in it which out of any scene in any movie ever is the the scene that has most crossed my mind at various points in my life when things have seemed really bad and each time it always makes me laugh to myself and cheers me up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDFJVUaXUI

[mobias]

Another film I'll add to this list is Mike Myers So I Married an Axe Murderer. A far superior rom com than any of the Richard Curtis mush and one of the few rom coms I've repeatedly watched over the years. Some amazing scenes. Its got quite a weak final act but other than that I don't know why it bombed at the box office so badly. Maybe people just couldn't take Mike Myers as an everyday leading man and not put in an over the top performance in the wake of Wayne's World. Also, So I Married an Axe Murderer is a bit of a naff title. They could have come up with something better I think. 

[phantom_power]

Yeah I used to watch So I Married An Axe Murderer a lot. There are some OTT performances in the side characters. I like the scottish dad, who is a better version of Fat Bastard from Sustin Powers.

"Heed! Doon!"

[Shit Good Nose]

Look at the size o' tha' boy's heed.  It's like an orange on a toothpack.  It's like Sputnik.  He'll be crying himsel' to sleep toneet...on his extra laaaaarge pillah!

[mobias]

Yeah the Scottish dad is quite a spectacular performance from Myers. The accent is both ridiculous but also really well done at the same time. I really like Alan Arkin as the 'too nice' police captain.

I love the little scenes in it like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsgVCxRjSJ4

and this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7mS9H_TOM&t=30s