Crime comedies, another comedy genre from our top ranked films on the net survey. Once again, many of these overlap genres, most also being romantic comedies, like The Lady Eve. The next, and last comedy group, will feature all the other miscellaneous genres: western, family, horror, fantasy, children's, music. Notice that three of the top five are con-artist stories.
Top Ranked Crime Comedy
1. Lady Eve, The [Sturges, Preston, 1941] #92 [photo top]
2. Kind Hearts and Coronets [Hamer, Robert, 1949] #117 [photo rt]
3. Trouble in Paradise [Lubitsch, Ernst, 1932] #236
4. Crimes and Misdemeanors [Allen, Woody, 1989] #3725. The Sting [Hill, George Roy, 1973] #376
6. The Big Lebowski [Coen, Ethan and Joel, 1998] #386
7. Arsenic and Old Lace [Capra, Frank, 1944] #536
8. Snatch [Ritchie, Guy, 2000] #606
9. Raising Arizona [Coen, Joel and Ethan Coen, 1987] #814
10. Midnight Run [Brest, Martin, 1988] #828
11. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! [Meyer, Russ, 1965] #850
12. To Die For [Van Sant, Gus, 1995] #853
13. Big Deal on Madonna Street [Monicelli, Mario, 1958] #911
14. The Bank Dick [Cline, Edward F., 1940] #968
15. A Fish Called Wanda [Crichton, Charles, 1988] #972
16. The Thin Man [Van Dyke, W.S., 1934] #986
17. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? [Zemeckis, Robert, 1988] #1108
18. Lavender Hill Mob, The [Crichton, Charles, 1951] #1188
19. Female Trouble [Waters, John, 1974] #1193
20. Wild at Heart [Lynch, David1990] #1194
To these I would add
The Ladykillers [Alexander MacKendrick, 1955] - another in the golden era of British comedy, with Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers; stick with the original, the Tom Hanks remake pales in comparison; from the same studio as Kind Hearts (#2) and Lavender Hill Mob (#17), also Man in the White Suit (see Misc Comedy)
Bullets Over Broadway [Woody Allen, 1994] - for me, funnier than Crimes (#4 above); Dianne Wiest won an Oscar for supporting actress, and Jennifer Tilly was also nominated from this, as gangsters invade the Broadway theatrical world
After the Thin Man [Van Dyke, W.S., 1936] - add James Stewart to the cast and I actually think this one is slightly better than the original; 2nd in the series of five, all are well worth seeing; just get the box set. By the way, the thin man was a suspect, not detective Nick Charles (William Powell), but the name stuck
Those are classics at the top and also among my favorites, but I think my favorite comedy overall (for rewatching anyway) is Raising Arizona, ("Boy, did you know you got a panty on yer head?"), which combines the pace of the Keystone cops with the bent minds of the Coen Brothers and bent acting of Nick Cage and Holly Hunter - it also won a poll of stand-up comics as best comedy of all time. Compare the pace of Arizona with that of The Sting, which ironically won Best Picture..
