Comedies

Comedies

76 Episodes

Laugh a little! Screwball, satire, gags, pratfalls, and pranks—we’ve got it all.

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Comedies
  • Monsieur Verdoux

    Episode 1

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1947 • United States
    Starring Charles Chaplin, Mady Correll

    Charlie Chaplin plays shockingly against type in his most controversial film, a brilliant and bleak black comedy about money, marriage, and murder. Chaplin is a twentieth-century bluebeard, an enigmatic fam...

  • The Importance of Being Earnest

    Episode 2

    Directed by Anthony Asquith • 1952 • United Kingdom
    Starring Michael Redgrave, Joan Greenwood, Dame Edith Evans

    Oscar Wilde’s comic jewel sparkles in Anthony Asquith’s film adaptation of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Featuring brilliantly polished performances by Michael Redgrave, Joan Greenw...

  • Speedy

    Episode 3

    Directed by Ted Wilde • 1928 • United States
    Starring Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, Bert Woodruff

    SPEEDY was the last silent feature to star Harold Lloyd—and one of his very best. The slapstick legend reprises his “Glasses Character,” this time as a good-natured but scatterbrained New Yorker who ca...

  • Plácido

    Episode 4

    Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1961 • Spain
    Starring Cassen, José Luis López Vázquez, Elvira Quintillá

    Widely considered one of the greatest works of Spanish cinema, this relentlessly paced satire chronicles an ill-advised charity campaign sweeping across a small industrial town on Christmas...

  • A Slightly Pregnant Man

    Episode 5

    Directed by Jacques Demy • 1973 • France
    Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Micheline Presle

    Feeling out of sorts, Marco (Marcello Mastroianni), an Italian driving instructor living in Paris, pays a visit to the doctor, who promptly diagnoses him as . . . four months pregnant. It’...

  • The Freshman

    Episode 6

    Directed by Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer • 1925 • United States
    Starring Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston

    Harold Lloyd’s biggest box-office hit was this silent comedy gem, featuring the befuddled everyman at his eager best as a new college student. Though he dreams of being a big man on campus, the ...

  • Welcome Mr. Marshall!

    Episode 7

    Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1953 • Spain
    Starring Lolita Sevilla, Manolo Morán, José Isbert

    A distant land shrouded in myth and rumor, America looms large in the cultural imagination of a quiet Castilian village, whose impressionable inhabitants dream of benefitting from the country’s pos...

  • Shoulder Arms

    Episode 8

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1918 • United States

    From the depths of a trench in war-torn France, Chaplin supplies a little levity to a stark situation as an American soldier dreams of one day becoming a WWI hero. A man can dream can't he?

  • Pay Day

    Episode 9

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1922 • United States

    Chaplin plays a productive bricklayer who lives by the adage, "Work hard, play hard." With a stack of money burning a hole in his pocket, he bickers with his wife on the best way to allocate the payday funds.

  • A Taxing Woman’s Return

    Episode 10

    Directed by Juzo Itami • 1988 • Japan
    Starring Nobuko Miyamoto, Rentaro Mikuni, Masahiko Tsugawa

    Nobuko Miyamoto returns to the role of Ryoko Itakura, the tough-as-nails government tax investigator whom you most definitely don’t want to cross, in Juzo Itami’s energetic, genre-twisting follow-up ...

  • The Idle Class

    Episode 11

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1921 • United States

    Idle hands are the devil's workshop; unemployed hands lead to pure mischief. Charlie Chaplin's iconic Tramp takes a "vacation" at a golf resort where he is mistaken for one of the members. The Tramp hopes to merely play through, but landing in t...

  • Tales of a Golden Geisha

    Episode 12

    Directed by Juzo Itami • 1990 • Japan
    Starring Nobuko Miyamoto, Masahiko Tsugawa, Hiroshi Ohkochi

    This thorny sex satire stars the great Nobuko Miyamoto (star of nearly all of director Juzo Itami’s films) as Nayoko, a good-hearted geisha who brings luck to the men she sleeps with—even though mos...

  • Jabberwocky

    Episode 13

    Directed by Terry Gilliam • 1977 • United Kingdom
    Starring Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Warren Mitchell

    Amid the filth and muck of England in the Dark Ages, a fearsome dragon stalks the land, casting a shadow of terror upon the kingdom of Bruno the Questionable. Who should emerge as the only poss...

  • Nice and Friendly

    Episode 14

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1922 • United States

    Filmed at Pickfair, the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, in 1922, as a wedding present for Lord and Lady Mountbatten, this short features Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, and the newlyweds. It is presented with a contemporary score by...

  • The Pilgrim

    Episode 15

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1923 • United States

    A prison escapee trades his state issued attire for that of a pastor, not realizing the holy calling that comes with the garb. The pilgrimage takes him to a Texas border town where he seeks redemption while on the run.

  • Bumping into Broadway

    Episode 16

    Directed by Hal Roach • 1919 • United States

    This 1919 short is the only Harold Lloyd title other than SPEEDY set in New York City, although it was filmed entirely in Los Angeles. BUMPING INTO BROADWAY was also the first two-reeler to star Lloyd's "Glasses Character." This newly restored master ...

  • Sunnyside

    Episode 17

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1919 • United States

    A farm hand is in love with his neighbor, but a city slicker might ruin his chances. Directed by Charlie Chaplin.

  • Plucking the Daisy

    Episode 18

    Directed by Marc Allégret • 1956 • France

    When ultra-respectable General Dumont discovers that his nubile daughter Agnes is "A.D.", author of a scandalous under-the-counter novel, he wants her shipped to a convent; but she escapes to Paris, planning to live with her brother, ostensibly a rich ar...

  • La poison

    Episode 19

    Directed by Sacha Guitry • 1951 • France
    Starring Michel Simon, Germaine Reuver, Jean Debucourt

    The writer, actor, and director Sacha Guitry emerged from the theater to become one of France’s best-known and most inventive filmmakers, and LA POISON marked his first major collaboration with anothe...

  • Yoyo
    1:38:10
    Episode 20

    Yoyo

    Episode 20

    Directed by Pierre Etaix • 1965 • France

    This elaborately conceived and brilliantly mounted comedy is Pierre Etaix’s most beloved movie, as well as his personal favorite. Beginning as a clever homage to silent film, complete with intertitles, YOYO blossoms into a poignant family saga (in which E...

  • Take a Chance

    Episode 21

    Directed by Alfred J. Goulding • 1918 • United States

    In this one-reel film from 1918, Harold Lloyd stars as a man looking to spend his last 25 cents.

  • A Private Function

    Episode 22

    Directed by Malcolm Mowbray • 1984 • United Kingdom
    Starring Maggie Smith, Michael Palin, Bill Paterson

    Harkening back to the classic Ealing comedies, this shrewd social satire (scripted by Alan Bennett) features marvelous performances from Maggie Smith and Michael Palin as Joyce and Gilbert Chi...

  • Number, Please?

    Episode 23

    Directed by Hal Roach and Fred Newmeyer • 1920 • United States

    A young, heartbroken man goes to the amusement park, only to see the girl he lost with a new man.

  • An Eastern Westerner

    Episode 24

    Directed by Hal Roach • 1920 • United States

    In this two-reeler from 1920, a fast and furious parody of western films, Harold Lloyd stars as an East Coast boy shipped off to a ranch; Mildred Davis, who would later become Lloyd’s wife, costars. It is presented here with a new score composed and c...