Video Find the Perfect Gift    Send a Gift Certificate
Search 
Home › Classic Films › Comedy
Actors & Directors
  • Ronnie Barker
  • Harry Secombe
  • Eric Barker
  • Hugh Griffith
  • Eric Sykes
  • Duncan Wood
  • Miriam Karlin
Release date: 1994-02-28
RRP: £10.99
Price: £19.99

Review Rhubarb / The Bargee [1969] / Lumiere Pictures:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Bus Stop [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Eileen Heckart
  • Joshua Logan
  • Don Murray
  • Marilyn Monroe
  • Arthur O'Connell
  • Betty Field
Release date: 1988-07-27
Run time: 96 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.59

Review Bus Stop [1956] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Though it seems dated now, Bus Stop was considered pretty hot stuff in 1956. Directed by Joshua Logan from George Axelrod's script of William Inge's comic-romantic Broadway hit, the film stars Marilyn Monroe as the kind of woman who can't understand why she always brings out the worst in men. She attracts the attention of a young rodeo rider (Don Murray) while on a bus, and finds herself trapped at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard. The young cowboy, whose intentions are honourable, can't control his temper and can't understand why this experienced woman won't take him seriously-and why she rejects him when he begins acting jealous and possessive. Love takes its lumps but comes out slugging in the end, with Marilyn at her vulnerable, jaded best. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com.

Review / In The Doghouse (1961)
Actors & Directors
  • Peggy Cummins
  • Darcy Conyers
  • James Booth
  • Leslie Phillips
Run time: 93 min.

Review In The Doghouse (1961):

Jolly British comedy from the early 60s has Leslie Phillips playing an inept vet who, on finally qualifying, has to contend with the corrupt activities of his classmate, the wiley james Booth. Very enjoyable with Phillips getting away from his usual character.

Review Cinema Club / Doctor In Distress [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Ralph Thomas
  • Mylène Demongeot
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • James Robertson Justice
  • Samantha Eggar
  • Donald Houston
Release date: 1996-06-03
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £8.80

Review Doctor In Distress [1963] / Cinema Club:


Review Clear Vision Ltd / The Plank / It's Your Move [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Jim Perry (II)
  • Dirk Fredericks
Release date: 2002-09-09
Run time: 54 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £11.95

Review The Plank / It's Your Move [1967] / Clear Vision Ltd:


Review Vision Video Ltd. / Laurel And Hardy - Our Wife / Me And My Pal / That's My Wife [1931]
Actors & Directors
  • Stan Laurel
  • Vivien Oakland
  • Lloyd French
  • Eddie Dunn
  • Charles Hall
  • Charles Lloyd
  • James Horne
  • James C. Morton
Release date: 2000-04-17
Run time: 60 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £14.90

Review Laurel And Hardy - Our Wife / Me And My Pal / That's My Wife [1931] / Vision Video Ltd.:


Review Warner Home Video / Carry On Teacher [1959]
Actors & Directors
  • Gerald Thomas
  • Kenneth Williams
  • Leslie Phillips
  • Joan Sims
  • Kenneth Connor
  • Charles Hawtrey
Release date: 1997-08-18
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £6.25

Review Carry On Teacher [1959] / Warner Home Video:

When Carry On Teacher was released in 1959, the series was still in its infancy but all the familiar constituent parts were already in place. Innuendo, naturally, reigns supreme and on the brink of the permissive 1960s it's surprising what Peter Rodgers and the gang were able to get away with. "Are you satisfied with your equipment, Miss Allcock?", child psychologist Leslie Phillips asks gym mistress Joan Sims. Naturally, it isn't five minutes before Miss Allcock's shorts have split, leading to a series of pants gags. And we're off. For Carry On fans, Teacher contains many of the funniest lines and certainly some of the best performances from the whole series. Kenneth Williams is still acting rather than giving his mannerisms a good work out. Hattie Jacques is establishing her gorgon-with-a-soft-centre-for-the-right-man persona and Charles Hawtrey's birdlike twitching makes him ideal as the precious music teacher. A youthful Carol White and Richard O'Sullivan are among the scheming pupils. But you don't have to be a diehard Carry On fan to appreciate the boisterous, sub-St Trinians comedy. [+]
And thanks to Ted Ray's poignant acting as the headmaster, there's a real moment of Mr Chips-style bathos at the very end. On the DVD: Carry On Teacher doesn't gain much from being presented in widescreen. Much of its appeal lies in its familiarity. All we ask for is a clear print-and in black and white this is diamond sharp-and decent sound quality. The whole thing fits like a comfortable old shoe. But apart from the scene index there are no extras on the disc. Given the cult status of the Carry On films, and the wealth of documentary material which has been made about them and their stars, you'd think something extra could have been offered with the DVD releases to make them a more worthwhile alternative to the video. -Piers Ford.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Pink Panther [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Capucine
  • Robert Wagner
  • Brenda De Banzie
  • David Niven
  • Peter Sellers
  • Blake Edwards
Release date: 1995-03-13
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £6.99
Price: £9.99

Review The Pink Panther [1963] / MGM Entertainment:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Dad's Army - The Very Best Of Dad's Army - Vol. 2 [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Harold Snoad
  • Bob Spiers
  • William Gossling
  • David Croft
  • Peter Whitaker
  • Richard Jacques (III)
  • Desmond Cullum-Jones
  • Leslie Noyes
Release date: 1994-10-19
Run time: 149 min.
Price: £12.99

Review Dad's Army - The Very Best Of Dad's Army - Vol. 2 [1968] / 2 Entertain Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Henry McGee
  • Charlie Drake
Release date: 1997-07-21
Run time: 74 min.
Price: £5.99

Review The Worker [1966] / 4 Front Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949]
Actors & Directors
  • Dennis Price
  • Robert Hamer
  • Joan Greenwood
  • Valerie Hobson
  • Alec Guinness
  • Audrey Fildes
Release date: 1998-07-06
Run time: 101 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £0.99

Review Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949] / Warner Home Video:

Set in Victorian England, Robert Hamer's 1949 masterpiece Kind Hearts and Coronets remains the most gracefully mordant of Ealing Comedies. Dennis Price plays Louis D'Ascoyne, the would-be Duke of Chalfont whose Mother was spurned by her noble family for marrying an Italian singer for love. Louis resolves to murder the several of his relatives ahead of him in line for the Dukedom, all of whom are played by Alec Guinness, in order to avenge his Mother-for, as Louis observes, " revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold". He gets away with it, only to be arraigned for the one murder of which he is innocent. Guinness' virtuoso performances have been justly celebrated, ranging as they do from a youthful D'Ascoyne concealing his enthusiasm for public houses from his priggish wife ("she has views on such places") to a brace of doomed uncles and one aunt, ranging from the doddery to the peppery. Miles Malleson is a splendid doggerel-spouting hangman, while Valerie Hobson and Joan Greenwood take advantage of unusually strong female roles. But the great joy of Kind Hearts and Coronets is the way in which its appallingly black subject matter (considered beyond the pale by many critics at the time) is conveyed in such elegantly ironic turns of phrase by Dennis Price's narrator/anti-hero. Serial murder has never been conducted with such exquisite manners and discreet charm. -David Stubbs.

Review Connoisseur Video / The Kid Brother [1927]
Actors & Directors
  • Harold Lloyd
  • Jobyna Ralston
  • Leo Willis
  • Ted Wilde
  • J.A. Howe
  • Olin Francis
Release date: 1996-09-30
Run time: 83 min.
Price: £12.99

Review The Kid Brother [1927] / Connoisseur Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Green Man, The / Will Any Gentleman? [1956]
Actors & Directors
  • Veronica Hurst
  • Michael Anderson
  • Heather Thatcher
  • Jon Pertwee
  • George Cole
  • James Hayter
Release date: 1994-02-07
Run time: 156 min.
Price: £12.99

Review Green Man, The / Will Any Gentleman? [1956] / Warner Home Video:


Review Vision Video Ltd. / Laurel And Hardy - Pardon Us - Restored Version [1931]
Actors & Directors
  • Wilfred Lucas
  • Oliver Hardy
  • Stan Laurel
  • Walter Long
  • James Parrott
  • June Marlow
Release date: 1997-07-14
Run time: 68 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £8.94

Review Laurel And Hardy - Pardon Us - Restored Version [1931] / Vision Video Ltd.:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Dad's Army - Room At The Bottom/War Dance/Getting The Bird [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Peter Whitaker
  • William Gossling
  • Harold Snoad
  • Bob Spiers
  • Richard Jacques (III)
  • David Croft
  • Leslie Noyes
  • Desmond Cullum-Jones
Release date: 1997-03-03
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £7.95

Review Dad's Army - Room At The Bottom/War Dance/Getting The Bird [1968] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Carry On Cabby [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Hattie Jacques
  • Charles Hawtrey
  • Sid James
  • Esma Cannon
  • Kenneth Connor
  • Gerald Thomas
Release date: 1997-08-18
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £6.97

Review Carry On Cabby [1963] / Warner Home Video:

A rare Carry On with more interest in having a proper plot than tossing off gags every line, Cabby is also one of the friendliest of the series, built around the relationship between a cackling but good-hearted Sid James and an unusually touching Hattie Jacques. Sid's so obsessed with his taxi business that he neglects his wife, spending their wedding anniversary driving expectant father Jim Dale to and from the maternity hospital on a false alarm that naturally pays off with a delivery in the back of the cab. This drives Hattie to set up her own rival firm ("Glam Cabs"), employing dolly birds in tailored uniforms to undercut the likes of Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey. It ends happily, with a pair of hold-up men trapped in a ring of taxis and the marriage saved. Among the expected Carry On bits: Connor in drag, Amanda Barrie in a corset, Hawtrey in a leather jacket as a devout rambler ("We like to go as far as we can"), Liz Fraser as Connor's perky intended. Kenneth Williams is missed, but his role as the obnoxious shop steward (Carry On producer Peter Rogers never missed a chance to be nasty about the unions) is ably taken by Norman Chappell. Other familiar faces are Bill Owen, Peter Gilmore, Milo O'Shea, Renee Houston and Michael Ward as the tweedy businessman who has apparently left a pearl earring in the back of Connor's cab. On the DVD: No extras, but it's a smashing widescreen presentation of a pristine black and white print. -Kim Newman.

Review Rank DD20903 / Rockets Galore [1953]
Actors & Directors
  • Donald Sinden
  • Ronnie Corbett
  • Gordon Jackson
Run time: 88 min.
Price: £12.99

Review Rockets Galore [1953] / Rank DD20903:

The sequel to 'Whisky Galore' sees the islanders of Todday once more at odds with the authorities from the mainland.

Review Warner Home Video / Laurel And Hardy - Air Raid Wardens [1943]
Actors & Directors
  • Stan Laurel
  • Jacqueline White
  • Oliver Hardy
  • Horace McNally
  • Edgar Kennedy
  • Edward Sedgwick
Release date: 2000-06-05
Run time: 68 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £26.95

Review Laurel And Hardy - Air Raid Wardens [1943] / Warner Home Video:


Review Cinema Club / Carry On Again Doctor [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Joan Sims
  • Kenneth Williams
  • Sid James
  • Gerald Thomas
  • Charles Hawtrey
  • Jim Dale
Release date: 1996-01-12
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £9.98

Review Carry On Again Doctor [1969] / Cinema Club:

The title of 1969's Carry On Again Doctor says it all; almost the same cast playing similar characters to their previous year's outing in Carry On Doctor. This one rejoices in the alternative title "Bowels are Ringing". But the enduring popularity of these films owes almost everything to their basic formula and if it occasionally seems a bit cobbled together, all the old favourites are still here. This time, the setting moves from the National Health Service to the private sector and even stretches as far as the "Beatific Islands" when Jim Dale is exiled to a missionary clinic for his overzealous attention to the female patients-who include Barbara Windsor of course. There, orderly Sid James rules the roost of the clinic with his harem of local women. Trivia addicts can spot Mrs Michael Caine in a brief role as a token dusky maiden. The second half of the Talbot Rothwell script picks up nicely as the characters converge on the private hospital back in England where Dale rakes in the money with a bogus weight loss treatment. Hattie Jacques is in fine form as Matron, Kenneth Williams fascinates with his usual mass of mannerisms and Joan Sims is stately as the Lady Bountiful figure financing most of the shenanigans. It's a tribute to their professionalism that we can still lose ourselves in some of the creakiest old jokes around. -Piers Ford.

Review Warner Home Video / Arsenic And Old Lace [1944]
Actors & Directors
  • Cary Grant
  • Jean Adair
  • Josephine Hull
  • Raymond Massey
  • Frank Capra
  • Peter Lorre
Release date: 2000-02-14
Run time: 113 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.44

Review Arsenic And Old Lace [1944] / Warner Home Video:

In 1941, when Frank Capra filmed Arsenic and Old Lace, he was in the midst of his string of social-concern pictures. So this uncharacteristic property must have seemed like a vacation; it's a straight farce, played at full tilt and closely adapted from the Broadway play. Almost all of the action takes place on a single set: the old home of the Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair), those dear, dotty old ladies who mix up a very special elderberry wine. Very special. As their nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) discovers on the eve of his wedding, the two ladies have been spiking the wine with poison and sending lonely gentleman callers off to the great beyond. More specifically, they've been burying them in the cellar with the help of nutty Uncle Teddy, who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt (and thus digging the Panama Canal down in the basement). The ominous happenings are made more sinister with the arrival of another menacing relative (RaymondMassey) and his quack doctor (Peter Lorre), who look and act like refugees from a horror movie. Played completely over the top, this movie offers up lots of bracing slapstick, with Grant run to near exhaustion by the galloping insanity of his family. Although Capra shot the film in 1941, prior to his making military films during World War II, the film was not released until 1944; the contract stipulated that the movie not come out before the play ended its enormously successful run. -Robert Horton.

Browse Comedy:

Models & Brands:
Rhubarb / The Bargee [1969], Bus Stop [1956], In The Doghouse (1961), Doctor In Distress [1963], The Plank / It's Your Move [1967], Laurel And Hardy - Our Wife / Me And My Pal / That's My Wife [1931], Carry On Teacher [1959], The Pink Panther [1963], Dad's Army - The Very Best Of Dad's Army - Vol. 2 [1968], The Worker [1966], Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949], The Kid Brother [1927], Green Man, The / Will Any Gentleman? [1956], Laurel And Hardy - Pardon Us - Restored Version [1931], Dad's Army - Room At The Bottom/War Dance/Getting The Bird [1968], Carry On Cabby [1963], Rockets Galore [1953], Laurel And Hardy - Air Raid Wardens [1943], Carry On Again Doctor [1969], Arsenic And Old Lace [1944]

Top headlines:
Search 
DVD Rental: try it for free