If you’re looking for a few fun classic movie suggestions, I’ve got them.
Here are five movies that will entertain you and give you some laughs.
Without Love
Without Love (1945) is a fun, quirky movie starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
This was one of 9 films made by the pair between 1942 and 1967.
Most of their movies were romantic comedies like this one.
Spencer plays a scientist named Patrick Jamison who is down on his luck and looking for a place to stay.
Katharine is a widow named Jamie who has a house she needs a caretaker for and hires Patrick to fill the position. They both learn they have a love for science and agree to marry to meet their “patriotic duty.” Both have been hurt in the past, though, and decide to keep the relationship platonic.
Lucille Ball plays Katharine’s friend, Kitty Tremble.
Jamie and Patrick are both very scientific, logical, and serious people who can’t let love get in the way. So, instead, they focus on working on experiments, including one involving velocity.
Parallel to their lack of romance is Lucille’s relationship with Keenan Wynn, where love is blooming even though Kitty isn’t sure she wants it to.
My Favorite Wife
This movie had an interesting concept – if not a bit crazy. Hopefully, you’ll be able to tell as I begin to write about this movie, that this is meant to be a comedy. In fact it was defined back then and now as a screwball comedy.
A man wants to get married, but before he can, he must declare his first wife Ellen (Irene Dunne) dead. She’s been missing at sea and was believed drowned seven years earlier.
It turns out, however, that she is not dead, and she returns while Nick Arden (Cary Grant) is on his honeymoon with wife number two, Bianca (Gail Patrick).
Nick is of course shocked and now has no idea what to do because he has two wives.
It turns out Ellen was stranded on an island all those years and it would have been lonely for her if it wasn’t for Steve Burkett (Randolph Scott) who was stranded with her.
That’s a fact she doesn’t immediately admit to her husband and a fact he’s not real pleased with, even though he’s remarried.
That new wife, by the way, is not a very nice woman.
Oh and don’t forget that Nick and Ellen have two children together and all of that will have to be figured out as well.
To break the news to Nick, Ellen heads to his honeymoon, which was the same hotel and place they had their honeymoon, I might add. How tacky is that of him?!
As the movie goes on we the viewers now have to figure out who we want Nick to end up with.
The Talk of The Town
I loved this movie and while I always love Cary Grant, I once again loved Ronald Colman who I first saw in The Prisoner of Zenda.
This movie starts with a fire at a factory where a man dies. Cary, portraying Leopold Dilg, is arrested for arson and murder.
Soon he’s breaking out of jail and escaping through the woods on a rainy night. He makes his way in the dark toward a small house while dogs hunt him down. The name of the house is Sweetbrook and there is a woman inside getting it ready — maybe for a guest.
Leopold breaks in the door, startling the woman.
“Miss Shelley,” he says. “Please…let me…” And then he faints and falls down the stairs.
Miss Shelley (Jean Arthur) wakes him up with a bucket full of water and he asks if she can stay at the house, which he knows is a rental. She tells him he can’t stay because she knows he has escaped jail. There is a knock on the door before she can finish explaining and she tells him to run upstairs and hide.
There is a Professor Michael Lightcap (Colman) at the door and he’s standing in the rain. He reminds her that he’s rented the house out and he’s here to stay. Miss Shelley, whose first name is Nora, panics because Leopold is hiding upstairs and she doesn’t want the professor to find him.
Things will get more complicated as she makes up an excuse to stay in the house overnight to make sure the professor doesn’t find Leopold.
Complications just keep arising as Nora offers to become the professor’s secretary and housekeeper during his stay, a senator arrives to tell Professor Lightcap he’s up for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, and Leopold walks down one morning to argue about the role of the law in society and Nora has to introduce him as the gardener.
This is a non-stop movie full of hilarious mix-ups, near misses, and a love-triangle that won’t be resolved until the very last minute, literally, of the movie.
As I said above, I loved this movie.
Bringing Up Baby
Bringing Up Baby is absolute chaos and craziness. Everyone except poor Cary Grant is off their rocker and it is glorious.
The movie stars Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. (Yes, there is a theme going on here with actors and actresses……this was not on purpose. I just realized I did that when I hit this one. Oops.)
Katharine is absolutely batty in this film which makes it all even more hilarious.
Cary Grant’s character (Dr. David Huxley) is a paleontologist who accidentally runs into Katherine Hepburn’s character (Susan Vance) a totally nuts socialite who immediately latches on to Cary and decides she’s going to become obsessed with him and make his life a living hell.
In the beginning of the movie, David has been building a dinosaur skeleton for years and the last piece of it has just been found. He and his fiancé – Alice Swallow – are thrilled that the intercostal clavical has been found and will be arriving soon in the mail. Alice – a very uptight, proper women who says the point of their marriage will be to only advance his research and not for love — also knows that more money needs to be secured for his research so she tells David he must go golfing with an important doner.
This is where he meets crazy Susan who tries to steal his car, takes off with him riding on the footboard while he tries to tell her it is his car, and then leads him on various crazy adventures. He runs into her again at a dinner where he is trying to secure a donation from a woman named Elizabeth Randall who is considering a $1 million donation.
The scenes at the dinner party include this a hilarious scene where Katherine’s dress gets ripped and she and Cary have to make their way through a crowded dining room with Cary against her back to make sure nothing is scene. It is so classic and hilarious and always has me laughing.
The Court Jester
The Court Jester (1955) with Angela, Danny Kaye, and Basil Rathbone is a musical/comedy.
The main words to describe this movie are silliness, ridiculousness, and peak Danny Kaye moments.
First, a bit of the plot with a description from Google:
“Former carnival performer Hubert Hawkins (Danny Kaye) and maid Jean (Glynis Johns) are assigned to protect the infant royal heir from tyrannical King Roderick I (Cecil Parker). While Jean takes the baby to an abbey, Hawkins gains access to the court by impersonating the king’s jester, unaware that the jester is really an assassin hired by scheming Sir Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone). When Princess Gwendolyn (Angela Lansbury), falls for Hawkins, a witch secretly aids him in becoming a knight.”
This film is just a lot of craziness caused by misunderstandings, misdirection, and generalized oopsies.
We start the movie by learning that an entire royal family was killed so that the current King, King Roderick I, could take the throne. Actually, though, the entire family wasn’t killed, according to rumors anyhow. The rumors say an infant survived and bears upon his bottom a birthmark of a purple pimpernel.
The rumors further say the child is being cared for in the forest by an “elusive, dashing outlaw” known as the black fox. As if to prove these rumors, one of the king’s men is killed as they are riding near the forest and a note attached to the arrow announces that the child is alive and The Black Fox has him.
Adventure ensues thereafter.
Have you seen any of these? If not, I recommend finding them for a night of silliness and relaxation.
