The Classic Comedies survey is now open for voting.

Simply click on the link below :

http://esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=4ff1...69-71347526159c

You will find a list of 100 Classic Comedies. Please vote for up to ten of these titles by ticking the appropriate boxes next to the films. If you vote for more than 10 I will only count 10 of the votes. When you are finished clicking the green finished box will return you to the board.

I'll likely bulk email all the members all these surveys soon. I'm hoping for lots of votes as this is totally confidential, you don't need to tell anyone what films you voted for but if you want please do.

Needless to say TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932) made it onto my list!

How sad is it - these are probabley the only comedies I
have seen. I am too much of a depressant to actually
enjoy comedies. I do like "The Cameraman" though,
and "Pardon Us" . They are my two favourites - although
I realize that not every funny film can make your list.

Our Hospitality (1923)
Animal Crackers (1930)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
It Happened One Night (1934)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
Genevieve (1953) - it's the best
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953)
The Lady Killers (1955)
Pillow Talk (1959)

My votes :

The Gold Rush (1925)
The General (1927)
The Kid Brother (1927)
Duck Soup (1933)
It Happened One Night (1934)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
To Be or Not To Be (1942)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Some Like it Hot (1959)

My votes:

The Kid (1921) - my favorite film ever
Girl Shy (1924)
The Gold Rush (1925)
The General (1927)
City Lights (1931)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936) - the film that made me a Gary Cooper fan (yes, you can start hating it now! :P )
My Man Godfrey (1936) - IMO, the funniest talkie there is!
The Awful Truth (1937)
Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

I know, I am sounding like a broken record. There are so many of this list that are not comedies, or at least they weren't intended to be comedies, and there are so many left off. I voted for 10, but then I wanted to go back and vote for 10 or even 20 more.

I really and truly would be willing to help with this, as we break it all down to members contributing their 10 favorite films of each decade, one year at a time. They would be three under Must See, three under Highly Recommended and four under Recommended. At the end of certain time period we would then be allowed to cast a vote for that decade. After we get through to the current years, we then would go back and vote for the top ten of each decade and then a top ten of all time.

Then I think our list would be more acceptable to everyone else who would read it, and we would have something to talk about for some time to come.

These surveys are a great idea, but I think we ought to let the members contribute to the list. Because like all the others these films are just one person's thoughts as to what is good and what isn't.

I am volunteering to help with this project if you want to do it the right way.

:tip:

Thanks again for taking the time to make these interesting comments dvdjunkie.

I'll try and explain here the reasoning behind these surveys but as I've said this doesn't stop anyone doing just what you are suggesting. Top Tens by era, year whatever : I'm certainly up for top tens by year I'll have a good think and start posting threads by year soon.

As for the comedies not sure what you mean to be honest which titles in the list aren't or were not meant to be comedies ? Again its the way individuals perceive the genre I suppose.

The Top ten films by decade as I've said would be just as difficult if not more difficult for members than by genre. If you did it by decade too you would have the same number of nominees or movies for the 30s, 40s and 50s as the 70s, 80s and 90s. However you did the votes I expect more people on our board would post lists for the 30s than the 80s or vote for movies from the 30s than the 80s so there are problems already in the era approach. You can't really weigh each decade equally.

I'll try and give you an example :

Say you asked for top ten movies of the 30s and you got ten lists and came to an overall top 10 of the 30s that way.

Then you asked for a top ten of the 80s and got just two responses.

Is it right that both should be equal ?

The other problem I foresee is in asking for lists I doubt you would get enough responses to get really balanced results that reflect the board. It
takes time to make lists and it isn't everyone's cup of tea, you could just say as I've done in the past just vote for as few or little movies as you can or say up to 10. You don't want individuals voting for large numbers of movies which will skew your results.

I also feel and maybe I'm wrong with the board being a bit quiet though it revived a bit in the last few days the chances of getting many lists is lessened too.

So that is why I didn't do it by era (the board's make-up and character) and I felt the confidential nature of just clicking boxes next to movies was more likely to get us more data.

Still top tens by year or decade are fine ideas for threads, by all means have surveys of your own using whatever methods you want or even just make them fun and interesting threads. As I've said I'm going to do yearly top tens myself soon.

I can't believe I've made a list that contains not one movie directed by Billy Wilder, nor a single Ealing comedy; if I'd been told that before I started voting, I'd have been quite shocked! But that's just the way it worked out. I picked my ten absolute favourites without worrying about quotas or any such nonsense! ;) The fact that a couple of movies I would have seriously considered weren't on the list made things a little easier too. I'm just glad I didn't have to rank these in order of preference:

City Lights
Modern Times
The Awful Truth
Nothing Sacred
Ninotchka
His Girl Friday
Sullivan's Travels
The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek
Born Yesterday
Dr Strangelove

Oh, and as this is my first post here in almost two years, may I just say a big hello to everybody... :wave2:

And a big hello to you too Domestique... Glad you came back, we missed you... Love that avatar of Carole Lombard in glorious Technicolor!! :D

Well, I went through the whole list and was able to select only six (6) comedies as among my favorites. As comedies, that is.

Stranger still, only two of my six selections are talkies, The Awful Truth (1937) and Sullivan's Travels (1941). By the way, I consider Sullivan's Travels one of the finest movies ever made, in ANY category.

Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd dominated the rest of my choices. I'm surprised that I selected none of the Buster Keaton films, because I am very fond of his work. But remember, I was selecting them as laughing-out-loud comedies; and although I marvel at Keaton's acting and directing, none of the Keaton features on your list ever made me laugh out loud. Chaplin and Lloyd did, though.

If you had included short subjects, Buster would have "busted" through, with One Week (1920) and Cops (1922). Total knee-slappers, they are.

As for the talkie selections you put forward: All of them are fairly amusing, here and there, but none of them ever moved me to total, helpless laughing fits. For THAT, you would have to include two sound films that did just that:

The Thrill of it All (1963) and Avanti! (1972).

Cheers,
Dan

Thanks for that David; it's very nice to be here! The avatar is from Nothing Sacred, my favourite Lombard movie, and always a contender when I'm choosing an all-time top ten. The colour in that film looks very primitive (made in 1937), but it's probably deteriorated over time. And my DVD copy is pretty poor-quality too, so it's definitely high on my wish-list for a frame-by-frame restoration! :)