The 1960s was a turbulent decade. It was the era of the Vietnam War, civil rights movements, and unprecedented cultural shifts. It was a decade of Woodstock, the Summer of Love and political assassinations.
Comedy in the '60s reflected these shifting cultural sands from the mindless Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) to the dark political comedy of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
From the time of Charles Chaplin, social and political commentary was always fair game - though filmmakers had a much easier time with this in the '60s than in previous eras.
While there was plenty of "light comedy" films being made; Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), there were also a number of dark comedies that pushed against the accepted norms of the day: The President’s Analyst (1967), The Magic Christian (1969) and the incredibly provocative: The Graduate (1967).
Establishing themselves in the comedy genre of this era: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Tony Curtis, Dick Van Dyke, Rock Hudson, and James Garner.
Comedy in the '60s reflected these shifting cultural sands from the mindless Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) to the dark political comedy of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
From the time of Charles Chaplin, social and political commentary was always fair game - though filmmakers had a much easier time with this in the '60s than in previous eras.
While there was plenty of "light comedy" films being made; Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), there were also a number of dark comedies that pushed against the accepted norms of the day: The President’s Analyst (1967), The Magic Christian (1969) and the incredibly provocative: The Graduate (1967).
Establishing themselves in the comedy genre of this era: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Tony Curtis, Dick Van Dyke, Rock Hudson, and James Garner.
COMEDY FILMS OF THE 1960s

(125 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
The British title of Billy Wilder's classic comedy was Meet Whiplash Willie -- for, despite Jack Lemmon's star billing, the movie's driving force is Oscar-winning Walter Matthau as gloriously underhanded lawyer "Whiplash" Willie Gingrich. CBS cameraman Harry Hinkle (Lemmon) is injured when he is accidentally bulldozed by football player Luther "Boom Boom" Jackson (Ron Rich) during a Cleveland Browns game. Willie, Harry's brother-in-law, foresees an insurance-settlement bonanza, and he convinces Harry to pretend to be incapacitated by the accident. To insure his client's cooperation, Willie arranges for Harry's covetous ex-wife Sandy (Judi West) to feign a rekindling of their romance. Harry's conscience is plagued by the solicitous behavior of Boom Boom, who is so devastated at causing Harry's injury that he insists on waiting on the "cripple" hand and foot. Meanwhile, dishevelled private eye Purkey (Cliff Osmond) keeps Harry under constant surveillance, hoping to catch him moving around so the insurance company can avoid shelling out a fortune. Wilder and usual co-writer I.A.L. Diamond were at their most jaundiced and cynical here, even if, after a sardonic semiclimax, the last ten minutes succumb to the sentimentality that often marred Wilder's later movies.
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Cliff Osmond, Judi West | Directed by: Billy Wilder

(106 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
"Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) would rather float in his parents' pool than follow adult advice about his future. But the exhortation of family friend Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) to seize every possible opportunity inspires Ben to accept an offer of sex from icily feline Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The affair and the pool are all well and good until Ben is pushed to go out with the Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotages the relationship and an understandably disgusted Elaine runs back to college. Determined not to let Elaine get away, Ben follows her to school and then disrupts her family-sanctioned wedding. None too happy about her pre-determined destiny, Elaine flees with Ben -- but to what? Directing his second feature film after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols matched the story's satire of suffocating middle-class shallowness with an anti-Hollywood style influenced by the then-voguish French New Wave. Using odd angles, jittery editing, and evocative widescreen photography, Nichols welded a hip New Wave style and a generation-gap theme to a fairly traditional screwball comedy script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel. Adding to the European art film sensibility, the movie offers an unsettling and ambiguous ending with no firm closure. And rather than Robert Redford, Nichols opted for a less glamorous unknown for the pivotal role of Ben, turning Hoffman into a star and opening the door for unconventional leading men throughout the 1970s. With a pop-song score written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel bolstering its contemporary appeal, The Graduate opened to rave reviews in December 1967 and surpassed all commercial expectations. It became the top-grossing film of 1968 and was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress, with Nichols winning Best Director. Together with Bonnie and Clyde, it stands as one of the most influential films of the late '60s, as its mordant dissection of the generation gap helped lead the way to the youth-oriented Hollywood artistic "renaissance" of the early '70s.
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Norman Fell | Directed by: Mike Nichols

(87 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
During the first worldwide flush of Beatlemania in 1964, United Artists wanted to ship out a movie with The Beatles before their vogue was over. Working within a tight $500,000 budget, director Richard Lester turned out A Hard Day's Night in a fast 6 1/2 weeks; the picture was in the theatres three months after shooting commenced. Using a variety of techniques cribbed from Hollywood slapstick comedies, the French "new wave" movement, and his own experiences as a TV-commercial director, Lester, with screenwriter Alun Owen, fashioned an exhilarating study of a "typical" 36 hours in the lives of the Fab Four. Onto a plot about getting to the Big Show on time are hung a series of instant-reaction gags, character vignettes, and musical setpieces. Much of the humor arises from Paul McCartney's efforts to keep his grandfather (Wilfred Brambell), a "clean old man," from getting into mischief. Also good for several laughs is the hookey-playing Ringo Starr, whose mistimed declaration of independence lands him in jail. We are also treated to a war of nerves between the unflappable John Lennon and an uptight TV director (Victor Spinelli), who worries that, should the Beatles not show up at broadcast time, he'll be demoted to "News In Welsh." George Harrison stars in a sequence in which he is mistaken for an auditionee by the producer (Kenneth Haigh) of a superficially trendy, teen-oriented TV weekly. Then there's Norman Rossington and John Junkin as The Beatles' managers, who carry on a battle royale simply because one man is taller than the other. The supporting cast includes comedienne Anna Quayle, cartoonist Bob Godfrey, TV host Robin Ray, dancer Lionel Blair, Harrison's future wife Patti Boyd, and director Lester himself. The songs include "I Should Have Known Better," "And I Love Her," "Tell Me Why," "If I Fell," "Can't Buy Me Love," and the title song.
Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brambell | Directed by: Richard Lester

(111 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
In this entertaining comedy by Charles Walters, everyone seems to get in on the act, even the dog and especially the four overactive kids in a wildly challenging family. David Niven co-stars with Doris Day as Lawrence and Kate Mackay, distinctive parents struggling with home, life, and family. Lawrence opts for leaving his job teaching at Columbia University in New York for a post as a drama critic for a Gotham newspaper, bringing new problems to the pile the family already owns. First, they are forced to move out -- far out -- to the countryside with their brood and canine. And next, while Kate handles home, hearth, and hellions, Lawrence proceeds to alienate one of his best friends with a shattering review. That unhappy beginning to his new career also brings in one of the actresses damaged by his cutting remarks (Janis Paige), who wreaks her own form of havoc on poor Lawrence. In the meantime, Day gets to sing some songs which add to the light-hearted attitude of it all.
Starring: Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige, Spring Byington, Richard Haydn, Jack Weston, Margaret Lindsay | Directed by: Charles Walters

(136 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
Director Frank Capra's last feature film, Pocketful of Miracles is a Technicolor remake of his 1933 film Lady for a Day. A barely recognizable Bette Davis plays Apple Annie, the besotted, unkempt, rag-clad street vendor who controls the activities of all the beggars on Broadway. Apple Annie is the pet of Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford), a tough but basically kind-hearted gangster who believes that Annie's apples bring him luck. One morning, Annie fails to show up at her usual corner. That's because she is sitting disconsolate in her squalid shack, contemplating suicide. The reason: Annie has received a letter from her daughter Louise (Ann-Margret, in her screen debut). Annie has been supporting Louise's high-priced European education, leading the girl to believe that she, Annie, is a high-society dowager. Now Louise is returning home with her wealthy fiance Carlos Romero (Peter Mann) in tow, and it looks as though Annie's cover will be blown to bits. Partly out of sympathy, but mostly because of his superstitious belief in the power of Annie's apples, Dave the Dude arranges with his Broadway cohorts to "doll up" Annie so that she can pass as a woman of means, then stage-manages a huge, expensive reception for Louise and her beau. The complications that ensued in the original 1933 version of Lady for a Day exercise their prerogative once more, with a few added plot twists to pad out Glenn Ford's screen time. Cutting through the sentimental goo like a machete is Peter Falk, who is hilarious as Dave the Dude's sarcastic bodyguard. Evidently, Falk was one of the few actors on the set of Pocketful of Miracles with which Capra remained sympatico throughout shooting. In his autobiography (a not altogether reliable tome), Capra insisted that Pocketful of Miracles was ruined by Glenn Ford's autocratic and self-serving on-set behavior, and by Ford's demand that his current lady friend Hope Lange be (mis)cast as brash nightclub chirp Queenie Martin. As usual, Capra was not telling the whole story: at 63, he was beginning to lose his grip on his movie-making skills, allowing every scene to run well past its value and concentrating on cute isolated "bits" rather than the story at hand. Way too long at 136 minutes (Lady for a Day ran but 90), Pocketful of Miracles still has a lot going for it, especially the glowing performance of Bette Davis and the basic, foolproof Damon Runyon story on which it is based. While it disappointed at the box office, Miracles has since its release become a Christmastime TV perennial, seldom failing to draw big ratings numbers.
Starring: Glenn Ford, Bette Davis, Hope Lange, Arthur O'Connell, Peter Falk, Ann-Margret, Sheldon Leonard | Directed by: Frank Capra

(70 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: B
The most interesting aspect of The Swinger is the name of the character played by Ann-Margret: the former Ann Margaret Olsson essays the role of Kelly Olsson. A naive small-town girl, Kelly aspires to become a writer in the Big City. When her stories are rejected because they aren't exciting and provocative enough, she decides to do some hands-on research by posing as the titular "swinger." She is so successful at this subterfuge that Hefner-like publisher Anthony Franciosa makes it his mission in life to reform the "fallen" Kelly. Didn't they do this one in the 1930s as Theodora Goes Wild, with Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas?
Starring: Ann-Margret, Anthony Franciosa, Robert Coote, Yvonne Romain | Directed by: George Sidney

(90 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
Woody Allen took a Japanese spy movie called Kagi No Kagi, and replaced its original dialogue with an entirely new plot. In its revised state, this film follows the adventures of agent Phil Moskowitz who is on a deadly mission to secure the recipe for the "world's greatest egg salad." However, Moskowitz, with the help of the beautiful Suki and Terri Yaki, must prevent this unique recipe from falling into the hands of the evil Shepherd Wong. The group Lovin' Spoonful recorded the majority of the songs for this film. — Iotis Erlewine
Starring: Woody Allen, Tatsuya Mihashi, Mie Hama, Akiko Wakabayashi | Directed by: Woody Allen

(111 Min.) Genre: 1960 COMEDY, Transfer Quality: A
This story is taken from the real-life marriage of two people in the early 1960s. Helen North (Lucille Ball) is a widow with eight children who falls in love with Naval officer Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda), a widower with ten children of his own. The two marry as comedy ensues from the sheer numbers and diverse age groups of the offspring. Narration is used in the first half of the film to help set the stage for the impending nuptials. Van Johnson is the mutual friend who brings the couple together. Tom Bosley plays the harried doctor who makes a house call and finds almost two dozen patients under one roof. The newlyweds are soon off to the hospital when Helen becomes pregnant with the couple's first child in this amusing family comedy. — Dan Pavlides
Starring: Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Van Johnson, Tom Bosley | Directed by: Melville Shavelson