Best Comedy Movies of 1927

Comedy starring Jack Duffy and Anne Cornwall, featured in James Roots' 100 Essential Film Comedies

Rich old Cyrus West's relatives are waiting for him to die so they can inherit. But he stipulates that his will be read 20 years after his death. On the appointed day his expectant heirs arrive at his brooding mansion. The will is read and it turns out that Annabelle West, the only heir with his name left, inherits, if she is deemed sane. If she isn't, the money and some diamonds go to someone else, whose name is in a sealed envelope. Before he can reveal the identity of her successor to Annabelle, Mr. Crosby, the lawyer, disappears. The first in a series of mysterious events, some of which point to Annabelle in fact being unstable.

A flapper shopgirl woos her rich boss with animal magnetism, otherwise known as "it."

Brilliant in his studies and dismissive of athletics, Ronald finishes high school at the top of his class. But in college his uptight attitude doesn't win him any points with his sports-loving classmates, and pretty coed Mary ignores him in favor of brutish jock Jeff. Hoping to impress Mary, Ronald makes a buffoon of himself at every sport imaginable.

Max and his son Asher are invited to a party, where Max meets a rich widow, but Asher keeps annoying all of the guests, so Max refuses to speak to him. 10 days later he has married the widow, but hasn't told her about Asher. Asher doesn't like the situation either, and enters the home disguised as the new maid, that leeds to a growing suspicion of his step mother, who has her own little secret.

A servant girl plays matchmaker for the local burgomaster's daughter while setting her own sights on a visiting Irishman.

Fight manager takes out an insurance policy on his puny pugilist and then proceeds to try to arrange for an accident so that he can collect.

An escaped convict is out to kill the judge who sentenced him. Two inept detectives are hired to guard the judge.

John Livingston is a rich mama's-boy, who owns a blooded dog named Paul. Paul meets Maggie Mutt, and Paul, being a pedigree canine and somewhat of a cad, lures trusting Maggie to the barn to have his way. He then departs for his palatial doghouse at the Livingston estate. Meanwhile Maggie is broken-hearted and also finds that she is in a "family way", and gives birth to a pup she names Hank. Maggie tells Hank to find his "human ", and departs the scene. Hank goes to the park, meets a "human" named Mary Kelly, who is a homeless waif and sweetheart of poverty, and the two adopt each other. Later on in the park Paul comes strolling along with his 'human', John. A child falls into the lake and Paul and Hank team up to save her.

Joe Merrill, son of the millionaire owner of a chain of 5 and 10 cent stores, poses as Joe Grant, and takes a job in the stockroom of one of his father's stores, to prove that he can be a success without his father's influence. There he meets stockroom girl Maggie Johnson, and they fall in love. This causes problems, because Mrs. Merrill had planned for her son to marry Millicent Rogers, a high society girl.

Kelly's employer, Waters, is such a keen golfer that he asks Kelly to help him improve his game at an exclusive country club.

Mabel plays an out-and-out crook, a "Girl Bandit," no less. And she quickly hooks up with a male partner in crime, in this case a Gentleman Crook played by perpetually grinning Creighton Hale. Mabel seems a little livelier in this film than in some of her other late works. In the very first scene we find her hitch-hiking, and she's forced to make a mad dash for cover when Hale's car nearly hits her. Soon they team up and crash a swanky party in a mansion to steal a jewel from the host's safe.

A fresh young beauty becomes an old maid waiting for her suitor to return from the Napoleonic wars. When he returns, clearly disappointed, she disguises herself as her own niece in order to test his loyalty.

Charles Bowers is once again an eccentric inventor. This time, he has only a matter of hours to debut his extraordinary new invention in order to collect a huge bequest from his deceased father. Along the way, his evil uncle tries to sabotage the machine, so the inheritance will go to him.

A con artist and a midget dressed as her infant son, are unmasked aboard a ship by a steward.

Joe Cobb is a wealthy child who longs for a baby brother. His nursemaid takes him to the other side where he meets some kids his age (the rest of Our Gang) where Joe offers three dollars for a baby. Farina finds a fellow African-American neighbor woman who lets him mind her infant which he then paints white and sells to Joe. The rest of the gang has set an assembly-line system that washes, dries, rocks, and feeds male and female babies.

Part of the 'Inkwell Imps' series.

In this Our Gang film, James Finlayson plays the gang's schoolteacher who takes the kids to Europe after winning a local contest. He takes them on a tour of Naples, Pompeii, Rome, the Vatican, Venice, London, and finally Paris, where problems arise on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Laurel and Hardy are convicts making an escape from prison.

A man delivering a pair of trousers loses his own pants, setting off a chaotic sequence of events.

Cowardly Elmer Finch is browbeaten by his wife, daughter, fat son and the family dog. After hypnosis he is domineering. He enters a contract with a fifteen-thousand dollar payoff, so his courage can last beyond the hypnosis.

A young American girl in Paris falls in love with a handsome nobleman, but he is about to wed in an arranged marriage. She hatches a plan to overcome that obstacle and get her man.

Fleeing a group of forest rangers, who are rounding up tramps to serve as firefighters, they take refuge in a mansion. The owner has gone on vacation and the servants are away, so Hardy pretends to be the owner and offers to rent the house to an English couple. Hardy gets Laurel to pose as the maid. Unfortunately, the owner returns and tells the would-be renters that he owns the house; Laurel and Hardy then flee again and are caught by the rangers and forced to fight wildfires.

Papa Gimplewart, father to three children is unimpressed by the young lawyer who wants to marry his daughter.

Ten Years Old is a 1927 American short silent comedy film directed by Robert A. McGowan. It was the 58th Our Gang short subject released. It was remade as Birthday Blues in 1932. Nobody comes to Joe's birthday party so he goes to the rich kid's party with his own special cake.

Based on a true story, two-timing boozing wife Roxie Hart kills her lover in cold blood after he leaves her, and finagles her way out being indicted. The basis for Kander/Ebb's 1975 Broadway musical of the same name and its Oscar-winning 2002 film adaptation.

ANYTHING ONCE! is a Cinderella story. Mabel works in a tailor shop, pressing clothes and dreaming of a better life. We're told that she's taken a lot of bumps in life and doesn't know where the next bump is coming from, which sounds uncomfortably close to the leading lady's real-life situation. Her boss is Jimmy Finlayson, but instead of playing the expected sourpuss Finn is quite benign here, and doesn't even punish Mabel when she accidentally sets his toupee on fire.

It's the Fourth of July and the mother of Our Gang member Joe Cobb is doing a brisk business at her fireworks stand. Briefly left in charge of the stand, Joe does his best not to blow up himself or his friends, but a poorly-aimed skyrocket owned by Allen "Farina" Hoskins triggers a somewhat premature but undeniably spectacular display of pyrotechnics.

Pompous J. Piedmont Mumblethunder greets his nephew from Scotland who arrives in kilts. He is immediately taken to a tailor for a pair of proper pants.

A short comedy by Leo McCarey about a jewish father who is worried about his daughter.

Stan is a sailor whose girl gets kidnapped by a rough sea captain. Stan dresses in drag and seduces the captain but the captain's wife catches him. Stan and his girl beat a hasty retreat as the captain's wife fires off a parting shot.

During World War I, two American soldiers fight to escape the Germans while squabbling over a beautiful harem girl.

An American banker goes to a small Balkan country looking to invest his bank's money and shore up the country's weak economy in order to maximize the return on their investment. Towards that end he befriends the country's king and they come up with a scheme to get the Crown Prince married, a prospect not particularly appealing to the Crown Prince--until he sees the beautiful cabaret dancer the pair has picked for him to marry.

Titus Tillsbury is a successful businessman who is visited by a blackmailing old flame. He enlists a friend to keep her away from his home and wife.

Wealthy young man about town, Tommy Valentine (Franklin Pangborn) comes to the aid of Barbara Smith (Elinor Fair). But before he can learn anything about Barbara, her social climbing Aunt Bedelia (Ethel Wales), whisks her away. On a mission to "find the girl," Tommy looks for her everywhere. He unknowingly befriends her brother Charlie, who invites him to spend the evening in Smith's palatial home. The next morn Aunt Bedelia finds Tommy with his head wrapped in a towel and assumes him to be the Hindu prince that Charlie promised to bring to her society party. Introduced to all as a Prince from Calcutta, Tommy is forced to see the charade through. But the local con-man Charlie had previously arranged to appear at the party as the Prince shows up as well. At least Tommy is able to reconnect with Barbara, that is until the police show up with orders to arrest all fake fakirs.

Harry will do anything to be a musician, but it takes a junk collector to discover his hidden talents.

Oswald the Rabbit enters an airplane race with a makeshift aircraft and ends up riding a dachshund lifted into the air by balloons. Meanwhile, his peg-legged rival tries to cheat his way to victory.

While the world watches the Olympic Games in Stockholm, the Rascals gather at the flats for their own games. Whether it's the shot put, the hurdles, the pole vault, or the high jump, not much goes right. There's a deep mud hole that catches several of the kids, and someone out there keeps giving them the razzberry. It's young Wheezer hiding out of sight with his dog Punch, but the kids think it's another boy, so every time they hear the Bronx cheer, they chase the innocent lad and give him a thumping.

Charley asks for his girlfriend's hand in marriage, but her father, the police chief, angrily refuses to allow her to marry anyone who is not himself a policeman. Charley then decides to join the police force, so that he can win her. But when he applies, he is rejected because he is too small. Charley doesn't give up, and he soon thinks of a way to avoid the size restriction - but simply joining the force is only the first challenge that he has to face.

The neighborly "feud" between a Jewish and an Irish families escalates when two of their youngsters fall in love.

Dimwitted Cuthbert Hope is enlisted in the army, and gets himself and his sergeant in constant trouble.

Charley attempts to invent a non-slippery banana peel.

A silent comedy set in an actor's boardinghouse. Some plot points are seemingly inspired by the Barrymore dynasty.

Carter DeHaven announces that he will perform a series of "impressions." For each we see him applying makeup and changing the combing of his hair or putting on a wig. When he tilts his head down during each supposed makeover, up pops the actual celebrity (Keaton, Lloyd, Arbuckle, Valentino, Fairbanks, Coogan) he appears to have been making himself up as.

After a night of carousing, a rich oil tycoon awakes to find that he was married the night before. He calls in his lawyer to straighten things out.

Mishaps befall a new home owner located next door to an insane asylum.

Harry Shelby has been kept in knee pants for years by his overprotective parents, but the day finally comes when Harry is given his first pair of long pants. Almost immediately, he is expected to marry his childhood sweetheart Priscilla... but instead, Harry's first heady whiff of manhood has got him panting after Bebe, a "fast" woman from the big city. Mistakenly thinking that Bebe fancies him too, Harry risks everything to help her out when she lands in jail, only to end up in hot water himself. Through it all, sweet Priscilla waits for her man to come to his senses.

Harry, The Odd Fellow, is a tenement worker who lives alone in a shack alongside a warehouse and longs for the companionship of a wife and children like other men. One day he spies a pretty girl in his telescope and sends her by carrier pigeon a note that, alas, is received by the wrong party. The Girl marries and, poverty-striken, leaves her husband during a snowstorm. Harry takes her in, and minutes later her child is born. He works like a slave for the mother and child, pretending they are his own. Meanwhile, the husband finds her and comes to the shack on Christmas Eve as Harry is preparing to play Santa Claus. Not realizing the unhappiness she is causing him, The Girl thanks him profusely and leaves with her husband. Overcome, Harry sits overnight on the doorstep and the next morning is found frozen stiff except for his eyes--with amusing results.