Best Comedy Movies of 1965

Professional daredevil and white-suited hero, The Great Leslie, convinces turn-of-the-century auto makers that a race from New York to Paris (westward across America, the Bering Straight and Russia) will help to promote automobile sales. Leslie's arch-rival, the mustached and black-attired Professor Fate vows to beat Leslie to the finish line in a car of Fate's own invention.

An obscure Eastern cult that practices human sacrifice pursues Ringo after he unknowingly puts on a ceremonial ring (that, of course, won't come off). On top of that, a pair of mad scientists, members of Scotland Yard, and a beautiful but dead-eyed assassin all have their own plans for the Fab Four.

A woman seeking revenge for her murdered father hires a famous gunman, but he's very different from what she expects.

Three strippers seeking thrills encounter a young couple in the desert. After dispatching the boyfriend, they take the girl hostage and begin scheming on a crippled old man living with his two sons in the desert, reputedly hiding a tidy sum of cash. They become house guests of the old man and try and seduce the sons in an attempt to locate the money, not realizing that the old man has a few sinister intentions of his own.

The culmination of Orson Welles’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare’s robustly funny and ultimately tragic antihero, Sir John Falstaff; the often soused friend of King Henry IV’s wayward son Prince Hal. Integrating elements from both Henry IV plays as well as Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In order to boost circulation of his newspaper, Lord Rawnsley announces an air race and offers £10,000 to the first person who can fly across the English Channel. But one of the participants, Percy, plots to sabotage his competitor's planes. Will Percy triumph?

A playboy who refuses to give up his hedonistic lifestyle to settle down and marry his true love seeks help from a demented psychoanalyst who is having romantic problems of his own.

A young woman suspects foul play when her cat comes home wearing a wristwatch. Convincing the FBI, though, and catching the bad guys is tougher than she imagined.

A cartoon detailing the unrequited love that the line has for the dot, and the heartbreak that results due to the dot's feelings for the lively squiggle.

Twelve-year-old Nick lives with his Uncle Murray, a Mr.Micawber-like Dickensian character who keeps hoping something won't turn up. What turns up is a social worker, who falls in love with Murray and a bit in love with Nick. As the child welfare people try to force Murray to become a conventional man (as the price they demand for allowing him to keep Nick), the nephew, who until now has gloried in his Uncle's iconoclastic approach to life, tries to play mediator. But when he succeeds, he is alarmed by the uncle's willingness to cave in to society in order to save the relationship.

Norman Pitkin is the assistant helping to run a small, old fashioned dairy which is threatened by a larger, modern organisation. Pitkin does his best to save the dairy (and his horse) and the usual chaos ensues

After literally swimming across the Atlantic Ocean, an Englishman takes a country trip across Canada on a railcar.

Newly arrived in Hollywood from England, Dennis Barlow finds he has to arrange his uncle's interment at the highly-organised and very profitable Whispering Glades funeral parlour. His fancy is caught by one of their cosmeticians, Aimee Thanatogenos. But he has three problems - the strict rules of owner Blessed Reverand Glenworthy, the rivalry of embalmer Mr Joyboy, and the shame of now working himself at The Happy Hunting Ground pets' memorial home.

A wagon train heads for Denver with a cargo of whisky for the miners. Chaos ensues as the Temperance League, the US cavalry, the miners and the local Indians all try to take control of the valuable cargo.

Stanley Ford leads an idyllic bachelor life. He is a nationally syndicated cartoonist whose Bash Brannigan series provides him with a luxury townhouse and a full-time valet, Charles. When he wakes up the morning after the night before - he had attended a friend's stag party - he finds that he is married to the very beautiful woman who popped out of the cake - and who doesn't speak a word of English. Despite his initial protestations, he comes to like married life and even changes his cartoon character from a super spy to a somewhat harried husband.

A Chicago mobster hires a rock and roll singer and his band to keep an eye on his daughter during Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Julie Andrews Show is a television special that was broadcast by NBC in November 1965. This was Andrews' first solo American TV Special, although she had previously starred in several dramatic television works (High Tor, Cinderella) and co-starred with Carol Burnett in a major special. However by November 1965 Andrews was now a major movie star with both Mary Poppins and Sound of Music still in cinemas and an Oscar already sitting on her mantelpiece. Julie's guests included Gene Kelly and The New Christy Minstrels.

Professor Leaf, an absent-minded poet with a prejudice against the sciences, is forced to face the fact that his son is a math prodigy with little artistic talent of his own.

Living in Paris, journalist Bernard has devised a scheme to keep three fiancées: Lufthansa, Air France and British United. Everything works fine as long as they only come home every third day. But when there's a change in their working schedule, they will be able to be home every second day instead. Bernard's carefully structured life is breaking apart

A young heiress must choose between six uncles, one of which is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her.

A compilation of primarly Laurel and Hardy shorts---From Soup to Nuts, Wrong Again, Putting the Pants on Philip, The Finishing Touch, Sugar Daddies and short clips from others---plus Max Davidson's Call of the Cuckoo and Dumb Daddies, with some cross-over Charley Chase footage, which, along with Robert Youngson's previous "The Golden Age of Comedy", "When Comedy Was King", "Days of Thrills and Laughter", led to a renewed interest in and a revival of television showings of Laurel and Hardy shorts. The cast was billed in order of their appearance: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, Vivien Oakland (with a Vivian typo), Glen Tyron, Edna Murphy, Anita Garvin, Tiny Sanford, Jimmy Finlayson, Charlie Chase, Viola Richard, Max Davidson, Del Henderson, Josephine Crowell, Anders Randolf (as Anders Randolph), Edgar Kennedy, Dorothy Coburn, Lillian Elliott and "Spec" O'Donnell.

American Mike Harper, sent to do business in England, moves there with his wife, Janet. But she soon becomes convinced that Mike is carrying on with his attractive new assistant, Claire. Mike also has been spending a considerable amount of time with his British bachelor buddies. Vexed and lonely, Claire hires charming antiques expert Paul to decorate the Harper home and maybe make Mike jealous in the process.

Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a 'sanitary engineer' named Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal. Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids—revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise.

A nebbish schoolteacher begs his smooth (and misogynistic) pal to teach him 'the knack' - how to score with women. Serendipitously, the men meet up with a new girl in town, as well as a friendly lunatic who can’t help but paint things white.

Dislocation in time, time signatures, time as a philosophical concept, and slavery to time are some of the themes touched upon in this 9-minute experimental film, which was written, directed, and produced by Jim Henson. Screened for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in May of 1965, "Time Piece" enjoyed an eighteen-month run at one Manhattan movie theater and was nominated for an Academy Award for Outstanding Short Subject.

Spy spoof about Boysie Oakes, a British secret agent who specialises in Liquidating. In actual fact he contracts out the work and pretends it is was himself. This leads to complications.

In the fourth of the highly successful Frankie and Annette beach party movies, a motorcycle gang led by Eric Von Zipper kidnaps singing star Sugar Kane managed by Bullets, who hires sky-diving surfers Steve and Bonnie from Big Drop for a publicity stunt. With the usual gang of kids and a mermaid named Lorelei.

My Snowman's Burning Down is an American short film made by Carson Davidson in 1964, with music composed and performed by Gerry Mulligan. A surrealistic and humorous satire on the Madison Avenue image of the world through advertising. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Tommy Tyler, a lazy Caribbean sailor, and his tom-boy daughter, Spring, are out to search for a buried treasure. Tommy brings aboard William Ashton, a young lawyer, to help with the search. Ashton turns out to be handy when they encounter dangerous rivals. Tommy also tries to play match maker between Ashton and Spring – a difficult task indeed.

A short, pointy-nosed safecracker intends to rob a safe in a building, but he doesn't realize that the safe is occupied by the Pink Panther, who has made the safe his home. When the safecracker tries to blast the safe open with explosives, the Pink Panther returns each of the thief's devices just before they explode, with the thief taking all of the blasts. Finally, the Pink Panther decides to let the persistent, little man have the safe, which the panther has rigged with a bomb.

The next-door neighbor neglects to return the Pink Panther's lawn mower, resulting in a feud that escalates into all-out war.

A singing rodeo rider hires on at an expensive all-women dude ranch and beauty spa. He falls for a pretty fitness trainer who is constantly threatened by a gang who wants her late grandfather's cache of gold hidden in a ghost town.

Schmeerguntz is one long raucous belch in the face of the American Home. A society which hides its animal functions beneath a shiny public surface deserves to have such films as SCHMEERGUNTZ shown everywhere - in every PTA, every Rotary Club, every club in the land. For it is brash enough, brazen enough and funny enough to purge the soul of every harried American married woman.

Ben (Glenn Ford) and Marion (Henry Fonda) are two cowboys who make a meager living breaking wild horses. Their frequent employer Jim (Chill Wills), who always gets the better of them, talks them into taking a nondescript horse in lieu of some of their wages. Ben finds that the horse is un-rideable, he comes up with the idea of taking it to a rodeo and betting other cowhands they cannot ride it.

An alcoholic is returning home from a night of partying and encounters the homeless Pink Panther in a park. He invites the panther to come and stay with him. But he has a wife who disapproves of him bringing in any guests. So, he has to keep the Pink Panther hidden, which tends to be rather painful for the hapless panther.

Ad-agency president Dan Edwards goes to Mexico to celebrate his nineteenth wedding anniversary and winds up getting divorced by mistake, whereupon his wife Valerie marries his best friend Ernie Brewer by mistake.

Lady L is an elegant 80-year-old woman who recalls her amorous life story, including past loves and lusty, scandalous adventures she has lived through.

A compilation of clips from 19 Abbott & Costello features: The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, In the Navy, Hit the Ice, Who Done It?, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Mexican Hayride, Hold That Ghost, Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion, Little Giant, In Society, Ride 'Em Cowboy, The Naughty Nineties, Buck Privates Come Home, Buck Privates, Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops, Lost in Alaska, Comin' Round the Mountain, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. - Written by Tom Weaver

An English voice talks to the Pink Panther, who is reading a book about secret agents, and suggests to the panther that he become an agent. Intrigued at this idea, the Pink Panther dons a trench coat, hat, and pipe and walks nonchalantly on city streets, looking for enemy spies. He comes upon a gang of foreign agents scheming to detonate a series of black-ball bombs, and when they realize he is following them, they shoot him with guns, lure him into a crocodile trap, and, under cover of darkness aboard a train, replace his cigarette with a bomb.

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates a series of murders in London in which the victims are killed according to their initials.

After a brief review of the problems described in Freewayphobia #1 (1965), we see a new range of problems. These include: abrupt breakdowns due to poor maintenance; unsecured loads; running out of gas. We learn how to handle breakdowns properly. We also learn about situations that can affect the driver, like fatigue, alcohol, turnpike trance, and the weather.

The Pink Panther hides himself inside Gamble's Department Store after closing time. Once the janitor arrives he decides to have a little fun.

An eccentric man has built an ark and has filled it with specimens of all animals except one - a pink panther. To complete his zoological collection, the man sets out, rifle in hand, to hunt the Pink Panther, who leads the man on a futile chase through a jungle.

Jerry, with the help of a mouse friend, is lowered on a fishing line, abuses the sleeping Tom in various ways, and is yanked away before Tom sees him. First, he hits Tom with a fireplace shovel and plants it in Tom's hand; next, he puts a gun in Tom's hand and pulls the trigger; he puts a noose around Tom's neck; positions a ketchup-covered knife (complete with ketchup "wound"); and finally puts Tom into an archery bow. Tom finally gets his revenge,

A lonely German clerk captures two American flyers and keeps them as prisoners in his basement long after WWII has ended. Director Gottfried Reinhardt's 1965 comedy stars Alec Guinness, Robert Redford and Michael Connors.

A motley crew of British characters ride The San Ferry Ann to the shores of France where they embark on a weekend of calamity. The campervan family led by Dad and Mum (David Lodge and Joan Sims) create chaos from the moment they set their tires on the shore resulting in frequent run-ins with the Gendarme, while Lewd Grandad (Wilfred Brambell) finds his own misadventures with a newly acquainted friend, a mad German ex-soldier (Ron Moody). Also aboard for the ride is a saucy hitchhiker (Barbara Windsor) who causes a few heads to turn including that of a fellow traveller (Ronnie Stevens) who pursues her affection with comic results. By the end of this weekend the French may well be wishing to say 'au revoir' to these trouble-making tourists. San Ferry Ann is a humorous take on the tradition of the British get-away. A classic sound effect comedy that sits with the likes of similarly praised titles such as 'The Plank', 'Futtock's End' and 'Rhubarb Rhubarb'.

A very resistant bug won't let Pink Panther go to sleep.

A gang of hapless crooks, led by Sidney James, successfully perpetrate a robbery only to be caught after the fact. Fifteen years later they emerge from prison intent on retrieving their stolen loot - and discover a police station has been built over its hiding place.