Best Comedy Movies of 1971

The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.

A collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus skits from the first two seasons of their British TV series.

Three children evacuated from London during World War II are forced to stay with an eccentric spinster (Eglantine Price). The children's initial fears disappear when they find out she is in fact a trainee witch.

Famous organist Anton Phibes is horribly disfigured in an automobile accident while rushing to the side of his sick wife and presumed to be dead. Once Phibes learns that his wife died on the operating table, he is convinced the doctors are responsible and begins exacting his revenge on all those involved.

When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

Henry Graham lives the life of a playboy. When his lawyer tells him one day that his lifestyle has consumed all his funds, he needs an idea to avoid climbing down the social ladder.

Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.

Fliegender Zirkus consisted of two 45-minute Monty Python television comedy specials produced by WDR for West German television. The two episodes were first broadcast in January and December 1972 respectively and were shot entirely on film, mostly on location in Bavaria. The first episode was recorded in German and the second was recorded in English and then dubbed into German.

Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future but as soon as possible.

Unable to deal with her parents, Jeannie Tyne runs away from home. Larry and Lynn Tyne search for her, and in the process meet other people whose children ran away. With their children gone, the parents are now free to rediscover/enjoy life.

Depressed and jaded after being dumped by her married boyfriend, aging beauty Minnie Moore wonders if she'll ever find love. After shaggy-haired parking lot attendant Seymour Moskowitz comes to her defense from an angry and rebuffed blind date, he falls hopelessly in love with her despite their myriad differences. Minnie reluctantly agrees to a date with Moskowitz, and, slowly but surely, an unlikely romance blossoms between the two.

Reverend Brooks leads the town in a contest to stop smoking for a month, But some tobacco executives don't want them to win, and try everything they can to make them smoke. If townspeople don't go nuts, from wanting a cigarette, or kill each other from irritation and frustration, they will win a huge prize.

Alfred Chamberlain, who suffers from an inability to feel or to be passionate about anything, meets Patsy Newquist, who takes it upon herself to mold him into "a strong, vital, self-assured man that I can protect and take care of."

A suicidal doctor struggles to find meaning in his life while a murderer stalks the halls of his hospital.

Every hero has a weakness, and Sherlock Holmes' weakness was Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solve mysteries and search for Moriarty in 1970s New York City. The fact that Sherlock Holmes is a psychotic paranoid and Dr. Watson is a female psychiatrist fascinated by his case is almost beside the point.

Quincy Drew and Jason O’Rourke, a pair of friends and con men—the former white, the latter a Northern-born free Black man— travel from town to town in the pre–Civil War American West. In their scam, Quincy sells Jason into slavery, frees him, and the two move on to the next town of suckers . . . until a con gone wrong leads Jason into real danger.

Six children at a summer camp embark on a mission to save a buffalo herd from slaughter.

A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.

The assistant stage manager of a small-time theatrical company is forced to understudy for the leading lady at a matinée performance at which an illustrious Hollywood director is in the audience scouting for actors to be in his latest "all-talking, all-dancing, all-singing" extravaganza.

When a trio of ex-convicts led by Mattie Appleyard is released from prison, they hope to open a general store using money Mattie has saved during his 40-year sentence. This attempt is met with great resistance from a corrupt prison official and the banker who issued Mattie the check.

Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a secretary, her intellectually disabled sister, aloof and uneasy teacher boyfriend, bizarre neighbor and irritating workmate.

This is the tale of industrial strife at WC Boggs' Lavatory factory. Vic Spanner is the union representative who calls a strike at the drop of a hat; eventually everyone has to get fed up with him. This is also the ideal opportunity for lots of lavatorial jokes...

Joseph Kotcher, retired salesman, walks out on his son and daughter-in-law after their attempts to put him in a retirement home. He tracks down their babysitter, sacked because she is pregnant, and rents a small house nearby. He finds a new purpose in life. Jack Lemmon's first film as director stars his old friend Walter Matthau.

A would be private eye gets mixed up in a smuggling case.

A bank security expert plots with a call girl to rob the safety deposit boxes of three very different criminals from a high-tech bank in Hamburg.

Henry VIII has just married Marie of Normandy, and is eager to consummate their marriage. Unfortunately for Henry, she is always eating garlic, and refuses to stop. Deciding to get rid of her in his usual manner, Henry has to find some way of doing it without provoking war with Marie's cousin, the King of France. Perhaps if she had an affair...

Film version of the Neil Simon play has three separate acts set in the same hotel suite in New York's Plaza Hotel with Walter Matthau in a triple role. In the first, Karen Nash tries to get her inattentive husband Sam's attention to spruce up their failing marriage. In the second, brash film producer Jesse Kiplinger tries to get his former one-time flame Muriel to see him for what he stands for. In the third, Roy Hubley and his wife Norma try and try to get their uncertain-of-herself daughter out of the bathroom before her approaching wedding.

Diana! is American singer Diana Ross' first solo TV special, which aired on ABC on April 18, 1971. The program was choreographed by David Winters of West Side Story fame, who at that time choreographed all of Ross' stage and TV shows. The special also featured appearances by Danny Thomas and Bill Cosby, plus performances by The Jackson 5, and also included Jackson 5 lead singer Michael Jackson's solo debut.

A funny thing happens to Lurcio (Frankie Howerd) on the way to the rent-a-vestal-virgin market stall. A mysterious scroll falls into his hands, listing the names of all the conspirators plotting to murder Emperor Nero. And when the upstart slave is elected to infiltrate the ringleader's den, the comical ups-and-downs lead to total uproar.

Stan gets a little annoyed when his Mum and Sister keep buying expensive items on hire purchase, but the money he earns for overtime working as a bus driver means that he can afford it... just! His job is secure, as bus drivers are hard to come by, and his overtime prospects are good, until the bus company decide to revoke a long standing rule and employ women bus drivers. Aghast at the thought of

This was the first of two one-hour musical specials which were part of CBS' 1968 multi-million-dollar contract with Doris Day's production company, a contract that Day insists to this day was negotiated by her husband and manager Martin Melcher without her knowledge. When Melcher died suddenly in April 1968, Day chose to go ahead and honour the contract, appearing in both specials as well as starring in her eponymous sitcom for five seasons, from 1968-1973.

Hector is a star basketball player for the College basketball team he plays for, the Leopards. His girlfriend, Olive, doesn't know whether to stay with him or leave him. And his friend, Gabriel, who may have dropped out from school and become a protestor, wants desperately not to get drafted for Vietnam.

At Oceanfront High School, female students are being targeted by an unknown serial killer. Meanwhile, a married teacher hides his flings with nubile students, and an awkward male is frustrated by the plethora of uninhibited freewheeling young girls.

Dad's Army was a 1971 feature film based on the BBC television sitcom Dad's Army. Directed by Norman Cohen, it was filmed between series three and four and was based upon material from the early episodes of the television series. The film told the story of the Home Guard platoon's formation and their subsequent endeavours at a training exercise.

In the great Disney tradition of wild family fun, a young Kurt Russell stars as Steven Post - an ambitious mailroom clerk at a second-rate TV network. With his eye on the boardroom, and getting nowhere with the studio's top dog, he makes a career-changing discovery. His girlfriend's lovable pet chimp can pick a hit show every time! His secret for success turns into a madcap monkey business when he makes vice president and jealous rivals want in on the act. Ride along with narrow escapes and a classic cast featuring Joe Flynn and Harry Morgan in a comedic climb up the corporate ladder that will leave you howling for more!

"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.

Professor Dooley takes home a duck from his research laboratory as a toy for his son, but soon finds out that it lays golden eggs.

Bette Davis handles the title role in this highly offbeat crime comedy about two aging hippies who elect to rob a bank to restore Bunny O'Hare's financial affairs after she's been unjustly evicted and rendered homeless. When that heist ends up paying off, rather than take off for the border, Bunny opts for a life of crime with her new partner, Bill Green, played by fellow Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine.

Best friends Michael, Steve, Cooly and Richie are seniors at a large Toronto high school. Foremost on their minds and that of many of their classmates are what they are going to do this upcoming summer and beyond. They don't want to waste away the summer much like they did this past summer. Mike is being pressured by his parents to go to university following graduation from high school, although Mike himself is unsure if that's what he wants to do. Other ideas they discuss are to tour with their band, Arctic Madness, or to start a commune on a five hundred acre parcel of wilderness property outside of Timmins that was deeded to Mike. As the end of the school year approaches and these successive ideas come and fall by the wayside, the four come to a realization of what their future together holds

A smart-mouthed junkie and a former hairdresser spends his days looking for just "one more fix".

Satan sends his two sons to Earth to seduce and corrupt young women.

Mary Bunting is sitting alone when to her surprise and delight a rabbit six foot tall - elegantly dressed in frock coat and fancy waistcoat - appears. As he is a magic rabbit, he can be seen only by Mary, which naturally creates great confusion and misunderstanding.

A projectionist bored with his everyday life begins fantasizing about his being one of the superheroes he sees in the movies he shows.

Four elderly ladies with a lot of time on their hands get the idea to create a fictional "girl" for a computer dating service. However, things take a turn for the worse when their description of the "girl" attracts a psychopath.

This tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale by Croatian director Zlatko Grgic traces man's checkered history with fire, and shows how growing carelessness in the form of overloaded sockets, smoldering cigarettes and other fire hazards can have highly undesirable consequences.

Casey learns sex can be freeing and fun as he brings all his fantasies to life.

A small-time Jewish racketeer, just out of prison, finds himself in a quandary. Returning to his old neighborhood, he finds that the streets that he and his friends once controlled have now been taken over by blacks and Hispanics. On top of that, he must try to get back with his family, who want nothing to do with him.

Dames at Sea is a musical with book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise. The musical is a parody of large, flashy 1930s Busby Berkeley-style movie musicals in which a chorus girl, newly arrived off the bus from the Midwest to New York City, steps into a role on Broadway and becomes a star. It originally played Off-Off-Broadway in 1966 at the Caffe Cino and then played Off-Broadway, starring newcomer Bernadette Peters, beginning in 1968 for a successful run. The television version was broadcast on the Bell System Family Theater on NBC on November 15, 1971. The cast had extra chorus girls and boys, and there were full production numbers, turning into the very thing it was spoofing. Ann Miller was singled out for praise, especially when "she was allowed to tap out her brassy...temperamental star..."

The world-famous Cockettes enact Tricia Nixon's wedding to Edward Cox on June 11, 1971. Hurtme O. Hurtme, television correspondent, covers the wedding and interviews celebrities in attendance such as Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Jacqueline Onassis, Queen Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Taylor. Coretta King sings. During the reception, Eartha Kitt puts LSD in the punch. All hell breaks loose.