Best Comedy Movies of 1979

Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.

A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.

Dave, nineteen, has just graduated high school, with his 3 friends, The comical Cyril, the warm hearted but short-tempered Moocher, and the athletic, spiteful but good-hearted Mike. Now, Dave enjoys racing bikes and hopes to race the Italians one day, and even takes up the Italian culture, much to his friends and parents annoyance.

Upon receiving his draft notice and leaving his family ranch in Oklahoma, Claude heads to New York and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to boot camp.

A Hollywood agent persuades Kermit the Frog to pursue a career in Hollywood. On his way there he meets his future muppet crew while being chased by the desperate owner of a frog-leg restaurant!

After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson runs off on a hilarious misadventure in this comedy classic that takes him from rags to riches and back to rags again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.

Writer H. G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper to modern day San Francisco after the infamous serial killer steals his time machine to escape the 19th century.

A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.

Rabbi Avram arrives in Philadelphia from Poland en route to San Francisco where he will be a congregation's new rabbi. An innocent and inexperienced traveller, he is tricked by con men to pay for the trip to go west, then they leave him and his belongings scattered along a deserted road. He is befriended by a stranger, Tommy, who is a bank robber and have many adventures during their journey.

A collection of Warner Brothers short cartoon features, "starring" the likes of Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Wile.E.Coyote. These animations are interspersed by Bugs Bunny reminiscing on past events and providing links between the individual animations which are otherwise unconnected. This 1979 feature-length compilation includes several of his best cartoons. Among the 11 shorts shown in their entirety are the classics "Robin Hood Daffy," "What's Opera, Doc?," "Bully for Bugs," and "Duck Amuck". The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Movie provides a showcase not only for Jones's razor-sharp timing, but for the work of his exceptional crew, which included designer Maurice Noble, writer Mike Maltese, composers Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn, and voice actor Mel Blanc.

Tripper is the head counselor at a budget summer camp called Camp Northstar. In truth, he's young at heart and only marginally more mature than the campers themselves. Tripper befriends Rudy, a loner camper who has trouble fitting in. As Tripper inspires his young charges to defeat rival Camp Mohawk in the annual Olympiad competition, Rudy plays matchmaker between Tripper and Roxanne, a female counselor at Northstar.

A Hollywood songwriter goes through a mid-life crisis and becomes infatuated with a sexy blonde newlywed.

In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.

Richard Pryor delivers monologues on race, sex, family and his favorite target—himself, live at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach, California.

A former champion rodeo rider is reduced to using his saddle skills to promote a breakfast cereal in a gaudy Las Vegas show. When he's asked to perform with a $12 million horse that he discovers is being doped to remain docile, he flees into the desert astride the beast in an act of defiance. A story-hungry female reporter gives chase.

In preparation for his daughter's wedding, dentist Sheldon Kornpett meets Vince Ricardo, the groom's father. Vince, a manic fellow who claims to be a government agent, then proceeds to drag Sheldon into a series of chases and misadventures from New York to Central America.

Horsemouth, a drummer living in a ghetto of Kingston, plans to make money selling records. After his prized motorcycle is stolen, his plans fall through and he's forced to adapt.

A young American girl and a young French boy meet in Paris and fall in love, with the assistance of an old man and his stories.

A semi-fictional account of life as a professional football player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s.

Charles is a bored civil servant struggling through a harsh Utah winter. He spends most of his time reflecting on his romance with Laura, a coworker who left him to return to her husband, an A-Frame salesman.

Three senior citizens in their 70s who live together are slowly decaying in endless days with nothing to do but feed the birds. One of them comes up with an idea - rob a bank. They certainly could use the money if they get away with it and if they are caught, what could happen to three old men?

Times are hard for habitual guest of Her Majesty Norman Stanley Fletcher. The new prison officer, Beale, makes MacKay look soft and what's more, an escape plan is hatching from the cell of prison godfather Grouty and Fletcher wants no part of it.

A pushy, narcissistic filmmaker persuades a Phoenix family to let him and his crew film their everyday lives, in the manner of the ground-breaking PBS series "An American Family".

After divorcing his ambitious singer wife, a middle-aged man begins a new relationship with a teacher.

When a police department's burglary task force is facing the possibility of being shut down because of their low conviction rate decides to try a new approach to apprehending their targets. They take over a pawn shop where thieves go to unload their merchandise. They record them as they bring stuff in and get them to tell them where they got it. Eventually they're threatened by the mob.

A Southerner--young, poor, ambitious but uneducated--determines to become something in the world. He decides that the best way to do that is to become a preacher and start up his own church.

When crooks set up operations in a traditional town, a minister and a group of church ladies are willing to do anything, no matter how wacky, to get them out.

This Catering Service Delivers Their Goods with a Personal Service! When a young girl inherits a mansion from a mysterious benefactor, she also inherits a $25,000 debt in back taxes. With only a rusty old catering truck to her credit, she goes to her aunt, who runs the city's most prestigious whorehouse to borrow some girls. Serving up a sexy fare of delicacies both culinary and carnal, she makes enough money to pay off the taxes before the estate's lawyer runs off with everything. She celebrates her success with an outrageous orgy at her new restaurant "Chopstix Manor. "

Handsome Stranger has agreed to escort Charming Jones to collect her inheritance from her father. But Avery Jones wants the money, and hires notorious outlaw Cactus Jack to ambush Charming. However, Cactus Jack is not very good at robbing people.

Kate, a sexy young student, agrees to join her professors on a lengthy jaunt into the desert. Their expedition leads them into a whole host of surrealistic sexual encounters as they come across the most whacked-out tribe of Indians you've ever seen.

At first simply grating, the presence of a hard-edged, macho plumber who damages more than he repairs and returns day after day soon turns menacing for the intellectual wife of a distracted doctor.

Dracula and Renefield relocate to 70's era New York in search of Cindy Sondheim, the reincarnation of Dracula's one true love, Mina Harker. "Trouble adjusting" is a wild understatement for the Count as he battles Cindy's psychiatrist, Jeffrey Rosenberg, a descendant of Van Helsing, who may almost certainly, possibly, may be in love with Cindy too.

A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.

A shy teen enrolls in a new school and doesn't make friends easily. Then, overnight, everyone wants to be her friend, once it is discovered that her father is a famous movie star.

Bumbling, desperate, and libidinous foreign exchange student Fernando isn't having any luck scoring with the ladies until his best friend Dave hooks him up with a used book on how to seduce women through using hypnotism.

Amos and Theodore, the two bumbling outlaw wannabes from The Apple Dumpling Gang, are back and trying to make it on their own. This time, the crazy duo gets involved in an army supply theft case -- and, of course, gets in lots of comic trouble along the way!

George Schneider is an author whose wife had just died. His brother Leo gives him the number of Jennie Malone, and somehow they hit it off. And just when things are moving along, the memory of his first wife comes between them.

On the eve of World War II, zany heiress Amanda Kelly travels by train to Switzerland. While passing through Germany, she meets a sweet elderly lady, who suddenly vanishes. Distraught, she questions her fellow passengers who claim that the woman was never there. Unsure if it's all in her mind or if there's a more sinister plot afoot, Amanda teams up with photographer Robert Condon to discover the truth.

Classic short British comedy, full of stars, about two workmen delivering planks to a building site. This is done with music and a sort of "wordless dialogue" which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion. TV remake of the 1967 short.

A self-described horny but faithful husband, disappointed by his wife's frigidity, tries to spice things up with the help of an adult home-movie system sold to him by the lovely Miss Azure and featuring the mysterious Channel 69.

An eccentric games inventor dies and leaves behind an inheritance worth hundreds of millions of dollars - which will only be given to the person or team, amongst his family and hired help, who wins a madcap scavenger hunt.

Ten years ago exactly, more or less, give or take a day or two, six young men sat down, or maybe stood, or perhaps some of them just lounged, and wrote the first episode of a new series called Owl Stretching Time. They were called Graham Chapman , John Cleese, Terry Gilliam , Eric Idle,Terry Jones and Michael Palin and later both they and the series became known as Monty Python 's Flying Circus . Today they are the best known British comedy group in the world, famous from Cathay to Kathmandu, from Sydney to Sidcup (except in Japan where the programme is called The Gay Boys' Dragon Show ... say no more). To commemorate their tenth anniversary a BBC team tracked them down in the deserts of Tunisia where they were filming their Life of Brian and almost persuaded them to examine the genesis, the genius and the gender of Monty Python.

The Flintstones and the Rubbles win a trip on "Make a Deal or Don't" to Count Rockula's castle in Rocksylvania, where they have an unpleasant meeting with the Count and his servant, Frankenstone.

The Pittsburgh basketball team is hopeless. Maybe with the aid of an astrologer, and some new astrologically compatible players, they can become winners.

The Lightning Bug has a multi-prong scheme to enslave the earth. First, rock and roll, which the JMen counter with Muzac, then marijuana. Finally, the JMen build a bomb to blow up the moon with, but the Bug beats them to it by self destructing the moon by playing his rock and roll too loud.

Four men attempt "The Knowledge" examination to qualify as London taxi drivers.

One of Mark Rappaport's later narratives (which won the Gold Hugo for Best First Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1979), Impostors is an off-kilter comedy/mystery focused on two magicians trying to find Egyptian jewels, their promiscuous assistant, and a man who loves the assistant.

Hillary Kramer, successful Perfume magnate awakes one morning to find that her accountant has robbed her blind and left for South America. Going through all of her remaining assets she finds a boxer, purchased as a tax write off. She decides to take Kid Natural, (Eddie Scanlon) who is much more at home giving driving lessons, into the ring and use him as her key to riches. Eddie thinks this will only get him killed and resists.

During the World War II, the prisoners of a German camp in a Greek island are trying to escape. They not only want their freedom, but also seek an ineffable treasure hidden in a monastery at the summit of the island's mountain.