Jokers Wild: American Comedy, 1960–1989

3/1/14 to 4/18/14

It's no joke! Joker's Wild showcases the high points of American comedy from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and includes laugh-riots from Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Tim Burton, Harold Ramis, Melvin Van Peebles, and more...

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Past
Films
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Past Films

Beetlejuice
- Friday, April 18 8:30pm
Tim Burton (U.S., 1988). Tim Burton's out-there remix of the ghost story involving two ghosts (Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis) out to scare the inhabitants of their old house, with help from ghastly ghoul Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). This brilliantly inventive work launched Burton's career. (92 mins)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
- Thursday, April 17 7pm
John Hughes (U.S., 1987). Steve Martin and John Candy are two accidental companions in this road movie gone awry, from director John Hughes (The Breakfast Club). “Hughes at the peak of his powers, and two masterful comedians at theirs” (New Times). (93 mins)
Caddyshack
- Thursday, April 10 7pm
Harold Ramis (U.S., 1980). Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield star in this classic satire of the haves and have-nots, played out on the yuppie-and-rodent-infested grounds of a crusty country club. The gleefully rude and crude archetype of countless eighties comedies. (98 mins)
Being There
- Thursday, April 3 7pm
Hal Ashby (U.S., 1979). Catch Peter Sellers in one of his greatest roles, as a simple-minded gardener whose television-soaked catchphrases are mistaken for wisdom by tycoons and politicians. “Sellers gives one of his finest portrayals” (Dave Kehr). (103 mins)
“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex”* but Were Afraid to Ask
- Friday, March 28 7pm
Woody Allen (U.S., 1972). Seven segments of sensual satire cover such age-old sexual mysteries as "Do Aphrodisiacs Work?" told in Elizabethan English, and “What Are Sex Perverts?” staged as a 1950s game show. Woody at his wackiest. (88 mins)
Young Frankenstein
- Friday, March 28 8:50pm
Mel Brooks (U.S., 1974). Mel Brooks was never zanier as he does Transylvania with a twist, aided by some of the greatest comics ever assembled onscreen: co-scribbler Gene Wilder, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman. (107 mins)
Watermelon Man
- Wednesday, March 12 7 pm
Melvin Van Peebles (U.S., 1970). Few blaxploitation films are as direct-or as hilarious-as this satire of a white businessman who wakes up black. The great comic Godfrey Cambridge stars. (97 mins)
The Producers
- Friday, March 7 7pm
Mel Brooks (U.S., 1967). In Brooks's first film, a has-been Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) hopes to bilk his investors by producing a surefire failure: Springtime for Hitler, the musical. With Gene Wilder and Dick Shawn. Academy Award for Best Screenplay. (88 mins)
Take the Money and Run
- Friday, March 7 8:50 pm
Woody Allen (U.S., 1969). Rare Studio Print! A blundering boychik from the borscht belt turns to robbery in Woody Allen's perfect parody of a fifties noir, shot in the Bay Area. A film this funny should be illegal. (85 mins)
What's New Pussycat?
- Wednesday, March 5 7pm
Clive Donner (U.S., 1965). Return to the swingin' sixties! Woody Allen's first feature script tracks a neurotic playboy (Peter O'Toole) as he tries to conquer Paris's countless sex kittens (including Ursula Andress and Paula Prentiss) and his equally demented therapist (Peter Sellers). (108 mins)
The Apartment
- Saturday, March 1 8:30pm
Billy Wilder (U.S., 1960). Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, and Shirley MacLaine in a riotously acidic tale of sex and corporate success. Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Art Direction. “An American classic”(NY Times).

Jokers Wild: American Comedy, 1960–1989

3/1/14 to 4/18/14

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”-Mel Brooks

The cultural commotion of the sixties-whether sexual, political, or otherwise-was no laughing matter, unless you're talking comedy. A more risqué, socially scathing style of humor could be heard in clubs frequented by controversial comics like Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. But a milder make of hilarity also persisted, slung by laughmeisters like Mel Brooks and a younger Woody Allen, The Producers and What's New Pussycat? launching, respectively, their laughable livelihoods. Along with many others, these comedians crossed over to the movies and stand-up became stand-out as actors who were comics replaced comic actors.

Part two of a three-part series, Jokers Wild trails the laugh tracks of a new generation of jokesters as they cracked wise on the wide screen. The seventies saw the convulsive...

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”-Mel Brooks

Part two of a three-part series, Jokers Wild trails the laugh tracks of a new generation of jokesters as they cracked wise on the wide screen. The seventies saw the convulsive ascension of Mel and Woody with films like Young Frankenstein and Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex while a more acutely critical humor rose with Godfrey Cambridge in Watermelon Man and Peter Sellers in Being There. The eighties saw a new crop of top bananas, often two to the bunch, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray (Caddyshack), Steve Martin and John Candy (Planes, Trains & Automobiles), and one overripe banana, Rodney Dangerfield. Prodded by the visual gags of director Tim Burton, Michael Keaton got juiced on Beetlejuice, accelerating the laughs-per-minute beyond our world and into the next. Join us for some out-of-this-world comedy. You'll die laughing.

You can help decide which films to include in the final installment of this series, Rude Awakening, screening this summer: vote for your favorite American comedies from the last twenty years. Submit your votes by February 24.

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