It’s finally here: Dumb and Dumber To is coming to theaters this weekend, and it’s making all of us remember just how much we love dumb comedies. You can’t get away with a dumb drama, can you? But comedies work just fine, even if they’re full of idiots making asses of themselves.
We’ve all got our favorite dumb comedies, whether we’re willing to admit it or not, but what’s The Best Dumb Comedy Ever? We asked CraveOnline’s critics to search their stupid brains and single out which film, if they could pick only one, they would pick to as the pinnacle of dumb comedy entertainment. Their responses are extremely silly, and that’s exactly the way we like it at The Best Movie Ever.
But what’s YOUR pick for the best dumb comedy? Read our critics’ nominations and then vote for your own favorites at the bottom of the page.
Check Out: The Best Movie Ever: Outer Space
Witney Seibold’s Pick: Monkey Business (1931)
Dumb comedy is the best kind of comedy. It’s often said – usually by comedians – that comedy stems from tragedy; laughter is just used, the theory goes, to mask the anxiety and depression that comes from the daily grind. I have never found this to be true. In my experience, comedy is often used as either an examination or an outright celebration of the thing it is satirizing.
Something like Monty Python and the Holy Grail is, within its awesomely absurd body, sending up (and not mocking) the conventions of medieval times, historical movies, cinema in general, social mores, God, sex, mythology, and nothing smaller than the English language itself. Does Monty Python hate all of those things? Are they depressed by them? I would say no. They are not springboarding off of depression. They are great jazz musicians who are riffing on the very fabric of reality. There is a lot that is silly about life, and we don’t have to take it all that seriously. That’s what dumb comedy does.
And while the Python boys were master jazz musicians, when selecting the best of all dumb comedies, I have to go to the classical jazz originators of the American “dumb comedy,” The Marx Bros. And what was their best movie? It’s hard to say, but I’m going with the 1931 classic Monkey Business for this article. That’s the one that takes place on the boat, to offer a shorthand.
Here were a group of young men who used every word they heard and said, every utterance within earshot, every instance of social decency they happened to encounter as a means to make jokes. Groucho’s verbal waterfalls was a gracefully blunt instrument used to turn language inside out. Harpo’s silly physical antics informed the language of slapstick. Chico’s backalley dealings and sly winks feel like something directly derived from Commedia dell’arte. And Zeppo, well, he was the charming straight man. He got the looks in the family.
Monkey Business runs a mere 77 minutes, and you wouldn’t want too much more. Brevity is the soul of wit, as William Shatner once said. And the Marx Bros., for however broad and hard the comedy, were never less than witty.
William Bibbiani’s Pick: ¡Three Amigos! (1986)
I feel like I’m supposed to pick a Monty Python movie here, but I can’t bring myself to call the Monty Python films “dumb comedies,” even though they are of course beyond silly. It’s just that their silliness stems from genuine intelligence, a very tangible sense of the historical, social and artistic conventions that they are sending up for a very pointed purpose. It only “looks” stupid.
And although I am also tempted to go with The Marx Bros.’ opus Duck Soup, perhaps the most delightfully dadaist comedy ever, I am instead forced to vote for the film that makes me laugh perhaps more than any other, which also happens to be really, really dumb.
¡Three Amigos! is at least fifty hoots. Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short play Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms and Ned Nederlander, three silent western movie stars who have just been fired from the studio. Fortunately, they’ve just been invited to do a live show in Mexico with the infamous El Guapo. (“He’s not just famous, he’s IN-famous.”) It’s only after it’s too late that they realize that El Guapo, played by celebrated director Alfonso Arau (A Walk in the Clouds), is a ruthless bandit who uses real bullets, and that an impoverished town has confused the Three Amigos for real heroes instead of the spoiled idiots they are.
That’s a plot that’s been reused in smart comedies like A Bug’s Life and Galaxy Quest (and is itself a riff on Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai), but it’s not smart here. It’s just wonderfully stupid. Wholly inappropriate musical numbers, invisible swordsmen, kisses on the veranda (even though lips would be fine) and an angry outburst about the word “plethora” await you in John Landis’s priceless comedy that ranks among the dumbest ever made, which also boasts perfect comic timing, unforgettable set pieces and male planes.
(Incidentally, my runner-up was Pootie Tang.)
Brian Formo’s Pick: Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
So, what makes a good dumb comedy more than just a guilty pleasure? Committed lunacy, funny lines, more than one visual joke you’ve never seen anywhere else … and a killer montage. I’m going to go with Wet Hot American Summer.
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