Comedies from the 1970s

The Seventh Company Has Been Found (On A Retrouvé La 7ème Compagnie)
      1975 | France | Laughs: 3.8 (Watch Once) | imdb: 6.7
      who was involved?

During World War 2, a trio of fumbling French soldiers keeps escaping from their German captors, only to be recaptured shortly thereafter. Although this is far a side-splitter, it's clean and entertaining enough for an idle evening. It's one of those rare cases where the sequel is far funnier than the original—but that wasn't hard. The third installment is even better. (Last viewed: August 2014)

More About The Seventh Company Has Been Found:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Seventh Company Has Been Found

A Pain in the... (L'Emmerdeur)
      1973 | France | Laughs: 3.7 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 7.1
      wikipedia | who was involved?

One of the early tries of Francis Veber, the director who would later create The Dinner Game, one of the funniest movies ever. In fact, these two movies' main characters have the same name (François Pignon), but the man who plays him here (Jacques Brel, a famous singer) was never meant to act. The 2008 remake is not much better. (Last viewed: October 2010)

More About A Pain in the...:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for A Pain in the...

The Toy (Le Jouet)
      1976 | France | Laughs: 3.6 (Broken Comedies) | imdb: 7.5
      who was involved?

Another of Francis Veber's early films. Asked to choose a toy, the spoiled son of a magazine owner demands to bring home one of the reporters. The main actor (Pierre Richard) is very funny in movies such as The Tall Blond and La Chèvre, but this film makes poor use of his talents. (Last viewed: December 2010)

More About The Toy:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Toy

Six Bears and a Clown (Sest medvedu s Cibulkou)
      1972 | Czechoslovakia | Laughs: 3.5 (Watch Once) | imdb: 6.8
      who was involved?

Six circus bears on the run end up at the local school. The clown (who is also a master of disguise) and his chimpanzee has to cover up for them. This is one of those rare movies for kids that adults can also watch without cringing. No doubt the movie was also an excuse to show off some superbly trained animals. I enjoyed it, but I'd only suggest watching it if you have kids around who are tolerant of older movies and subtitles. (Last viewed: July 2014)

More About Six Bears and a Clown:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for Six Bears and a Clown

Where Do You Go on Holiday? (Dove Vai in Vacanza?)
      1978 | Italy | Laughs: 3.5 (Watch Once) | imdb: 6.4
      who was involved?

To me, watching this movie felt like being stuck in a huge pot of spaghetti. Although the mood is light, the acting pleasant and the situations often original, the action in several of the vignettes in this rather long film progresses at a crawling pace. To watch only if you are a lover of Italy, a fan of the actors involved or have a high tolerance for slow films. (Last viewed: June 2013)

More About Where Do You Go on Holiday?:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for Where Do You Go on Holiday?

Don't Know Anything But I'll Tell All (Je Sais Rien Mais Je Dirai Tout)
      1973 | France | Laughs: 3.5 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 5.6
      who was involved?

The son of a weapon industry magnate is filled with humanistic and social values, but his high-society upbringing makes him awkward when he tries to bond with the workers whose plight he aspires to improve. This little film has some good moments. It also has moments when it goes into a chaotic dimension where few can follow, with fast, loud, incoherent dialogue. Instead of amusing me, these moments put me in a slumber from which it was hard to recover. Overall, it's a "skip". (Last viewed: August 2013)

More About Don't Know Anything But I'll Tell All:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for Don't Know Anything But I'll Tell All

The In-Laws
      1979 | USA | Laughs: 3.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 7.3
      wikipedia | dmoz | who was involved?

Days before his daughter's wedding, a dentist makes the acquaintance of the groom's father, who asks him a favor that leads to a chain of events which shakes the roots of the dentist's conservative life. Peter Falk was delightful as the groom's father, and so was Alan Arkin, his counterpart. No big laughs, but an entertaining movie that has aged well. Please steer clear of the 2003 remake. (Last viewed: August 2015)

More About The In-Laws:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The In-Laws

Party at the Snooker (a.k.a Snooker) (חגיגה בסנוקר / Hagiga B'Snuker)
      1975 | Israel | Laughs: 3.0 (Watch Once) | imdb: 7.5
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Here is how I felt about the movie after thirty minutes:

A couple of snooker hustlers scam another scammer, who turns out to be a mafia figure. The cultural value is high, the comedic value is low. It's interesting to see Israel in the 1970s—it seems about twenty years late on the States, and indeed the humor is straight out of a 1950s Hollywood B-movie. Sadly, what comedic power it had at the time hasn't survived. This may be a cult movie in Israel, but for most movie fans in the rest of the world it's probably fit for the bin.

Five months later, I came back to the movie and finished it. The final hour was much more enjoyable than the beginning. A thug schemes to have a rabbi let his twin brother, a near-saint, marry the daughter, whom he loves. (Last viewed: January 2014)

More About Party at the Snooker:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for Party at the Snooker

Febbre da Cavallo
      1976 | Italy | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 7.2
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Three hopeless gamblers devise endless scams to scare up the money they'll immediately lose at the races. The film is still entertaining—I smiled and chuckled, but there was nothing in there to provoke laughter. (Last viewed: July 2014)

More About Febbre da Cavallo:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for Febbre da Cavallo

The Fox in the Chicken Coop ('השועל בלול התרנגולות / Ha-Shu'al B'Lool Hatarnagalot)
      1978 | Israel | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 7.5
      wikipedia | who was involved?

An ailing politician takes a vacation in a remote village whose inhabitants live a kind of primordial communistic life, unaware of the outside world and its social structures. Blind to the benefits of their simple lives, the politician decides to raise the villagers' political awareness—introducing positions of power, taxes, privileges, elections and corruption. I usually find political satires to be about twice as long as necessary—it doesn't take long to get the point—and this one is no exception. The movie is in many ways charming, and I certainly enjoyed seeing Shaike Ophir again (he also had the lead role in The Policeman, also by Ephraim Kishon). But as light as the movie starts, its message is heavy, and the unfolding of the expected mayhem is tiresome to watch. In comparison, The Policeman (which was filmed seven years earlier) has aged much better. (Last viewed: April 2014)

More About The Fox in the Chicken Coop:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Fox in the Chicken Coop

The Five Crazy Boys (Les Bidasses en Folie)
      1971 | France | Laughs: 3.0 (Don't Bother) | imdb: 5.4
      who was involved?

Five rebellious young men get called in for their mandatory year of military training. The film takes a really long time to get going. For the first half hour or so, our anti-heroes just muck around a small town trying their hands at various little jobs to pay for musical instruments. Once they get pulled in, there are some good chuckles, all in the vein of what you expect from army comedies. Overall I'd say this is not worth watching except perhaps for historical value. (Last viewed: August 2014)

More About The Five Crazy Boys:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Five Crazy Boys

The Annuity (Le Viager)
      1972 | France | Laughs: 3.0 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.9
      who was involved?

In 1930, a Parisian doctor thinks he has stumbled on the perfect scheme. He convinces one of his patients (then 59 years old) to retire in a house the patient has bought on the Riviera, and to sell that house to the doctor's brother against a sum to be paid yearly as long as the man lives. Certain that the man only has two years to live, the doctor believes he has cooked a great deal for his brother. However, the climate of southern France seems to benefit the supposedly dying retiree. This movie that spans forty years is a really fun watch—though definitely in the light-hearted category, as it's designed to make you smile rather than laugh. (Last viewed: September 2012)

More About The Annuity:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Annuity

The Chaos Class Is Waking Up (Hababam Sınıfı Uyanıyor)
      1977 | Turkey | Laughs: 2.5 (Chuckle) | imdb: 8.8
      wikipedia | who was involved?

Every once in a while, a talented director takes a concept that a movie hadn't fully developed and makes a sequel that far surpasses the original. That's not what happened here, but at least it's not worse.

The innovation in this installment is that Mahmut Oca sponsors one of his former grade school students to join the Chaos Class, where he gets infected by the prevalent atmosphere. The writers focused even more of the writing on the Inek character than before — while he seems to play an important part in nearly every scene, most of the other boys are devoid of substance.

Other titles in this series:

— The Chaos Class
— The Chaos Class Failed the Class
— The Chaos Class Is on Vacation

(Last viewed: January 2019)

More About The Chaos Class Is Waking Up:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Chaos Class Is Waking Up

Robert Et Robert
      1978 | France | Laughs: 2.5 (Light-Hearted) | imdb: 6.6
      wikipedia | who was involved?

This lighthearted movie introduces us to two socially-challenged bachelors who visit the same marriage bureau and become friends. It's a fun watch, with a delightful twist near the end that brings chuckles thanks to Jacques Villeret, the lead actor in The Dinner Game. (Last viewed: July 2014)

More About Robert Et Robert:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for Robert Et Robert

The Chaos Class Failed the Class (Hababam Sınıfı Sınıfta Kaldı)
      1976 | Turkey | Laughs: 2.5 (Chuckle) | imdb: 9.0
      wikipedia | who was involved?

The sequel to The Chaos Class improves on the failed original. It's a bit simple for what we've come to expect of comedy (one of the big jokes is that one of the guys' nicknames is "Inek", i.e. "Cow") and the ending was heavy, but I found the movie enjoyable overall, although it certainly never brought me beyond the chuckle point.

I'll soon try to review The Chaos Class Is Waking Up as well as The Chaos Class Is on Vacation.

(Last viewed: January 2019)

More About The Chaos Class Failed the Class:
=> Read what people say on Amazon
=> Add your own Review or Comments on
      laughDB's full page for The Chaos Class Failed the Class