Top Ten Tuesday: Marital Comedies

What’s so funny about marriage? Well, depending on the circumstances, marriage can be painfully funny. Director Shawn Levy returns with his newest comedy DATE NIGHT, set to hit theaters this Friday, April 9. DATE NIGHT stars Steve Carell and Tina Fey in a film about a married couple whose little white lie turns into a hilariously disastrous adventure. In anticipation of this wildly anticipated new comedy, We Are Movie Geeks have compiled our own list of the Top Ten Marital Comedies.

10. PARENTHOOD

Sure, the movie is primarily about the thrills and turbulence of being a parent, but with that comes the equally thrilling and turbulent ordeals of married life, which is hilariously captured in this early Ron Howard-directed comedy. The story focuses on the Buckman family, a couple played by Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen, as they stumble through raising their children. The movie is a playfully enjoyable ride, but touches on some things that come up in a marriage with kids that happen in real life, things that create stress for couples. In this way, PARENTHOOD is an interesting study of married life, different philosophies and mistakes. Of course, the whole Buckman family plays a crucial role in the movie, with a supporting cast that includes Dianne Wiest (in an Oscar-nominated performance), Jason Robards, Rick Moranis, Tom Hulce, Martha Plimpton, Joaquin Phoenix and, yes… even Keanu Reeves. Through the thick and thin of it all, PARENTHOOD makes marriage and family life seem oh so painfully funny.

09. THE BIRDCAGE

Set in the Florida community of South Beach, comes director Mike Nichols 1996’s, bust-a-gut THE BIRDCAGE, the American version of the 1978 French comedy, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES. In his over the top performance, Robin Williams portrays Armand, owner of the nightclub The Birdcage, home to drag queen shows and Nathan Lane plays Armand’s longtime companion, Albert. In trying to disguise his Jewish, gay, and nightclub owning parents from his prospective, conservative in-laws, a senator (Gene Hackman) and his wife (Dianne Wiest), a recently engaged Val pleads with them to pretend to be a straight couple. Chaos ensues after Albert agrees to the charade by becoming Mrs. Armand Coleman. THE BIRDCAGE hilariously portrays the everyday problems and joys of any couple and shows that these two are totally committed to each other when Armand lovingly tells Albert. “What a pain in the ass you are. And it’s true: you’re not young, you’re not new, and you do make people laugh. And me? I’m still with you because you make me laugh. So you know what I got to do? I got to sell my plot in Key Biscayne so I can get one next to you in that shithole Los Copa, so I never miss a laugh.”

08. ARSENIC AND OLD LACE

From the director of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Frank Capra, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE was one of the earlier black comedies, a genre that wasn’t so hateful in 1944 when the Cary Grant-starring film came out.  Back then, the idea of a man who has just been married has to make the decision on whether or not to introduce his new bride to his pair of homicidal aunts could be pulled off a bit more lightheartedly than it can today.  Based on the stage play, the film pretty much stays on one set, immersing the audience into this house of insanity and murderous hilarity.  All the while, Grant, known for being as much of a jokester as he was a man of dramatic flare, does an excellent job as a man who is slowly trying to keep his newly acquired marriage and his sanity intact.  With nonstop antics hitting us from left and right, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE is easily remembered as one of the grandest and most off-the-wall hilarious black comedies in film history.

07. SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES

Chevy Chase.  Goldie Hawn.  Charles Grodin.  Neil Simon.  “Benson”s Robert Guillaume.  These are just a handful of the reasons why SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES is such a modern classic.  It’s screwball comedy at its absolute best as Hawn and Grodin play a happily married couple whose lives are turned upside down when her ex-husband, Chase, also a fugitive for armed robbery, decides to crash at their place.  Almost forgotten in the 30 years since its release, the film, memorable as it is, has been relegated to running on TBS in the middle of the night.  However, do yourself a huge favor, seek this movie out.  You won’t regret it.  Chase and Hawn are precious together, and this film and FOUL PLAY would make for a nice double feature.  And, whether you think the film is an absolute laugh-riot from beginning to end, you won’t get the thought of chicken pepperoni out of your head any time soon.

06. ADAM’S RIB (1949)

George Cukor directed this charmingly funny film about a married couple who find themselves caught up in the battle of the sexes when they face off in the court of law. No, they aren’t getting divorced. The film was made before divorce was a socially acceptable topic in the movies. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play a married couple, both of whom are lawyers, that find themselves on opposite sides of a case regarding a woman who shot her husband. Through the events of the trial, the couple’s professional head-bashing gradually begins spilling over into their personal lives, resulting in a comical, classical struggle of man versus woman.

05. THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (1970)

Every traveler’s ‘Trip from Hell’ nightmares were played out in the riotously funny 1970 movie THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS. When couple Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis travel from Ohio to Manhattan for a job interview, they’re forced to deal with lost luggage, rude New Yorkers, a transit strike, a blizzard, a hotel that won’t honor their reservation, a mugging, and faulty dental work. Jack Lemmon plays high-speed neurosis to perfection, Sandy Dennis is his perfect hapless complement, and the situations just get funnier as the movie plays out. Neil Simon’s screenplay is at times shocking and dark, but THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS sustains hilarity up to its twist punch line ending. The Steve Martin-Goldie Hawn remake from 1999 had its share of laughs but lacked the charm and time-capsule quality of the original.

04. THE LONG LONG TRAILER

Vincente Minnelli directed the comedy THE LONG LONG TRAILER, designed as a vehicle for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz who were at the height of their television popularity as America’s favorite couple. Lucy wants a ‘life on wheels’ so demands obedient husband Desi buy the title vehicle and they make it their permanent residence. It’s basically a series of slapstick episodes, with all manner of physical comedy and bickering. A humiliated Desi knocks down signs and walls trying to maneuver the behemoth while Lucy wants to collect large rocks commemorating the places they’ve been, which start to weigh down their traveling home. The highlight of the movie is the sequence where they go over the mountain, which slowly builds to hilarious crescendo as they climb to the top of the pass. Lucy and Desi basically played their characters from “I Love Lucy” and worked perfectly together, making THE LONG LONG TRAILER a fun time for everyone and a huge hit in 1953.

03. SHE’S HAVING A BABY

All newlyweds know that feeling when the honeymoon is over and real married life begins. So, when Jake Briggs (Kevin Bacon) realizes his wife Kristy (Elizabeth McGovern) is pregnant, the two try to cope with the realities of impending parenthood in the 1988 film SHE’S HAVING A BABY. Director John Hughes’ most personal film mixes comedy and romance by honestly portraying the thing that society expects from grownups and its amusing to watch the ways in which Jake has troubles going from his selfish, single lifestyle to being a responsible, giving adult. Kristy seemingly has no problems with the idea of a mortgage, subdivisions and kids and continually shows deference to Jake’s maturity issues. In a goofy way, Bacon is continually trying to adjust to the new duties as husband and upcoming fatherhood, while his buddy, Davis (Alec Baldwin), is always distracting him by trying to lead him back down the bachelorhood path. The only real drama in the film comes when Kristy goes through a difficult delivery of their baby and Jake realizes “in the end, I realized that I took more than I gave, I was trusted more than I trusted, and I was loved more than I loved. And what I was looking for was not to be found but to be made .” SHE’S HAVING A BABY has a delightful ending credits scene where celebrities made cameos offering various suggestions of what Jake and Kristy should name their baby son.

02. RAISING ARIZONA

Petty criminal HI McDonnough (NIcholas Cage) and police officer Edwina (Holly Hunter) are an unlikely couple, but some things are universal in love and marriage. The couple desperately wants a child and will do just about anything to get one of their own. After trying the traditional method with no positive results, the couple hears that Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Arizona, the local furniture tycoons, are blessed with quintuplets. HI and Edwina decide it just isn’t fair that the Arizona couple have so many, while they have none, and they go to great lengths to kidnap one of the Arizona babies. But getting the baby isn’t as easy as getting away with the crime. They have to contend with a host of shady characters, many of which are gross stereotypes of the worst that America has to offer.

01. THE WAR OF THE ROSES

Whoever said marriage is bliss apparently forgot to tell Oliver and Barbara Rose. Danny Devito directed this extremely dark comedy about the perils of marriage, starring Michael Dougas and Kathleen Turner. Mr. and Mrs. Rose are happy at first, but once Barbara begins to wonder what her life without her husband in the picture would be like, she’s driven to force him out of the house by whatever means necessary. What ensues is a marital battle royale, the ultimate battle of the sexes, as Oliver and Barbara collide head first over who will keep the house. Devito also fills the role of the divorce lawyer, watching as this epic war unfolds. Douglas and Turner are extraordinary in this film, which begins light and peaceful and grows exponentially dark and claustrophobic as the tension and maliciousness between the couple grows out of control, eventually climaxing with a delightfully dark, non-Hollywood ending.