comedy tonight!

gossamer light lombard and steely sleek powell are a great match as the dizzy debutante that finds a forgotten man then hires him to buttle for her park avenue family. this film has a cast that plays like an ensemble. in fact, they're so tight, it's surprising that some broadway folks haven't tried to turn this one in to a musical.

mitchell leisen applies his style to billy wilder's racy, bubbly screenplay and makes an instant classic. claudette colbert leads the pack as a down on her luck chorus girl in paris named eve peabody. armed only with her wits and a chic gown, eve turns parisian society on its ear with the help of business tycoon john barrymore.

wilder made hsi director debut coaxing a delightful performance from ginger rogers as a young woman so desperate to get back home to iowa that she masquerades as a twelve year old to save on train fare. she meets a major whose fiancee has him in stir at a posh military academy and the fun mounts higher from there!

sturges was billy wilder's american counterpart. though both men gave you the happy ending you needed to go on, they gave you some dark and sometimes troubling thoughts to ruminate over regarding our wonderful country and society. this film starts off easily enough with the plight of a studio director who wants to experience life on the road so he can make a film about it goes through some eye-opening experiences when he is temporarily lost a limbo of freighter cars and work camps.

preston sturges brought one of the last go-rounds of the screwball genre to the screen with this fast-paced 1942 release. colbert plays toni, a woman who feels that in order to help her husband, she has to leave him and find a rich man to marry. it sounds weird but it works because it's sturges and colbert. with joel mccrea, mary astor and rudy vallee to boot.

i like wilder! obviously. this is the third film on this list he wrote. he was great! this film is about a frosty (literally) representative of the u.s. in berlin who is ready to crack down on the black market shenanigans. she is taken from her course from a u.s. officer with a former nazi sympathizer as his lover!

george cukor directed the first film version of garson kanin's comedy twist on the pygmalion myth. judy holliday became an icon as billie dawn.

what is there not to like about this brilliant classic comedy? it has a great balance of darkness and effervescence, great plot twists that are brought about through some wonderful dialogue, a uniformly brilliant cast and a stunning black and white look that defines new york city at the end of the 1950s.

excepting the last 15 minutes or so, this film is a wonderful satire on corporate america as it shows three women taking control of their 'white collar ghetto' workplace and turning it in to an e/o/e dream!

i may be one of thirteen people that love this film. whoopi goldberg never fails to make me laugh out loud as terry doolittle. while i think they could have found someone like timothy dalton to play jack, that's a minor point. goldberg was very smart to do this after 'color purple' because it showed her versatility.

i think goldberg was funnier in this than in ghost. in spite of the fact it was developed with bette midler in mind, whoopi made it all her own. and what's left over is ably taken by maggie smith, kathy najimy, wendy makkena and mary wickes. not to mention this may be one film that goldberg a leading man that could match her energy. bill nunn is the perfect lead for her.

bruce willis and billy bob thorton have a great variation on the buddy film here. plus, they have cate blanchett, who makes a great foil as a neurotic housewife they kidnap then fall for.