The best Ethel Merman’s comedy movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Ethel Merman’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Ethel Merman.
Airplane!
7.7/10
The persons and events in this film are fictitious - fortunately! A masterpiece of off-the-wall comedy, Airplane! features Robert Hays as an ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning; Julie Hagerty as his girlfriend/stewardess/co-pilot; and a cast of all-stars including Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar... and more. Their hilarious high jinks spoof airplane disaster flicks, religious zealots, television commercials, romantic love... the list whirls by in rapid succession. And the story races from one moment of zany fun to the next.
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
7.5/10
A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.
There's No Business Like Show Business
6.4/10
Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.
Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood
4.8/10
A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.
This Is Bob Hope...
7.9/10
During his career, Bob Hope was the only performer to achieve top-rated success in every form of mass entertainment. American Masters explores the entertainer’s life through his personal archives and clips from his classic films.
Stage Door Canteen
6.2/10
A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of the theater and films appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance
Strike Me Pink
6.4/10
Meek Eddie Pink becomes manager of an amusement park beset by mobsters.
Call Me Madam
6.7/10
Washington hostess Sally Adams becomes a Truman-era US ambassador to a European grand duchy.
The Art of Love
6.1/10
Painter Paul Sloan feels he's a failure, since nobody will buy his paintings. His art dealer informs him, that the works of an artist become much more wanted and valuable if the artist is dead. Therefore, Paul, together with his friend Casey Barnett, plans to fake his own suicide. However, it starts looking like Casey has murdered Paul and when Casey starts making a move for Paul's fiancée, he decides to get revenge. However, Paul falls in love with Nikki, who has also tried to commit suicide.
Kid Millions
6.7/10
A musical comedy about a Brooklyn boy who inherits a fortune from his archaeologist father, but has to go to Egypt to claim it.
Anything Goes
6.2/10
A young man falls in love with a beautiful blonde. When he sees her being forced onto a luxury liner, he decides to follow and rescue her. However, he discovers that she is an English heiress who ran away from home and is now being returned to England. He also discovers that his boss is on the ship. To avoid discovery, he disguises himself as the gangster accomplice of a minister, who is actually a gangster on the run from the law.
Happy Landing
6.3/10
Bandleader (Romero) and manager (Ameche) discover skater (Henie) in Norway. They become rivals as she returns with them to America.
The Muppets Go Hollywood
6.9/10
In this one-hour special, Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movie. Hosts Dick van Dyke and Rita Moreno interview the wide array of celebrities and Muppets who attend the event. Gary Owens serves as off-camera announcer, and appears on-screen to introduce Miss Piggy.
We're Not Dressing
6/10
Beautiful high society type Doris Worthington is entertaining guests on her yacht in the Pacific when it hits a reef and sinks. She makes her way to an island with the help of singing sailor Stephen Jones. Her friend Edith, Uncle Hubert, and Princes Michael and Alexander make it to the same island but all prove to be useless in the art of survival. The sailor is the only one with the practical knowhow to survive but Doris and the others snub his leadership offer. That is until he starts a clam bake and wafts the fumes in their starving faces. The group gradually gives into his leadership, the only question now is if Doris will give into his charms.
Anything Goes
6.6/10
On an ocean liner, a nightclub singer tries to help a fellow American romance an English heiress who is being forced to return home to marry a man she doesn't love. The American must avoid his boss who is traveling on the same vessel and disguises himself as a gangster traveling with a minister who is, in fact, a disguised gangster on the lam.
Something a Little Less Serious: A Tribute to 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World'
7.6/10
A star-studded documentary and tribute to the classic comedy, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
Follow the Leader
5.5/10
Ed Wynn, a waiter, tries to get hit employers daughter a start on the stage; Ginger Rogers replaces Ethel Merman when Merman is kidnapped.
Straight, Place and Show
5.7/10
The Ritz Brothers go to the race track. They raise training end entrance money in a wrestling match and help a young man train the horse of his fiancée.
A Special Sesame Street Christmas
7.2/10
Leslie Uggams hosts this take on A Christmas Carol, where she and fellow guest stars, Anne Murray, Imogene Coca, and Dickie Smothers try to get Oscar to stop being such a Grouch on Christmas.
The Ford 50th Anniversary Show
7.8/10
The program was the first so-called "Television Spectacular". Ford presented the show without commercial interruption. It is believed to be the first time that Edward R. Murrow appeared on NBC in a professional capacity. Also, in 1953, it was necessary for Ford to buy time on two networks to ensure maximum coverage of US TV households - at the time, neither CBS nor NBC reached 100% of them. The famed 1953 television special celebrating the Ford Motor Company's 50th anniversary brought together two of the greatest leading ladies Broadway has ever known. The highlight of the program is Merman and Martin’s 13-minute duet medley, where they sing the songs that made them famous, plus much more. On their own, Merman sings “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Mademoiselle from Armetières” and Martin performs a brilliantly comic routine about changes in fashion over the first half of the 20th century.
