The best Henry Fonda’s comedy movies
Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor who had a career that spanned five decades in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics, earning one Academy Award for Best Actor on two nominations.
Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. His film career began to gain momentum with roles such as Bette Davis's fiancee in her Academy Award-winning performance in Jezebel (1938), brother Frank in Jesse James (1939), and the future President in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), directed by John Ford. His early career peaked with his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, about an Oklahoma family who moved to California during the Dust Bowl 1930s. This film is widely considered to be among the greatest American films.
In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's western Fort Apache (1948). After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1957 he starred as Juror No.8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also co-producer, won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actor.
Later in his career, Fonda moved into darker roles, such as the villain in the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), underrated and a box office disappointment at its time of release, but now regarded as one of the best westerns of all time. He also played in lighter-hearted fare such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, but also often played important military figures, such as a Colonel in Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Admiral Nimitz in Midway (1976). He finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for his final film role in On Golden Pond (1981), which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda, but was too ill to attend the ceremony. He died from heart disease a few months later.
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My Name Is Nobody
7.3/10
Jack Beauregard, one of the greatest gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe. But a young gunfighter, known as "Nobody", who idolizes Beauregard, wants him to go out in glory. So he arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.
Mister Roberts
7.6/10
Mr. Roberts is as an officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.
Yours, Mine and Ours
7.1/10
When a widower with ten children marries a widow with eight, can the twenty of them ever come together as one big happy family?
La Classe américaine
7.9/10
George Abitbol, the classiest man in the world, dies tragically during a cruise. With his last breath, he whispers: “Shitty world.” The director of an American newspaper, wondering about the meaning of these intriguing final words, asks his three best investigators, Dave, Peter and Steven, to solve the mystery… (16 French actors dub scenes from various Warner Bros. films to create a parody of Citizen Kane, 1941.)
Sex and the Single Girl
6.4/10
A womanizing reporter for a sleazy tabloid magazine impersonates his hen-pecked neighbor in order to get an expose on renowned psychologist Helen Gurley Brown.
The Rounders
6.1/10
Ben (Glenn Ford) and Marion (Henry Fonda) are two cowboys who make a meager living breaking wild horses. Their frequent employer Jim (Chill Wills), who always gets the better of them, talks them into taking a nondescript horse in lieu of some of their wages. Ben finds that the horse is un-rideable, he comes up with the idea of taking it to a rodeo and betting other cowhands they cannot ride it.
Spencer's Mountain
7/10
Clay Spencer is a hard-working man who loves his wife and large family. He is respected by his neighbors and always ready to give them a helping hand. Although not a churchgoer, he even helps a newly arrived local minister regain his flock after he and Clay get into a bit of trouble. If he has one dream in life it's to build his wife Olivia a beautiful house on a piece of land he inherited on Spender's mountain. When his eldest son, Clayboy, graduates at the top of his high school class and has the opportunity to go to college, Clay has only one option left to him.
The Male Animal
6.6/10
The trustees of Midwestern University have forced three teachers out of their jobs for being suspected communists. Trustee Ed Keller has also threatened mild mannered English Professor Tommy Turner, because he plans to read a controversial piece of prose in class. Tommy is upset that his wife Ellen also suggested he not read the passage. Meanwhile, Ellen's old boyfriend, the football player Joe Ferguson, comes to visit for the homecoming weekend. He takes Ellen out dancing after the football rally, causing Tommy to worry that he will lose her to Joe.
The Lady Eve
7.7/10
It's no accident when wealthy Charles falls for Jean. Jean is a con artist with her sights set on Charles' fortune. Matters complicate when Jean starts falling for her mark. When Charles suspects Jean is a gold digger, he dumps her. Jean, fixated on revenge and still pining for the millionaire, devises a plan to get back in Charles' life. With love and payback on her mind, she re-introduces herself to Charles, this time as an aristocrat named Lady Eve Sidwich.
Tales of Manhattan
7.3/10
Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.
The Cheyenne Social Club
6.8/10
Two cowboys inherit a "social club" specializing in satisfying men.
The Mad Miss Manton
6.7/10
When the murdered body discovered by beautiful, vivacious socialite Melsa Manton disappears, police and press label her a prankster until she proves them wrong.
Rings on Her Fingers
6.6/10
Susan Miller works behind the girdle counter in a department store and dreams about the beautiful clothes and glamour she can never hope to have. Enter May Worthington and Warren, a pair of con artists who pose as the mother and uncle of a pretty girl in order to separate millionaires from their money. They convince Susan she has an opportunity to fulfill all her dreams, and the trio heads for Palm Beach. Susan meets John Wheeler who says he is shopping for a sailboat. Believing that he is a millionaire, Warren and May sell him a boat that doesn't belong to them, and make off with his $15,000 life savings. Looking for greener pastures, they work themselves into the family of wealthy Tod Fenwick, who falls for Sue, posing as "Linda Worthington". But John shows up as a guest of Fenwick and he tells "Linda", not knowing she was part of the scam, that he has a detective after the fake captain that sold him the boat...
The Best Man
7.6/10
The other party is in disarray. Five men vie for the party nomination for president. No one has a majority as the first ballot closes and the front-runners begin to decide how badly they want the job.
On Our Merry Way
5.7/10
Oliver Pease gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha and tricks the editor of the paper (where he writes lost pet notices) into assigning him the day's roving question. Martha suggests, "Has a little child ever changed your life?" Oliver gets answers from two slow-talking musicians, an actress whose roles usually feature a sarong, and an itinerant cardsharp. In each case the "little child" is hardly innocent: in the first, a local auto mechanic's "baby" turns out to be fully developed as a woman and a musician; in the second, a spoiled child star learns kindness; in the third, the family of a lost brat doesn't want him returned. And Oliver, what becomes of him?
The Great Smokey Roadblock
5/10
An old trucker steals his truck for one last cross-country run, with a madam and her crew on board.
The Farmer Takes a Wife
6.4/10
A farmer tries to convince a girl to leave her life on a canal boat to live with him on his farm.
Spawn of the North
6.7/10
Two Alaskan salmon fisherman find their friendship at risk when one aligns with Russian fish pirates and the other aligns with local vigilantes.
I Dream Too Much
5.3/10
If Columbia could make an acceptable movie star out of opera-diva Grace Moore, then RKO Radio could do the same with Lily Pons. At least that was producer Pandro S. Berman's reasoning when he cast Pons in the 1935 musical romance I Dream too Much. The actress plays Annette, a rural French musical student who marries struggling American composer Jonathan (Henry Fonda). Possessed of a splendid singing voice, our heroine rises to fame on the opera stage, while poor Jonathan continues struggling, supporting himself as a tour guide. Annette eventually saves her marriage by transforming her husband's "masterpiece," a rather turgid modernistic opera, into a light-hearted musical comedy. Lucille Ball, who'd later co-star with Henry Fonda in The Big Street and Yours, Mine and Ours, has a funny minor role as a gum-snapping tourist. Though Lily Pons was at least 10 years older than Fonda, they make an attractive and believable screen couple, adding credibility to this somewhat contrived yarn
The Man Who Understood Women
4.4/10
A film director turns his actress wife into a star, leading to marital problems.
