The best Steve Allen’s comedy movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Steve Allen’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 Steve Allen.
The Player
7.5/10
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?
Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind
7.9/10
A funny, intimate and heartbreaking portrait of one of the world’s most beloved and inventive comedians, Robin Williams, told largely through his own words. Celebrates what he brought to comedy and to the culture at large, from the wild days of late-1970s L.A. to his death in 2014.
Amazon Women on the Moon
6.2/10
Acclaimed director John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers) presents this madcap send-up of late night TV, low-budget sci-fi films and canned-laughter-filled sitcoms packed with off-the-wall sketches that will have you in stitches. Centered around a television station which features a 1950s-style sci-fi movie interspersed with a series of wild commercials, wacky shorts and weird specials, this lampoon of contemporary life and pop culture skewers some of the silliest spectacles ever created in the name of entertainment. A truly outrageous look at the best of the worst that television has to offer.
The Sunshine Boys
7.1/10
Lewis and Clark, aka The Sunshine Boys, were famous comedians during the vaudeville era, but off-stage they couldn't stand each other and haven't spoken in over 20 years of retirement. Willy Clark's nephew is the producer of a TV variety show that wants to feature a reunion of this classic duo. It is up to him to try to get the Sunshine Boys back together again.
Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?
5.8/10
When the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 hit, millions of people were left in the dark, including Waldo Zane, a New York executive in the process of stealing a fortune from his company, and two people whose paths he's destined to cross, Broadway actress Margaret Garrison and her husband, Peter.
The Ratings Game
5.9/10
A New Jersey trucker creates a hit TV show with help from his girlfriend in the ratings business.
The Funny Farm
4.9/10
The laughs are nonstop as a gang of ambitious young comics strives to make it in the exciting world of stand-up comedy at the famous comedy club in L.A., The Funny Farm. These budding comedy stars are as crazy offstage as they are on: Miguel, America s funniest illegal alien ; Miles, who can t decide if he s a black comic or a comic who happens to be black; Bruce, whose manic act borders on insanity; and Peter, the intense political satirist. The Funny Farm is a hilarious and insightful look into those who live the lives of comedians. Starring comedy superstar Howie Mandel (Walk Like a Man, Deal or No Deal, America s Got Talent), game show legend Jack Carter (The Hollywood Squares, Match Game) and the great Eileen Brennan (Private Benjamin).
Mitzi & 100 Guys
8.2/10
Mitzi Gaynor in a song and dance hour with an all-male, star-studded ensemble featuring her main guests Micheal Landon (Little House on the Prairie), Jack Albertson (Chico and the Man) additionally 28 celebrities as her "Million Dollar Chorus." Songs performed include: "I Got the Music in Me," "The Most Beautiful Guy in the World," and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life."
Joys
6.5/10
Over fifty of the greatest living comedians are called to a party at Bob Hope's house, where each of them is systematically killed (and their bodies thrown in Hope's pool!). Hope and the rapidly shrinking cast try to discover who is the mysterious killer known only as "Joys."
The Comic
6.4/10
An account of the rise and fall of a silent film comic, Billy Bright. The movie begins with his funeral, as he speaks from beyond the grave in a bitter tone about his fate, and takes us through his fame, as he ruins it with womanizing and drink, and his fall, as a lonely, bitter old man unable to reconcile his life's disappointments. The movie is based loosely on the life of Buster Keaton.
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.
Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth
7.9/10
In 1948, Lenny Bruce was just another comic who couldn't get arrested. By 1961, all that would change.
Something's Got to Give
Unfinished remake of "My Favorite Wife", due to the firing of Marilyn Monroe from the film. She was eventually re-hired, but died in August, 1962. Film was never completed.
Lucy Calls the President
6.8/10
Homemaker Lucy Whittaker calls up President Carter to complain about a local political issue—and to her astonishment, he agrees to come dine at her house. Now Lucy has her hands full as family, friends and Secret Service agents invade her home in preparation for the big dinner summit.
Rodney Dangerfield's The Really Big Show
7/10
Rodney Dangerfield wants the hottest up-and-coming comedians for his new HBO special, but as always, he gets no respect.
I'll Get By
6/10
I'll Get By is an updated remake of the 1940 20th Century-Fox musical Tin Pan Alley. William Lundigan and Dennis Day play William Spencer and Freddie Lee respectively, successful song publishers who make hits out of such numbers as "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo", "Deep in the Heart of Texas", "You Make Me Feel So Young", "There Will Never Be Another You", and other favorites (the rights to all of these songs were conveniently held by 20th Century-Fox). The partnership has some hard times, especially during the feud between ASCAP and the radio networks, when only public-domain songs like "I Dream of Jeannie" were permitted to be broadcast.
Allen in Movieland
6.7/10
TV goes Hollywood when Steve Allen visits Universal-International to prepare for his upcoming title role in "The Benny Goodman Story."
Down Memory Lane
5.8/10
This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio. Sennett, himself, appears in a cameo at the end of the film.
Lenny Bruce: Without Tears
6.2/10
The outrageous, groundbreaking comic Lenny Bruce, whose iconoclastic material in a conservative era got him into tragic trouble, is profiled by a close friend, Fred Baker, who prefers to remember the laughs Lenny Bruce's memory evokes instead of the tears. By presenting Bruce's landmark skits on the Steve Allen Show, his failed TV pilot episode and a candid interview with Nat Hentoff, Bruce's genius and anguish show through the dramatic and tragic trajectory of his career from aspiring artist to hunted "lawbreaker".
Richard Lewis: I'm Exhausted
7.6/10
The sun's too bright, the traffic's going to be bad, there's too many people out there... It's just easier to sit back on the couch and laugh with Richard Lewis.
