7.9?!?!? No way.


Look, this is a cute movie, but it's simply not a 7.9. It's not great. It's merely, good, a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half.




I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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That is your opinion which you are entitled to have but let me just say I completely disagree. I have seen all the principal Ealing comedies with the exception of the Titfield Thunderbolt and whilst it is largely felt Kind Hearts and Coronets is the best I don't agree, The Ladykillers being my personal favourite.

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I happen to think it is one of the funniest films I have ever seen.

http://comicsbytrade.blogspot.com/

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A lot of people don't rate films just based on one thing. You think its a cute movie (or at least you did a year ago). Other people think its one of the funniest movies ever. Others think its one of the best old comedies and has heavily influenced many excellent comedies that have come after it for decades because of its brilliance. Some think even if now it just seems good, at the time it was made it was something special and exceptional and you can't ignore its place in history not just for comedy but for excellence in production generally...

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I have been a lifelong fan of British Comedy - Monty Python, The Two Ronnies, Benny Hill, you name it, I love it. It's a very different type of humor than what we get here in the US. But this movie just doesn't cut it. Sure, it's cute, it's risible, but actually laugh out loud guffawing? Nope. And you'll have to get me dry heaving from laughing too hard to rate a movie like this a 7.9.

If you feel differently about it - and obviously you do - that's fine. I'm just saying this isn't the standard of British humor (or, I guess, humour) I'm used to.




I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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Actually I don't feel differently. I haven't bothered rating the film and I've only seen this film 3 times in my life; if I really like a film I'll probably have seen it at least 30. If it was one of the first films I ever saw, such as this, I might have seen em about 200 times. Ladykillers is a lovely little film but just one of many solid films from the era. I'd class Sweet Smell of Success as a classic that should have been a much bigger hit than it ever was. Personally I have a nice opinion of Ladykillers and would encourage anyone I know to see it once if they haven't already, but the reason is much more to do with my [and my friends] personal tendancy to see as much work by the actors we like as possible. The film has several of my favourite actors in it. But as I said, it doesn't delight me enough that I've ever felt the urge to watch it over and over or wax lyrical that everyone should think highly of it.

Objectively though that isn't how the rating system works on here; you viewed it as cute but not exceptional, a lot of people take into account all sorts of different things that might not directly relate to just the quality of the film when they decide how they should rate a film, especially when their rating will be visible on their account, rightly or wrongly they balance whether they liked the film against all sorts of things. For instance, I find a lot of people take into consideration the extent to which they assume the film was influential and original for its time and might score a film higher on the assumption that had they been born decades earlier they would have been blown away by the film when it was released. This might not be the case, some people might not have researched whether the film was better than any other at the time, ahead of the curve or a trendsetter in the way they perceive. But some people will genuinely have found this film to be one of the shrewdest comedies they've ever seen.

Maybe you thought because I didn't outright agree with you I was disagreeing with you. I wasn't. Although your reference to laugh out loud funny I wouldn't agree with. A comedy doesn't have to be laugh out loud funny for me to rate it highly as a film. I've never laughed out loud at Dr Strangelove or The Odd Couple, but narratively I'd class them as two of the best things written ever...

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Ah, I would I agree with you about the two you mentioned; neither is really laugh out loud funny. But Dr. Strangelove is black comedy and satire and a reflection of its times, and it makes a political statement. Many, actually. And the Odd Couple, well, it's Neil Simon, it's witty, it's influential, it's Lemmon and Matthau, and it's the source material for a tv show that I watched growing up and did laugh out loud at very, very frequently. So each of those, I would rate very highly for all of those reasons.

How is this movie influential? And sure, it's Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers, but that isn't enough for me - they're both fairly background. Are the other actors (other than Guinness) famous? I don't really know them. I get it that it's meaningful for you, but I just don't see all the love for this movie from the teeming multitudes.



I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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jgroub in all fairness you do not have to see what others see. Their opinion and rating is just that, their opinion and rating.

I don't agree with your reason for the Odd Couple. Would you rate it higher now because there was a (in my opinion) a slightly above average sitcom based on it, than the rating you would have given before the sitcom was produced.

You site Benny Hill, but in honesty that is because he is more highly rated in the USA than he is in the UK. To compare his slapstick, double entendre comedy to the Lady Killers is like comparing (bad) pop and classical music.

Unfortunately what passes for laugh out loud, guffaw comedy these days tends to be crudeness and violence (punch in the face etc.)General fare in USA comedies such as Hangover, Role Models etc. Compare Chuck and Larry with Strange Bedfellows. C+L can only use crudeness and ridiculous scenarios to try and get a laugh whereas Strange Bedfellows, the same and original story is told in a more believable and therefore funnier manner.

Lady Killers is classic black comedic writing, excellently acted. It's not meant to have you rolling in the aisles. I think culturally it is more accepted as a great film in the UK than across the Atlantic. By the way I am not anti USA, my favourite comedians growing up were Laurel and Hardy (still are among my favourites).

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Just to point out though; Stan Laurel was an Englishman!

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It's one of the few films I'd give a 9.9.

You're right that it isn't "laugh out loud guffawing" but for me
not many of these darker Ealing Comedies are, and it's part of
their strength. You have all these slapstick moments and comedic
elements but they don't undermine the blackness.

I'd only give it 9.9 rather than 10 to leave room for Kind Hearts
and Coronets to get that little bit more. If only because it manages
to put in the multi-part element, which normally adds comedy value
in these things (like, when Sellers does it), and yet in KHAC is
even darker.

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I agree. Far better than the garbage we see today!

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Bit late to the party but IMHO this film is a masterpiece.

BTW I love that the Jesmond Dene Hotel is still there!




(Are you turning Japanese?)

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it's 7.8 now and still too high

didn't laugh once with this movie





so many movies, so little time

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7.9 is good. I think a film would have to be at least an 8 to be rated 'great' and not many old films do get above an 8. many of my favourite films are rated lower than this one, because old films on t he whole tend not to get very high ratings. i personally would give it an 8.

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I found it great

my rating 8/10

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