What's wrong with today's comedies

I was watching Dr. Strangelove for the one zillionth time last night and during some of the film's zanier moments featuring George C. Scott (not only the scene above but the one in which he tells how the bomber pilot can make it to his target), I was, between guffaws, wondering why Hollywood can't make a decent comedy these days.

And, like a bolt, it came to me. The stars of Strangelove -- Scott, Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens -- were all great actors. Then I began to look at the great comedies of the '30s, '40, '50s and into the '60s and discovered they were all populated by great actors.

The comedies of today, on the other hand, are populated by comedians and not all that good ones. But look who starred in the great comedies of yore: Cary Grant, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Rock Hudson, Jack Lemmon, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Rosalind Russell, Henry Fonda, William Powell, etc. were equally at home in dramas as well as comedies.

Look who’s in comedies today – Adam Sandler, Will Farrell, Steve Carell, Martin Lawrence. Would you cast any of them in a serious dramatic role?. Can you see any of them ever being nominated for an acting Oscar?

The closest thing I have seen to a fairly decent comedy recently was Red and the only reason it works at all is because of its cast — Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, all fine actors, not comedians. The Devil Wears Prada worked because it starred Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt. Yes A Fish Called Wanda had some Monty Python refugees but it also had Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis in the major roles. Pierce Brosnan was brilliant in The Matador.

So what we need right now is for someone like Tina Fey to get together with Steve Martin and have the two of them write a comic screenplay that will have Sean Penn and Annette Bening in the leads.