Noises Off!

How do you know when you are watching the funniest movie of all time? When you laugh so hard you almost throw up. This had never happened to me before last night, watching - for the second time - the movie Noises Off!. It was nothing I ate, it was not stomach flu, it was the movie. My wife actually handed me a bucket.
Originally written as a play, the movie follows a group of inept stage actors trying to perform a Broadway-bound play. The play is a farce, all double entendres and sight gags, and their production of it is a screwball comedy of errors; everyone's clueless and hapless. So the play-within-the-movie is hilarious by itself, but every time they foul it up, it gets dangerously funny. gastrointestinal-disturbingly funny.
Like a play, the movie is structured in three "acts". Act one takes place the night before the play opens, at their final dress rehearsal. They can barely get through it, stopping every two minutes for a prop malfunction or an actor's dysfunction. Yet despite these constant setbacks, this ends up being the most cohesive performance of the play that we see. We catch up with the company a few months later for the second act, in the middle of their off-Broadway run. This time we see the play from behind the scenes, literally, as the actors make their frantic entrances, exits, quick changes and prop switches. Only by now, the personal "drama" among the cast members has them at each others' throats, and they end up sabotaging each others' performances. The act has almost no dialogue other than what's overheard onstage, so it's a side-splitting 15 minutes of physical comedy. And finally, we see the play again a few weeks later, when everything has fallen apart. Lines are forgotten, entire scenes ad-libbed, at least two of the actors are completely drunk, and by the time they call "curtain", everyone is at their wit's end--including everyone watching the movie.
I don't know who originated the roles in the stage version, but the movie cast is superlative. Michael Caine plays the harried director to perfect comic effect, devolving from frustrated to infuriated to manic. The incomparable Carol Burnett portrays the leading lady - of the play and the movie - and reminds us why we'll always love Miss Hannigan. As the classic bumbler, the late John Ritter displays indubitably that he is the founder and Headmaster Emeritus of the school of comedy from which Mike Myers and Jim Carrey have graduated with honors. And speaking of late-greats, Christopher Reeve showcases his often overlooked comedy skills as the dashing but dim-witted matinee idol type. Throw in Denholm Elliot (best known as Indiana Jones' sidekick Dr. Marcus Brody) and Mark Lynn Baker (best known as Balki's Cousin Larry on Perfect Strangers) and you have one heck of an ensemble. Even Nicolette Sheridan - very pre-Desperate Housewives - holds her own as the airhead blonde, who ends up being the only one to keep it together when it all falls apart.
Bottom line (no pun intended): this is a can't-miss comedy, even for those without personal experience in "the thea-tah". And if you like it, check out these other modern screwball comedy classics: "What's Up, Doc?" (by the same director, Peter Bogdanovich), Clue, and The Money Pit. Just remember to eat light beforehand.