100 great female com­e­dy per­for­mances – part 4

Just as Pepa and Ivan break up in Women on the Verge of a Ner­vous Break­down, star Car­men Mau­ra and direc­tor Pedro Almod­ó­var stopped work­ing togeth­er for 18 years after the film’s release in 1988, with their col­lab­o­ra­tion hav­ing seem­ing­ly reached its cre­ative peak. By tak­ing lib­er­ties in her act­ing and cre­at­ing a mul­ti-task­ing strong woman on screen, Mau­ra proved that direc­tors would be noth­ing with­out a few women on the verge of ner­vous break­down by their side. Mathilde Dumazet

“Jews, spics, nig­gers – and now a girl?!” Noth­ing about Michael Ritchie’s foul-mouthed pre-teen base­ball gem would be allowed to exist today. From Wal­ter Matthau’s sleazy, drunk­en train­er to Jack­ie Ear­le Haley’s hard-smok­ing, knee-high shortstop/​loan shark, every mem­ber of the Bears is a bul­ly, a racist or a sweary fuck-up. None of them, though, are as cyn­i­cal and jad­ed as 12-year-old Aman­da Whurl­itzer (TatumO’Neal). Hav­ing already giv­en up on the sport by the ripe age of nine, she is deter­mined to put her tomboy days behind her and strike out as a mod­el, but is ulti­mate­ly tempted/​bribed/​blackmailed into join­ing the Bears. O’Neal is a mag­net­ic pres­ence through­out, play­ing Aman­da as a cross between Katharine Hep­burn and Pep­per­mint Pat­tie. But with a hard­er edge. Adam Lee Davies

Pre­ston Sturges was involved in sparkling come­dies even when he wasn’t direct­ing them. This one (which he wrote) is about a care­free, work­ing class woman who is launched into infamy when she hap­pens across a dis­card­ed sable coat. It stars the ever-delight­ful Jean Arthur, an actor who always man­ages to come across as the only sane per­son in the room, but nev­er allows that to make her seem like the sense-see­ing stick-in-the-mud. Though lit­tle known, this is one of the best screw­ball come­dies ever made, and its suc­cess is large­ly down to Arthur’s arrow-sharp com­ic tim­ing. David Jenk­ins

Melis­sa McCarthy’s per­for­mance as ​“bat­shit crazy” sis­ter-of-the-groom, Megan, cat­a­pult­ed her from rel­a­tive unknown to Hollywood’s cer­ti­fied Queen of Com­e­dy. With an audi­tion that direc­tor Paul Feig has described as ​“a reli­gious moment,” McCarthy’s deci­sion to play Megan as ​“guy-ish” was as unex­pect­ed as it was inspired. (Female fight club, any­one?) But it’s not until you com­pare Megan with McCarthy’s sun­shiney Sook­ie on Gilmore Girls that you begin to ful­ly appre­ci­ate the sheer breadth of her comedic range. Thank­ful­ly, Brides­maids was just the first stop on the McCarthy world dom­i­na­tion tour. The woman just oozes fun­ny – it’s com­ing out of her like lava. Beth Perkin

After years in roles such as ​‘Wife of Crazy Man’, ​‘Spin­ster #2’, ​‘Tele­phone Lady’ and ​‘Mas­sive Woman’, Anne Ram­sey mus­cled her way into the big time as the evil Mama Fratel­li in The Goonies. She will, how­ev­er, also be remem­bered as Dan­ny DeVito’s vol­cani­cal­ly dys­pep­tic moth­er in this can­ny and sweet­ly lunatic update of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Like spend­ing 90 min­utes inside a thresh­ing machine full of spit­tle and bile, Ramsey’s per­for­mance rips and shreds with such sus­tained and unre­pen­tant fury that you can’t wait for DeVi­to to final­ly make good on the film’s title. ALD

Emma Stone is ace as Olive Pen­derghast, the sharp-wit­ted, sassy and ground­ed teenag­er who is as mock­ing of her­self as she is of her cred­u­lous peers. When rumours about her sex life spread like wild­fire around col­lege, she agrees to lie about sleep­ing with peo­ple in order to increase their social stand­ing. Har­lot, tramp, temptress, tart, floozy, trol­lop… Olive ticks every box. Stone plays a relat­able pro­tag­o­nist who, unlike many com­ing-of-age films, does not con­form to a spe­cif­ic stereo­typ­ic high school role. Instead, she finds a bal­ance between con­fi­dence and self-dep­re­ca­tion, always unable to pre­vent her­self from ver­bal­ly declar­ing her after-thoughts. SY

Let’s get some­thing straight. Masha is fun­ny in the same way that Brex­it is fun­ny. Both are ter­ri­fy­ing and best avoid­ed at all costs. How­ev­er, The King of Com­e­dy sets a tone of grim hilar­i­ty into which Masha slots, like a wild queen. Mar­tin Scorsese’s satire on fame-hun­gry stars Robert DeNiro as an aspir­ing talk show host who enlists an obses­sive fan to help him kid­nap Jer­ry Lewis. San­dra Ben­hard is mag­nif­i­cent and mag­net­ic and total­ly beyond redemp­tion in her mad­ness. She dis­ap­pears into the skin of a woman whose fix­a­tions and desires are sin­gu­lar, sin­cere and some­what odd. Sophie Monks Kaufman

Talk about being thrown in at the deep end! Jen­nifer Salt’s first major role in a fea­ture film involved her try­ing to awk­ward­ly rebuff the sex­u­al advances of an extreme­ly randy Robert De Niro who wants noth­ing more than to cap­ture their late night escapades on can­did cam­era. Hi, Mom! stands at the pin­na­cle of Bri­an De Palma’s cycle of ear­ly fun­ny ones, its bone dry take on left­ist mid­dle class mores land­ing punch after punch after punch. The film’s fun­ni­est sequence comes dur­ing a pro­longed court­ing rit­u­al where Salt – beyond per­fect as inex­pe­ri­enced naïf Judy – must be wined and dined over and over in order for De Niro’s charm­ing preda­tor to have his wicked way. DJ

“You think you’re hot shit, but you’re just cold diar­rhea”. If you’ve ever been called a dyke or a dog or made to feel infe­ri­or by a basic bitch who still haunts your Face­book feed with her Michael Kors watch­es, this is the film to watch while bask­ing in your own tri­umphant weird­ness. Heather Mataraz­zo is dead­pan beyond her years and her cos­tumes are every­thing. We’re talk­ing neon green leg­gings with fla­men­co blous­es. We’re talk­ing love­heart ear­rings and scrunchies upon scrunchies. Glo­ri­ous. Aimee-lee Abra­ham

When it comes to obvi­ous cast­ing deci­sions, few could argue with Robert Altman’s sage choice to have his long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor Shel­ley Duvall play lanky, rab­bit­ing wife-to-be Olive Oyl in his charm­ing, Dis­ney-endorsed Pop­eye. Aside from get­ting the high-pitch, inces­sant dia­logue deliv­ery bang on (per the orig­i­nal car­toon incar­na­tion), she man­ages to emu­late Olive’s string-bean flex­i­bil­i­ty too. Her scenes with Robin Williams’ lov­ably demure Pop­eye make for a won­der­ful pair­ing, and the film hits its dewy-eyed apex dur­ing their duet of the now-clas­sic love song, ​‘He Needs Me’. DJ

Aura is an enti­tled twen­tysome­thing New York brat fresh out of uni­ver­si­ty and prone to tantrums when she doesn’t get her own way. Lena Dun­ham mopes about lying face down on the floor and deliv­ers sharp com­men­tary on the cri­sis of young adult­hood in her first fea­ture film. She is absolute­ly awful at times, but Dunham’s per­for­mance is by turns dry and deeply sin­cere. There’s a twin­kle in her eye when­ev­er she’s up to mis­chief with this role act­ing as a pre­cur­sor to her turn as the sim­i­lar­ly self­ish Han­nah Hov­arth in her TV show Girls. Kather­ine McLaughlin

Man­hat­tan​’s Mary is the game face we all put on when the city feels like a big and lone­ly place to be. Beneath the blan­ket of bit­ter wit and pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­al­ism, Diane Keaton oozes a qui­et, bewitch­ing warmth few can resist. Devi­at­ing from the la-di-dah goofi­ness of Annie Hall, the role show­cased her comedic ver­sa­til­i­ty and cast in her in a new light. She shines cold­ly but bright­ly; her unscript­ed chem­istry with Allen more tan­gi­ble and envi­able than ever. ALA

Often con­sid­ered the great­est screw­ball com­e­dy ever made, Leo McCary’s The Awful Truth chron­i­cles a drawn-out divorce between Cary Grant’s gala­vant­i­ng cad and Irene Dunne’s soci­ety dame – the twist being that the pair sim­ply want to pun­ish one anoth­er for dis­miss­ing the deep, soul­ful con­nec­tion that they still, despite every­thing, are able to main­tain. Dunne can right­ly claim to being one of the all-time fun­ny screen sirens – each syl­la­ble of the script is deliv­ered like a poi­soned dart. But, as an actress, Dunne was the whole bit: she lat­er went on to deliv­er one of the great tragi­com­ic per­for­mances in McCarey’s 1939 film, Love Affair, in which she cap­tures with immac­u­late pre­ci­sion the gid­dy thrill of falling in love and the heart­break­ing depres­sion of think­ing that love might slip away from you. DJ

Amélie Poulain’s inter­nal real­i­ty is one we all secret­ly long to inhab­it. Though sick­ly sweet and bor­der­line psy­chot­ic in her pos­i­tiv­i­ty, it’s impos­si­ble not to fall a lit­tle bit in love with Tautou as she breathes life and whim­sy into the med­dle­some roman­tic from Mont­martre. By the time the cred­its roll, you’ll be grin­ning from ear to ear, won­der­ing what might hap­pen if you too had the brav­ery to look for the things no one else catch­es. ALA

Hailed as the ​‘first female bud­dy action com­e­dy ever made’ at the time of release, Out­ra­geous For­tune sees Bette Midler and Shel­ley Long play a pair of scorned women who strike up an unlike­ly friend­ship with pre­dictably far­ci­cal con­se­quences. It’s great too, if a lit­tle far-fetched. Well worth seek­ing out for the cat­fight-in-the-morgue scene alone in which Midler deliv­ers the clas­sic line: ​“Does the phrase ​‘nee­dle dick: the bug fuck­er’ mean any­thing to you?” For more mid-’80s Midler gold, see also: Ruth­less Peo­ple. Adam Wood­ward

Calami­ty Jane is in con­trol of her life and body, and Doris Day’s joy­ous per­for­mance delib­er­ate­ly avoids cre­at­ing any sense of female mys­tique. Jane moves with a sense of pur­pose, tak­ing deci­sive action with­out aim­ing to please any of the male char­ac­ters. Rather than remain­ing on the mar­gins, she game­ly par­tic­i­pates in male con­ver­sa­tions, jokes and even bar room brawls. By adopt­ing the traits of the hyper-mas­cu­line cow­boys around her, Jane holds up a par­o­d­ic, often star­tling­ly fun­ny mir­ror to male pride and demon­stra­tive­ness. It’s one of the most trans­gres­sive cross-dress per­for­mances from clas­si­cal Hol­ly­wood. Ele­na Lazic

Have you ever seen a four-foot tall bride escape a gyp­sy wed­ding, leave her dress with a hus­band she didn’t choose, hide in a box to fall through a trap­door and then roll in a bar­rel to get on a boat? If not, maybe Sal­i­ja Ibraimova’s mali­cious glance will con­vince you to run and see this late ​’90s mas­ter­piece by Ser­bian film­mak­er Emir Kus­turi­ca. MD

Not a great female com­e­dy per­for­mance but, tech­ni­cal­ly speak­ing, two. A film that could so eas­i­ly have been just anoth­er for­get­table ​’80s prom-com, Peg­gy Sue Got Mar­ried is ele­vat­ed by a quite lit­er­al­ly trans­for­ma­tive Kath­leen Turn­er, whose epony­mous mid­dle-aged pro­tag­o­nist wakes up in her own past after faint­ing at her 25-year high school reunion. In truth, not every­thing about this breezy time-jump fan­ta­sy has aged well, but Turner’s pitch-per­fect lead turn cer­tain­ly has. AW

Hon­est to blog, Juno is one of the best char­ac­ters ever writ­ten. In Dia­blo Cody’s dream of a screen­play, every line is designed to tick­le your fun­ny-bone. All Ellen Page real­ly need­ed to do was show up to make it work. Lucky for us, she did way more than that. With Juno, the dev­il is in the deliv­ery, and Page pitch­es it per­fect­ly, her dead­pan style ten­ta­tive­ly giv­ing way to glimpses of the vul­ner­a­ble girl beneath the brava­do. What makes her per­for­mance so mem­o­rable is its human­i­ty: Juno is your friend. She’s some­one you love. BP

The most dis­con­cert­ing appear­ances are often the ones you remem­ber and Eva’s arrival in New York City is no excep­tion. A suit­case, a paper bag, a Walk­man play­ing ​‘I Put a Spell on You’ by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and Eszter Balint’s shad­ow fad­ing into the black-and-white side­walk… It would be enough to sim­ply describe her strange­ness were it not for the fact that her non­cha­lant hon­esty makes her far more than your typ­i­cal free-spir­it­ed Jim Jar­musch hero­ine. MD

What are some of your favourite female com­e­dy per­for­mances? Let us know @LWLies and check back tomor­row for part five.