Alex Karras

Blake Edwards's delightful Victor/Victoria may be one of the last of the great, old-style movie musical comedies--it is so good, it was turned into a hit Broadway stage musical years later. And both versions starred Edwards's wife Julie Andrews (the former Mary Poppins) in the title role--as Victor and Victoria. She's a down-and-out singer who hooks up with a flamboyantly gay theatrical veteran (Robert Preston), and together they become the toast of 1934 Paris by dreaming up a provocative nightclub act in which Victoria assumes the identity of a man in drag.

Mel Brooks scored his first commercial hit with this raucous Western spoof starring the late Cleavon Little as the newly hired (and conspicuously black) sheriff of Rock Ridge. Sheriff Bart teams up with deputy Jim (Gene Wilder) to foil the railroad-building scheme of the nefarious Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman). The simple plot is just an excuse for a steady stream of gags, many of them unabashedly tasteless, that Brooks and his wacky cast pull off with side-splitting success.

Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges), a cynical ex-football star, is hired to find Jessie Wyler (Rachel Ward), the runaway mistress of a ruthless L.A. nightclub owner, Jake Wise (James Woods). According to Jake, Jesse has stabbed him and vanished with $50,000. But Terry's mission is soon forgotten when he tracks down and falls in love with the beautiful Jessie on a Mexican island. Trouble brews, however, when Jake dispatches his henchman, Hank Sully (Alex Karras), to bring the lovers back.