by Michael Lyons
The Hottest day on Earth. That's what scientists at NASA declared on July 22, 2024.
Of course, that title seems to be granted to a different date every summer recently. It's been a sweltering summer, and even though kids are starting to head back to school, and pumpkin spice flavored everything is on the horizon, this summer doesn't seem to be turning down the heat.
So, as your air conditioner chugs along and your electric bill continues to rise with the temperature, here are some movie comedies, each set during a heat wave and the perfect antidote to the exasperating weather.
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Director Billy Wilder's classic film, with Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene where her dress billows up, thanks to a subway grate, all takes place during the crippling heat of a Manhattan summer.
Tom Ewell plays Richard Sherman, a publisher whose wife and son leave the city for Maine to escape the heat. As he enjoys his newfound "bachelor life," Sherman finds himself attracted to one of his neighbors (Monroe). Although a fantasy, Sherman is comically tortured about what this may mean to his marriage.
Not just a classic comedy, The Seven Year Itch captures New York City at a time when the only escape from summer was to head into an air-conditioned theater to see Creature From The Black Lagoon.
The Odd Couple (1968)
The film adaptation of Neil Simon's brilliant play about mismatched roommates, slovenly Oscar (Walter Matthau) and neat-freak Felix (Jack Lemmon), also takes place in New York City during the heat of the summer.
From the opening scene of a poker game, played in Oscar's stifling apartment where the air conditioner is broken, to a hilarious scene at a New York Mets game, and the couple's argument on the roof of their apartment, as the haze of the hot city stands behind them, this is a brilliant comedy against the backdrop of a hot summer.
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)
Another Neil Simon comedy, this one starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft, as empty nesters who find their lives at a crossroad while trying to live in their tiny New York apartment (where Lemmon's character suffers a nervous breakdown).
From wall unit air conditioners that are too cold to a garbage workers strike that's made the stifling streets even worse, the hysterical comedy boils over here like the summer heat itself.
Biloxi Blues (1988)
Guess what? It is another Neil Simon comedy (he had a gift for laughter during a heat wave).
In this semi-autobiographical story (based on Simon's play), Matthew Broderick plays Eugene, a young New Yorker drafted during World War II who tangles with his Sergeant (Christopher Walken, brilliant as always) during basic training.
And that basic training is in Biloxi, Mississippi, in the middle of summer. As Eugene observes, "Man, it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot."
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
During a heat wave during in summer of 1981, a group of counselors at Camp Firewood try to tie up loose ends on the last day of camp while preparing for their big talent show, in a send-up of the teen sex comedies of the 80s.
With an amazing ensemble cast including Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Molly Shannon, Bradley Cooper, and Elizabeth Banks, among others, director David Wain's comedy has rightly developed quite the following since its initial release twenty-three years ago, spawning a series of Netflix shows, as well as a sequel.
So, there you have it, just a brief list of heat wave comedies. And don't stress about the summer weather. Before you know it, you'll be complaining about how cold it is.
Stay inside and enjoy the air conditioning with one, or both, of my books, which are available at Words From Lyons where they can be signed and personalized!
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