DB Weekend Movie Fest: The Best Campus Comedies of All Time I

I have a particular enthusiasm – some might say mania – for the campus comedy. Why? I can’t really say, but maybe there’s something about the unbridled spirit of adventure and the unknown (after the prison like environment of high school yet before the prison like environment of adult/cube farm life?), the mystery, the romance, the rude pranks and high jinks of higher education. You can’t beat it.

Therefore, I’ve been compiling in my mind for some number of months my list of Greatest of All Time. Oh, but my friends, it wasn’t easy with so many to choose from. So then, without further adieu, let’s begin… with a few warm-up categories, ending in The Best Campus Comedies of All Time. There’s gotta be some awards-show suspense, right? And no lame Britney Simpson or Ashley Spears crap performances to snooze through.

Special Honors

College (1927)
I’ve never seen this movie and have no idea what it’s about, but it stars Buster Keaton, who always pops up in comedy retrospectives and seems to be some kind of an iconic figure in the campus comedy sub-genre. Therefore, I put it first in an attempt to look impressive/legit.

H.O.T.S. (1979)
I’ve never seen this movie either, but I must admit I find it intriguing. Netflix describes H.O.T.S. as:

The lovely members of the H.O.T.S. sorority set out to steal every man on campus away from the Pi sorority. Dressed to thrill, the ladies transform their formerly uptight university into a sex-crazed fun house.

Now, how can that formula go wrong? As the film’s tag line reads: Some Like It H.O.T.S.!

Threesome (1994)
The only reason I mention this middling effort is that it stars Stephen Baldwin as part of a triangle of romantic intrigue that develops between Lara Flynn Boyle and some other dude. I ripped this particular Baldwin apart in a recent column, and just wanted to point out this movie came out near the pinnacle of his brief, not-really-that-shining career. Threesome is actually pretty watchable until the end, which gets a little too homoerotic for my taste.

Okay, now you can go away, Stephen Baldwin.