I can’t tell you the number of times someone has given me a comedy script to read and it’s as dull as it can be because the writer forgot the one essential ingredient to all screenplays and that ingredient is drama. Likewise, I’ve read many dramatic screenplays that are morose and depressing because the writer forgot that levity and balance are necessary in life. We also seem to be living through a time where dramatic films are viewed as important and feel-good comedies are not taken seriously. Try to think about when the last time was that you willingly saw a PG or PG-13 comedy that wasn’t an animated feature. Those types of films are hard to come by nowadays and it’s really too bad because they still have value and can still be very dramatic.

I had been wanting to write about this subject for a while now, and today I saw a talk given by Lindsay Doran, whom you may or may not know produced films like Sense and Sensibility, Nanny McPhee and Stranger Than Fiction among others, and she has been an executive producer and has worked in Hollywood for more than 30 years. Without giving away too much about the subject matter, she spoke at length about the difference in perceptions of drama and comedy, and how everyone in Hollywood from the studios to the filmmakers to the distributors would love to see more comedies in theaters, and they all blame each other for the dearth comedies getting made. One thing she mentioned is that people in Hollywood crave being hip and cool and it’s hard to protray yourself as hip or cool when you’re putting out a PG or PG-13 comedy. That leads to the modern-day comedies that are being made to be like your standard Judd Apatow fare, or films like Anchorman, The Hangover, Trainwreck, or Ted.

Now there’s nothing wrong with any of these films. I’ve seen them and they’re very funny, but they rely on outrageous things happening, a certain amount of crudeness, and many of them are sophomoric at their core. There isn’t a lot of sophistication in the humor of these films, and there’s even less drama. I have come to realize over the past year or so that modern comedies and action films are cut largely from the same cloth. Action films in particular have to come up with even wilder action sequences and crazier stunts in order to get the attention of audiences that are harder and harder to impress. I remember when To Live and Die in L.A. came out and everyone was talking about the car chase in it. It was one of the craziest car chases ever filmed to that point and it was all anyone could talk about in reference to that film. Have you watched that car chase recently? I have and it’s boring as hell because in the 30 years since that film came out action sequences have been taken to much more stupefying levels. It seem to me that the makers of the modern comedy are taking a similar approach. It’s not enough to just make the audience laugh anymore, but the humor has to be shocking in some way. As we become more desensitized to that type of thing there is pressure on comedy film makers to make even more outrageous, raunchier and wilder comedy in order to get the laughs. Again, one of the problems with this approach is that it takes away from the dramatic components necessary in any film, even and especially in comedies so that we actually care about the characters and the film that we’re watching.

After listening to Ms. Doran speak I took the time to watch Stranger Than Fiction since I hadn’t seen it before, and I wanted to see if I could pick up on what she was talking about and if she and I agreed. Is Stranger Than Fiction a laugh riot comparable to films like Trainwreck or The Heat or The Hangover? No, it is not, but it is a very funny film in its own way. What I will also tell you is that Stranger Than Fiction is a much more dramatic film and a much more compelling story than any are any of those other films. Stranger Than Fiction has an excellent dramatic structure, a gradual and believable character arc for its main character, and characters and a story that we actually care about and become emotionally invested in. Is it a perfect film? Of course it isn’t. I didn’t buy the relationship between Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s characters, and there are a couple of other issues that I had with it as well. But overall, it is a very good film. Is The Hangover a lot of fun? Sure it is, but I don’t care at all about the characters. And the story is only there to get us from one joke or gag to the next one. And it’s not really a story so much as it’s a narrative. I could also say the same thing about Trainwreck and The Heat and Anchorman and The 40-Year Old Virgin.

Yes, I understand that all of those films are bringing in boat loads of money, and I don’t begrudge them that at all. As I mentioned above, I like all of those films and I think they’re all very funny. But if I want to be emotionally engaged in the plight of the characters, while also getting in a lot of laughs, give me Back to the Future. Give me Tootsie. Give me Some Like it Hot. Give me Dr. Strangelove. Those films are timeless and are just as funny today as the day they came out. Here’s an example. I run a monthly screening series where I work in which I show a classic film that people perhaps haven’t seen but should. A couple of months ago I showed Some Like it Hot, starring Jack Lemon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, and it was directed by Billy Wilder. This film was released in 1959, and I was nervous going into the screening that the people who came to see it would find the humor dated or corny. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong, as there was laughter from start to finish. And you know what? Not only is Some Like it Hot one of the funniest films ever made, but it’s also an incredibly dramatic film about two guys who witness the St. Valentines Day Massacre and have to disguise themselves as women in order to avoid being killed by the Mob. That is an incredibly dramatic premise, and the story is actually filled with a lot of conflict and tension as we’re always concerned that the guys will be caught because getting caught means getting killed. On the surface it would seem that the fact that Billy Wilder was able to not only pull comedy out of this, but turn it into one of the great comedies of all time is nothing short of miraculous. But here’s the thing. Not only are the comedy and drama not mutually exclusive, but the drama accentuates the comedy. The drama makes the comedy funnier precisely because the stakes are so high.

Back to the Future gives is an equally dramatic scenario. After traveling back in time, Michael J. Fox’s character Marty McFly inadvertently prevents his parents from meeting. Now he has to try and get them to meet before he’s wiped from existence. This film has everything you’d want in a dramatic story. The stakes are no less than Marty saving his own life as well as the lives of his brother and sister, there is a ticking clock meaning that he has a limited amount if time in which to accomplish this, and he has great obstacles like the character in Biff who bullies and torments his father. There is also the Oedipal issue when his mother falls in love with him instead of his father, so not only is this a very dramatic film, but there are also deep thematic issues as well. Once again, all of these seemingly dramatic components to the story don’t only drive the humor, but they create the scenarios by which the humor can exist and be as funny as it possibly can be.

Let’s take a quick look at Dr. Strangelove, which also has incredibly high stakes as the people in that film are trying to prevent a nuclear war. The sheer absurdity of nuclear war becomes the basis for the drama and the humor in that film when a rogue Air Force general uses an obscure battle plan to trick his pilots into attacking their targets. One of the funniest scenes in that or any other movie is when Peter Sellers, playing President Merkin Muffley has a phone conversation with Russian Premier Kissov to try and explain what’s happening so they won’t retaliate. We only hear Muffley’s side of the conversation, and it’s absolutely hilarious. What makes it so hilarious is that he’s trying to prevent a nuclear war, and they’re competing with each other over who’s more sorry than the other one. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and the planes are getting closer to their targets. It’s an incredibly tense scene and the tension and the drama increase the level of comedy.

When all is said and done, it’s comedies like these that will turn out to be timeless while the modern-day comedies will be the ones that over time will end up feeling dated.

I should also make the point about dramatic films that lack humor. I will concede that there are many films where humor seemingly has no place, or would at the very least feel out of place. But if you can sneak humor into The Godfather (Leave the gun. Take the cannoli), or Jaws (You’re gonna need a bigger boat) or Casablanca (“I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to find out there’s gambling going on in here!), then you can sneak a well-timed, well-placed line of humor into just about anything. You need to do that if for no other reason than to humanize the characters that are in your story and help make us care about them that much more. Laughter is important. It opens up our emotions and allows us to let other emotions in. If a character can make us laugh, then that character is making us feel good. We’ll like that character. That character will be a likable human being to us. That will make us care about that character when the tense and dramatic moments happen and will make those moments even more tense and even more dramatic without you having to do anything extra.

As Cosmo Brown told Don Lockwood in Singing’ in the Rain, “Make ’em laugh, make ’em laugh, make ’em laugh!”