Humour

I'm watching "Bananas" and am surprised I haven't seen this before. So cute the references to City Lights and Battleship Potemkin are. Slapstick, four-star film.

I have a list of very funny novels to read while the fall/winter season approaches. I have tried to get a list of funniest films but the ones easiest to find assume that humour is exclusively American, there were no funny films prior to "Caddyshack", and the final arbiter of what is funny is a white American male between the ages of 15 to 24.

Reader's Digest's list probably has a broader perspective, at least chronologically and there is at least one French film and a few Italian films:
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/the-top-100-funniest-movies-of-all-time/article13866.html
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Links to discussions of what may be funniest novels:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15374_wit-lit-101-five-classic-novels-that-bring-funny.html

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/whats-the-funniest-novel-ever/

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110008077&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
(read three of these, saw the movie adaptation of one. Lucky Jim is certainly ranked highly for humour. That must be why I can't ever find a copy in three library systems.)