"It's a farce! You could read the dialogue of any Marx Brothers movie, Airplane knock-off, or other farce and it would not read well either. It's the delivery, pacing, and references that make it funny. Without the background to understand the constant references to the times it may not be funny, kind of like reading a Shakespeare or Aristophanes comedy today, but for the rest of us who get it, it's great."
Ah, the old "You don't like something I like so you're dumb and you don't get it! routine.
I understood all the references--some of us DO know one or two things.
I understood it was a farce. It was also an unfunny farce.
I understand about words as opposed to how their played--I specifically said I'd SEEN the movie, and was merely posting the lines as a reference.
People can disagree on matters of taste; you don't have to call their intelligence into question just because they don't share your sense of humor. And it's rude to do so when you have no idea of the other person's background. Later.
Apparently Jimmy Cagney was so tired after the lightening fast line readings Wilder demanded in that movie that he retired right aftewards. He only appeared in one other movie some 20 years later (milos Forman's Ragtime).
P.S. If there was ever a movie version of 'Gravity's Rainbow' that would be one heck of a Cold War movie.