My foggy memory always associated this scene with Blazing Saddles, but I just watched the new 30th Anniversay release and was surprised to find that this scene isn't part of that particular movie.

I know it's from a comedy. Here's the scene:

Bunch of men sitting around a table, and they're shown a picture of a beautiful woman. The men act disinterested, but the table slowly rises, with the implied thought that their arousal lifted the table.

Man, my memory is for crap lately.

History of the World Part I? (another Mel Brooks film)

That was the fan lifting.

The History of the World pt 1 scene is where Gregory Hines's characters is hiding as a eunuch, and the guards send in a bellydancer, which gets no reaction from the other eunuchs.
I seem to recall a scene like the one 12thmonkey is talking about, but I don't recall if it was in a movie, book, tv show, or in fact my fevered imagination.

I am pretty sure that scene is in another Mel Brook's movie: Silent Movie from 1976. Which, now that I think about it, really needs a DVD release.

I'm pretty certain it was a Brooks film.

Must have been Silent Movie.

It would make sense: trying to get studio buy-in to cast the Bernadette Peters character (assuming it was her) in the movie-within-the-movie. The guys act disinterested, but the table shows otherwise.

Must be it, I guess........