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Screwball comedy

March 13, 2023

Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary characteristics similar to film noir, distinguished by a female character who dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged.[1] The two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes, which was a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time.[2]

Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a screwball comedy from the genre's classic period.

The genre also featured romantic attachments between members of different social classes,[3] as in It Happened One Night (1934) and My Man Godfrey (1936).[2]

What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that "screwball comedy puts the emphasis on a funny spoofing of love, while the more traditional romantic comedy ultimately accents love".[4] Other elements of the screwball comedy include fast-paced, overlapping repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, physical battle of the sexes, disguise and masquerade, and plot lines involving courtship and marriage.[2] Some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies.

History

Screwball comedy has proved to be a popular and enduring film genre.[5] It Happened One Night (1934)[2] is often credited as the first true screwball, though Bombshell starring Jean Harlow preceded it by a year. Although many film scholars agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942,[6] elements of the genre have persisted or have been paid homage to in later films. Other film scholars argue that the screwball comedy lives on.

During the Great Depression, there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes. The screwball format arose largely as a result of the major film studios' desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced Hays Code. In order to incorporate prohibited risqué elements into their plots, filmmakers resorted to handling these elements covertly. Verbal sparring between the sexes served as a stand-in for physical, sexual tension.[7] Though some film scholars, such as William K. Everson, argue that "screwball comedies were not so much rebelling against the Production Code as they were attacking – and ridiculing – the dull, lifeless respectability that the Code insisted on for family viewing".[8]

The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce,[4] and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick, situation comedy, romantic comedy and bedroom farce.

Characteristics

 
A screenshot from a trailer for It Happened One Night

Films definitive of the genre usually feature farcical situations, a combination of slapstick with fast-paced repartee and show the struggle between economic classes. They also generally feature a self-confident and often stubborn central female protagonist and a plot involving courtship and marriage or remarriage. These traits can be seen in both It Happened One Night and My Man Godfrey (1936). The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined the screwball comedy as "a sex comedy without the sex."[9]

Like farce, screwball comedies often involve masquerade and disguise in which a character or characters resort to secrecy. Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross-dressing, further contributing to elements of masquerade (Bringing Up Baby (1938), I Was a Male War Bride (1949), and Some Like It Hot (1959)). At first, the couple seem mismatched and even hostile to each other but eventually overcome their differences in an amusing or entertaining way that leads to romance. Often this mismatch comes about when the man is of a lower social class than the woman (Bringing Up Baby and Holiday, both 1938). The final romantic union is often planned by the woman from the outset, and the man is seemingly oblivious to this. In Bringing Up Baby, the woman says to a third party: "He's the man I'm going to marry. He doesn't know it, but I am."

 
In The Lady Eve, Jean (center, played by Barbara Stanwyck) passes herself off as an upper-class woman.

These pictures also offered a kind of cultural escape valve: a safe battleground on which to explore serious issues such as class under a comedic and non-threatening framework.[10] Class issues are a strong component of screwball comedies: the upper class are represented as idle, pampered, and having difficulty coping with the real world. By contrast, when lower-class people attempt to pass themselves off as upper class or otherwise insinuate themselves into high society, they are able to do so with relative ease (The Lady Eve, 1941; My Man Godfrey, 1936). Some critics believe that the portrayal of the upper class in It Happened One Night was brought about by the Great Depression, and the financially struggling moviegoing public's desire to see the rich upper class taught a lesson in humanity.

Another common element of the screwball comedy is fast-talking, witty repartee, such as in You Can't Take It with You (1937) and His Girl Friday (1940). This stylistic device did not originate in the genre: it is also found in many of the old Hollywood cycles, including gangster films and romantic comedies.

Screwball comedies also tend to contain ridiculous, farcical situations, such as in Bringing Up Baby, where a couple must take care of a pet leopard during much of the film. Slapstick elements are also frequently present, such as the numerous pratfalls Henry Fonda takes in The Lady Eve (1941).

One subgenre of screwball is known as the comedy of remarriage, in which characters divorce and then remarry one another (The Awful Truth (1937), The Philadelphia Story (1940)). Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code, as it showed freer attitudes toward divorce (though the divorce always turns out to have been a mistake).

Another subgenre of screwball comedy has the woman chasing a man who is oblivious to or not interested in her. Examples include Barbara Stanwyck chasing Henry Fonda (The Lady Eve, 1941); Sonja Henie chasing John Payne (Sun Valley Serenade, 1941, and Iceland, 1942); Marion Davies chasing Antonio Moreno (The Cardboard Lover, 1928); Marion Davies chasing Bing Crosby (Going Hollywood, 1933); and Carole Lombard chasing William Powell (My Man Godfrey, 1936).

The philosopher Stanley Cavell has noted that many classic screwball comedies turn on an interlude in the state of Connecticut (Bringing Up Baby, The Lady Eve, The Awful Truth).[11] In Christmas in Connecticut (1945), the action moves to Connecticut and remains there for the duration of the film.

Examples from the classic period

 
A promotional photo for the 1940 screwball comedy His Girl Friday

Other films from this period in other genres incorporate elements of the screwball comedy. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The 39 Steps (1935) features the gimmick of a young couple who finds themselves handcuffed together and who eventually, almost in spite of themselves, fall in love with one another, and Woody Van Dyke's detective comedy The Thin Man (1934), which portrays a witty, urbane couple who trade barbs as they solve mysteries together. Some of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s also feature screwball comedy plots, such as The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), and Carefree (1938), which costars Ralph Bellamy. The Eddie Cantor musicals Whoopee! (1930) and Roman Scandals (1933), and slapstick road movies such as Six of a Kind (1934) include screwball elements. Some of the Joe E. Brown comedies also fall into this category, particularly Broadminded (1931) and Earthworm Tractors (1936).

Actors and actresses featured in or associated with screwball comedy:

Directors of screwball comedies:

Later examples

 
A screenshot from a trailer for How to Marry a Millionaire
 
One, Two, Three (1961)

Later films thought to have revived elements of the classic era screwball comedies include:

Elements of classic screwball comedy often found in more recent films which might otherwise simply be classified as romantic comedies include the "battle of the sexes" (Down with Love, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), witty repartee (Down with Love), and the contrast between the wealthy and the middle class (You've Got Mail, Two Weeks Notice). Many of Elvis Presley's films from the 1960s had drawn, consciously or unconsciously, the many characteristics of the screwball comedy genre. Some examples are Double Trouble, Tickle Me, Girl Happy and Live A Little, Love A Little. Modern updates on screwball comedy also sometimes are categorized as black comedy (Intolerable Cruelty, which also features a twist on the classic screwball element of divorce and remarriage). The Coen Brothers often include screwball elements in a film which may not otherwise be considered screwball or even a comedy.

The Golmaal movies, a series of Hindi-language Indian films, have been described as a screwball comedy franchise.[26][27]

Screwball comedy elements in other genres

In his 2008 production of the classic Beaumarchais comedy The Marriage of Figaro, author William James Royce trimmed the five-act play down to three acts and labeled it a "classic screwball comedy". The playwright made Suzanne the central character, endowing her with all the feisty comedic strengths of her classic film counterparts. In his adaptation, entitled One Mad Day! (a play on Beaumarchais' original French title), Royce underscored all of the elements of the classic screwball comedy, suggesting that Beaumarchais may have had a hand in the origins of the genre.

The plot of Corrupting Dr. Nice, a science fiction novel by John Kessel involving time travel, is modeled on films such as The Lady Eve and Bringing Up Baby.[28]

See also

References

  1. ^ Dancyger, Ken; Rush, Jeff (2006). Alternative Scriptwriting (Fourth ed.). Focal Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-0240808499. The screwball comedy is funny film noir that has a happy ending... The premise of the film is about the struggle in their relationship. During the course of the struggle, which is highly sexually charged, the maleness of the central character is challenged. The female is the dominant character in the relationship. This role reversion is central to the screwball comedy.
  2. ^ a b c d Cele Otnes; Elizabeth Hafkin PleckCele Otnes, Elizabeth Hafkin Pleck (2003) Cinderella dreams: the allure of the lavish wedding University of California Press, p. 168. ISBN 0-520-24008-1.
  3. ^ Beach, Christopher. Class, Language, and American Film Comedy. Cambridge University Press (February 11, 2002). p. 125.
  4. ^ a b Gehring, Wes D. (2008). Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference. Lanham: Scarecrow Press Inc. p. 186.
  5. ^ Sarris, Andrew (March 1, 1978). "THE SEX COMEDY WITHOUT SEX". American Film. Vol. 3, no. 5. New York. pp. 8–15. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  6. ^ Byrge, Duane; Miller, Robert Milton (1991). The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 1934–1942. McFarland. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-89950-539-8. With the explosive exception of His Girl Friday, screwball comedy had calmed considerably by 1940 from its peak of zaniness in 1937–38.
  7. ^ "Under the Radar: The Hays Code and the Birth of Screwball". virginia.edu. University of Virginia. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  8. ^ Everson, William K. (1994). Hollywood Bedlam: Classic Screwball Comedies. New York: Carol Publishing Group.
  9. ^ Citation Sarris, Andrew. You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet: The American Talking Film, History & Memory, 1927–1949, Oxford University Press, New York, 1998
  10. ^ [1] The Screwball and Its Audience - University of Virginia
  11. ^ Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981
  12. ^ a b Tim Dirks. "Comedy films: Screwball comedy". filmsite.org.
  13. ^ Alberti, John (2014). Screen Ages: A Survey of American Cinema. Taylor & Francis. p. 111. ISBN 9781317650287.
  14. ^ Halbout, Grégoire (2022). Hollywood Screwball Comedy 1934-1945. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781501347627.
  15. ^ White, Armond. "Trouble in Paradise: Lovers, On the Money". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2022-12-03.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h "10 great screwball comedy films". British Film Institute.
  17. ^ a b c d e Robbie Collin (23 June 2015). "Who killed the screwball comedy?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2022-01-12.
  18. ^ "Theodora Goes Wild (1936): Boleslawsky's Screwball Comedy Starring Irene Dunne in Oscar-Nominated Performance | Emanuel Levy".
  19. ^ WILSON, JAKE (2011-02-25). "The lost art of screwball comedy". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
  20. ^ Gemmill, Allie. "These 21 Underrated Rom-Coms Should Be Next In Your Netflix Queue". Bustle. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
  21. ^ Haslam, Jason (2013). The Public Intellectual and the Culture of Hope. University of Toronto Press. p. 164. ISBN 9781442641846.
  22. ^ Jaeckle, Jeff, ed. (2015). ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 118–120. ISBN 9781474406574.
  23. ^ Described as a screwball comedy in Roger Ebert's contemporary review.
  24. ^ "Stallone's 'Oscar' Recovers From Bad Start". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  25. ^ Marsh, James (March 23, 2016). "'Chongqing Hot Pot': HKIFF review". Screen Daily. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  26. ^ "Golmaal Again Review {3.5/5}: No logic, Only magic. Gags, fights, songs, giggles, ghosts, here is a buffet you can overdose on" – via timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
  27. ^ "Golmaal: A wacky winner". www.rediff.com.
  28. ^ Gevers, Nick (16 October 1999). "Corrupting Dr Nice by John Kessel". infinity plus. Retrieved 29 August 2012.

Further reading

  • Screwball Comedy: Defining a Film Genre, Wes D. Gehring, 1983.
  • Hollywood Screwball Comedy 1934-1945: Sex, Love, and Democratic Ideals, Grégoire Halbout, 2022.

External links

  • Screwball Comedy Primer - Green Cine
  • Home of the Screwball - University of Virginia
  • Screwball Comedy - film reference
  • Screwball Comedy - Everything2
  • Screwball Comedy Film: Definition - wordiQ
  • Great Directors: Mitchell Leisen - Senses of Cinema
  • Head Over Heels - The Guardian
  • (in French) La Screwball Comedy - CINEMACLASSIC
  • (in German) Screwball Comedies: Ein enzyklopädischer Artikel - University of Hamburg

March 13, 2023
screwball, comedy, film, subgenre, romantic, comedy, genre, that, became, popular, during, great, depression, beginning, early, 1930s, thriving, until, early, 1940s, that, satirizes, traditional, love, story, secondary, characteristics, similar, film, noir, di. Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s that satirizes the traditional love story It has secondary characteristics similar to film noir distinguished by a female character who dominates the relationship with the male central character whose masculinity is challenged 1 The two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes which was a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time 2 Bringing Up Baby 1938 is a screwball comedy from the genre s classic period The genre also featured romantic attachments between members of different social classes 3 as in It Happened One Night 1934 and My Man Godfrey 1936 2 What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that screwball comedy puts the emphasis on a funny spoofing of love while the more traditional romantic comedy ultimately accents love 4 Other elements of the screwball comedy include fast paced overlapping repartee farcical situations escapist themes physical battle of the sexes disguise and masquerade and plot lines involving courtship and marriage 2 Some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies Contents 1 History 2 Characteristics 3 Examples from the classic period 4 Later examples 5 Screwball comedy elements in other genres 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksHistory EditScrewball comedy has proved to be a popular and enduring film genre 5 It Happened One Night 1934 2 is often credited as the first true screwball though Bombshell starring Jean Harlow preceded it by a year Although many film scholars agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942 6 elements of the genre have persisted or have been paid homage to in later films Other film scholars argue that the screwball comedy lives on During the Great Depression there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful escapist oriented themes The screwball format arose largely as a result of the major film studios desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced Hays Code In order to incorporate prohibited risque elements into their plots filmmakers resorted to handling these elements covertly Verbal sparring between the sexes served as a stand in for physical sexual tension 7 Though some film scholars such as William K Everson argue that screwball comedies were not so much rebelling against the Production Code as they were attacking and ridiculing the dull lifeless respectability that the Code insisted on for family viewing 8 The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce 4 and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick situation comedy romantic comedy and bedroom farce Characteristics EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed June 2009 Learn how and when to remove this template message A screenshot from a trailer for It Happened One Night Films definitive of the genre usually feature farcical situations a combination of slapstick with fast paced repartee and show the struggle between economic classes They also generally feature a self confident and often stubborn central female protagonist and a plot involving courtship and marriage or remarriage These traits can be seen in both It Happened One Night and My Man Godfrey 1936 The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined the screwball comedy as a sex comedy without the sex 9 Like farce screwball comedies often involve masquerade and disguise in which a character or characters resort to secrecy Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross dressing further contributing to elements of masquerade Bringing Up Baby 1938 I Was a Male War Bride 1949 and Some Like It Hot 1959 At first the couple seem mismatched and even hostile to each other but eventually overcome their differences in an amusing or entertaining way that leads to romance Often this mismatch comes about when the man is of a lower social class than the woman Bringing Up Baby and Holiday both 1938 The final romantic union is often planned by the woman from the outset and the man is seemingly oblivious to this In Bringing Up Baby the woman says to a third party He s the man I m going to marry He doesn t know it but I am In The Lady Eve Jean center played by Barbara Stanwyck passes herself off as an upper class woman These pictures also offered a kind of cultural escape valve a safe battleground on which to explore serious issues such as class under a comedic and non threatening framework 10 Class issues are a strong component of screwball comedies the upper class are represented as idle pampered and having difficulty coping with the real world By contrast when lower class people attempt to pass themselves off as upper class or otherwise insinuate themselves into high society they are able to do so with relative ease The Lady Eve 1941 My Man Godfrey 1936 Some critics believe that the portrayal of the upper class in It Happened One Night was brought about by the Great Depression and the financially struggling moviegoing public s desire to see the rich upper class taught a lesson in humanity Another common element of the screwball comedy is fast talking witty repartee such as in You Can t Take It with You 1937 and His Girl Friday 1940 This stylistic device did not originate in the genre it is also found in many of the old Hollywood cycles including gangster films and romantic comedies Screwball comedies also tend to contain ridiculous farcical situations such as in Bringing Up Baby where a couple must take care of a pet leopard during much of the film Slapstick elements are also frequently present such as the numerous pratfalls Henry Fonda takes in The Lady Eve 1941 One subgenre of screwball is known as the comedy of remarriage in which characters divorce and then remarry one another The Awful Truth 1937 The Philadelphia Story 1940 Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code as it showed freer attitudes toward divorce though the divorce always turns out to have been a mistake Another subgenre of screwball comedy has the woman chasing a man who is oblivious to or not interested in her Examples include Barbara Stanwyck chasing Henry Fonda The Lady Eve 1941 Sonja Henie chasing John Payne Sun Valley Serenade 1941 and Iceland 1942 Marion Davies chasing Antonio Moreno The Cardboard Lover 1928 Marion Davies chasing Bing Crosby Going Hollywood 1933 and Carole Lombard chasing William Powell My Man Godfrey 1936 The philosopher Stanley Cavell has noted that many classic screwball comedies turn on an interlude in the state of Connecticut Bringing Up Baby The Lady Eve The Awful Truth 11 In Christmas in Connecticut 1945 the action moves to Connecticut and remains there for the duration of the film Examples from the classic period Edit A promotional photo for the 1940 screwball comedy His Girl Friday The Patsy 1928 directed by King Vidor starring Marion Davies Marie Dressler and Lawrence Gray The Front Page 12 1931 remade as His Girl Friday directed by Lewis Milestone starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O Brien Trouble in Paradise 13 14 1932 directed by Ernst Lubitsch starring Miriam Hopkins Kay Francis and Herbert Marshall 15 It Happened One Night 16 17 1934 directed by Frank Capra starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert Twentieth Century 12 17 1934 directed by Howard Hawks starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard My Man Godfrey 16 1936 directed by Gregory La Cava starring William Powell and Carole Lombard Cain and Mabel 1936 directed by Lloyd Bacon starring Marion Davies and Clark Gable Libeled Lady 1936 directed by Jack Conway starring Jean Harlow William Powell Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy Theodora Goes Wild 18 1936 directed by Richard Boleslawski starring Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas The Awful Truth 16 17 1937 directed by Leo McCarey starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant Nothing Sacred 16 1937 directed by William A Wellman starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March Bringing Up Baby 16 1938 directed by Howard Hawks starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant Holiday 1938 directed by George Cukor starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant His Girl Friday 16 17 1940 directed by Howard Hawks starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell Primrose Path 1940 directed by Gregory LaCava starring Joel McCrea Ginger Rogers Miles Mander and Marjorie Rambeau My Favorite Wife 1940 directed by Garson Kanin starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne The Philadelphia Story 1940 directed by George Cukor starring Katharine Hepburn Cary Grant and James Stewart Mr and Mrs Smith 1941 directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard The Lady Eve 16 17 1941 directed by Preston Sturges starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda Ball of Fire 19 20 1941 directed by Howard Hawks starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper Unfinished Business 1941 directed by Gregory La Cava starring Robert Montgomery and Irene Dunne The Palm Beach Story 16 1942 directed by Preston Sturges starring Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea To Be or Not To Be 21 1942 directed by Ernst Lubitsch starring Carole Lombard Jack Benny Robert Stack The More the Merrier 1943 directed by George Stevens starring Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea The Miracle of Morgan s Creek 22 1944 directed by Preston Sturges starring Betty Hutton and Eddie BrackenOther films from this period in other genres incorporate elements of the screwball comedy For example Alfred Hitchcock s thriller The 39 Steps 1935 features the gimmick of a young couple who finds themselves handcuffed together and who eventually almost in spite of themselves fall in love with one another and Woody Van Dyke s detective comedy The Thin Man 1934 which portrays a witty urbane couple who trade barbs as they solve mysteries together Some of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s also feature screwball comedy plots such as The Gay Divorcee 1934 Top Hat 1935 and Carefree 1938 which costars Ralph Bellamy The Eddie Cantor musicals Whoopee 1930 and Roman Scandals 1933 and slapstick road movies such as Six of a Kind 1934 include screwball elements Some of the Joe E Brown comedies also fall into this category particularly Broadminded 1931 and Earthworm Tractors 1936 Actors and actresses featured in or associated with screwball comedy Jean Arthur Fred Astaire Ralph Bellamy Eric Blore Charles Coburn Claudette Colbert Gary Cooper Marion Davies William Demarest Melvyn Douglas Irene Dunne Clark Gable Cary Grant Jean Harlow Katharine Hepburn Edward Everett Horton Harold Lloyd Carole Lombard Myrna Loy Fred MacMurray Ray Milland William Powell Ginger Rogers Rosalind Russell Barbara Stanwyck James Stewart Directors of screwball comedies Frank Capra George Cukor Howard Hawks Garson Kanin Gregory La Cava Mitchell Leisen Ernst Lubitsch Leo McCarey Preston Sturges W S Van Dyke Billy WilderLater examples Edit A screenshot from a trailer for How to Marry a Millionaire One Two Three 1961 Later films thought to have revived elements of the classic era screwball comedies include Champagne for Caesar 1950 d Richard Whorf The Mating Season 1951 d Mitchell Leisen Monkey Business 1952 d Howard Hawks How to Marry a Millionaire 1953 d Jean Negulesco The Seven Year Itch 1955 d Billy Wilder Bell Book and Candle 1958 d Richard Quine Pillow Talk 1959 d Michael Gordon Some Like It Hot 1959 d Billy Wilder The Grass Is Greener 1960 d Stanley Donen Lover Come Back 1961 d Delbert Mann One Two Three 1961 d Billy Wilder It s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1963 d Stanley Kramer Man s Favorite Sport 1964 d Howard Hawks Send Me No Flowers 1964 d Norman Jewison Walk Don t Run 1966 d Charles Walters What s Up Doc 1972 d Peter Bogdanovich For Pete s Sake 1974 d Peter Yates Heaven Can Wait 1978 d Warren Beatty and Buck Henry Une Femme ou Deux transl One Woman or Two 1985 d Daniel Vigne Desperately Seeking Susan 1985 d Susan Seidelman 23 Something Wild 1986 d Jonathan Demme Overboard 1987 d Garry Marshall Raising Arizona 1987 d Coen Brothers Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown 1988 d Pedro Almodovar Oscar 1991 d John Landis 24 Solo con Tu Pareja 1991 d Alfonso Cuaron The Hudsucker Proxy 1994 d Joel Coen Flirting With Disaster 1996 d David O Russell Runaway Bride 1999 Little Nicky 2000 d Steven Brill Rat Race 2001 d Jerry Zucker Intolerable Cruelty 2003 d Coen Brothers Anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy 2004 d Adam McKay Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day 2008 d Bharat Nalluri Our Idiot Brother 2011 d Jesse Peretz While We re Young 2014 d Noah Baumbach Mistress America 2015 d Noah Baumbach She s Funny That Way 2015 d Peter Bogdanovich Hail Caesar 2016 d Coen Brothers Chongqing Hot Pot 2016 d Yang Qing 25 Elements of classic screwball comedy often found in more recent films which might otherwise simply be classified as romantic comedies include the battle of the sexes Down with Love How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days witty repartee Down with Love and the contrast between the wealthy and the middle class You ve Got Mail Two Weeks Notice Many of Elvis Presley s films from the 1960s had drawn consciously or unconsciously the many characteristics of the screwball comedy genre Some examples are Double Trouble Tickle Me Girl Happy and Live A Little Love A Little Modern updates on screwball comedy also sometimes are categorized as black comedy Intolerable Cruelty which also features a twist on the classic screwball element of divorce and remarriage The Coen Brothers often include screwball elements in a film which may not otherwise be considered screwball or even a comedy The Golmaal movies a series of Hindi language Indian films have been described as a screwball comedy franchise 26 27 Screwball comedy elements in other genres EditIn his 2008 production of the classic Beaumarchais comedy The Marriage of Figaro author William James Royce trimmed the five act play down to three acts and labeled it a classic screwball comedy The playwright made Suzanne the central character endowing her with all the feisty comedic strengths of her classic film counterparts In his adaptation entitled One Mad Day a play on Beaumarchais original French title Royce underscored all of the elements of the classic screwball comedy suggesting that Beaumarchais may have had a hand in the origins of the genre The plot of Corrupting Dr Nice a science fiction novel by John Kessel involving time travel is modeled on films such as The Lady Eve and Bringing Up Baby 28 See also EditHawksian womanReferences Edit Dancyger Ken Rush Jeff 2006 Alternative Scriptwriting Fourth ed Focal Press p 85 ISBN 978 0240808499 The screwball comedy is funny film noir that has a happy ending The premise of the film is about the struggle in their relationship During the course of the struggle which is highly sexually charged the maleness of the central character is challenged The female is the dominant character in the relationship This role reversion is central to the screwball comedy a b c d Cele Otnes Elizabeth Hafkin PleckCele Otnes Elizabeth Hafkin Pleck 2003 Cinderella dreams the allure of the lavish wedding University of California Press p 168 ISBN 0 520 24008 1 Beach Christopher Class Language and American Film Comedy Cambridge University Press February 11 2002 p 125 a b Gehring Wes D 2008 Romantic vs Screwball Comedy Charting the Difference Lanham Scarecrow Press Inc p 186 Sarris Andrew March 1 1978 THE SEX COMEDY WITHOUT SEX American Film Vol 3 no 5 New York pp 8 15 Retrieved December 19 2022 Byrge Duane Miller Robert Milton 1991 The Screwball Comedy Films A History and Filmography 1934 1942 McFarland p 104 ISBN 978 0 89950 539 8 With the explosive exception of His Girl Friday screwball comedy had calmed considerably by 1940 from its peak of zaniness in 1937 38 Under the Radar The Hays Code and the Birth of Screwball virginia edu University of Virginia Retrieved 21 March 2018 Everson William K 1994 Hollywood Bedlam Classic Screwball Comedies New York Carol Publishing Group Citation Sarris Andrew You Ain t Heard Nothin Yet The American Talking Film History amp Memory 1927 1949 Oxford University Press New York 1998 1 The Screwball and Its Audience University of Virginia Cavell Stanley Pursuits of Happiness The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press 1981 a b Tim Dirks Comedy films Screwball comedy filmsite org Alberti John 2014 Screen Ages A Survey of American Cinema Taylor amp Francis p 111 ISBN 9781317650287 Halbout Gregoire 2022 Hollywood Screwball Comedy 1934 1945 Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN 9781501347627 White Armond Trouble in Paradise Lovers On the Money The Criterion Collection Retrieved 2022 12 03 a b c d e f g h 10 great screwball comedy films British Film Institute a b c d e Robbie Collin 23 June 2015 Who killed the screwball comedy The Telegraph Archived from the original on 2022 01 12 Theodora Goes Wild 1936 Boleslawsky s Screwball Comedy Starring Irene Dunne in Oscar Nominated Performance Emanuel Levy WILSON JAKE 2011 02 25 The lost art of screwball comedy The Sydney Morning Herald Retrieved 2019 01 01 Gemmill Allie These 21 Underrated Rom Coms Should Be Next In Your Netflix Queue Bustle Retrieved 2019 01 01 Haslam Jason 2013 The Public Intellectual and the Culture of Hope University of Toronto Press p 164 ISBN 9781442641846 Jaeckle Jeff ed 2015 ReFocus The Films of Preston Sturges Edinburgh University Press pp 118 120 ISBN 9781474406574 Described as a screwball comedy in Roger Ebert s contemporary review Stallone s Oscar Recovers From Bad Start chicagotribune com Retrieved 21 March 2018 Marsh James March 23 2016 Chongqing Hot Pot HKIFF review Screen Daily Retrieved March 28 2016 Golmaal Again Review 3 5 5 No logic Only magic Gags fights songs giggles ghosts here is a buffet you can overdose on via timesofindia indiatimes com Golmaal A wacky winner www rediff com Gevers Nick 16 October 1999 Corrupting Dr Nice by John Kessel infinity plus Retrieved 29 August 2012 Further reading EditScrewball Comedy Defining a Film Genre Wes D Gehring 1983 Hollywood Screwball Comedy 1934 1945 Sex Love and Democratic Ideals Gregoire Halbout 2022 External links EditScrewball Comedy Primer Green Cine Home of the Screwball University of Virginia Screwball Comedy film reference Screwball Comedy Everything2 Screwball Comedy Film Definition wordiQ Great Directors Mitchell Leisen Senses of Cinema Head Over Heels The Guardian in French La Screwball Comedy CINEMACLASSIC in German Screwball Comedies Ein enzyklopadischer Artikel University of Hamburg Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Screwball comedy amp oldid 1142106475, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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