Screwball Comedy

A favorite of mine.

Here are some good ones:

Midnight
Holiday
My Man Godfrey
The Joy of Living
Theodora Goes Wild

Favorite actors & actresses:

Don Ameche; Katharine Hepburn; Francis Lederer; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; Irene Dunne; William Powell; James Cagney; Joan Blondell.

I also like:

The Bride Came C.O.D.
Blonde Crazy


...and many, many more!

Dare I say it, The Stooges? Especially I like the interaction between the boys original trio vs. the later ones with Shemp and the other guy....what's his name?

Oh, but that's slapstick, not screwball.

(Slapstick has its place, don't get me wrong.)

Screwball is crazy-with-elegance.

Hiya LD,

So this is like the Doris Day-Audry Hepburn type films? What was that film with Spencer Tracy in it where Hepburn was a librarian? (You'd think I would think of something besides libraries sometimes....I can't help it! )

No, older. Those are 60s films, though Desk Set does have real elements of screwball in it. (I LOVE the Christmas party scene.)

The heyday of screwball comedy is the 1930s.

Think Katharine Hepburn. Cary Grant. Claudette Colbert. William Powell. Carole Lombard.

Here are some you might have seen:

Bringing Up Baby; His Girl Friday; You Can't Take It With You.

Yes, whole books have been written on the subject!

Gotcha.....

Do you have any web links? I wonder if wikipedia would have anything? Would this be listed under any other subject...maybe if I put in the actors or actresses names?

thanks for the help!

Yes to all of the above.

Just throw the term into Google; you'll find a lot.

http://moderntimes.com/screwball/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screwball_comedy

http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/screwball.jsp

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/comedy/sbhome.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031647/

http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/comedy/pages/screwball.html

Have you had a chance to check any of the links out, Tony?

What do you think?

I've been waiting in line. Eaten all my popcorn....sheesh, I can't believe there's such a line here.

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Actually, those links were perfect, especially this one:

http://moderntimes.com/screwball/



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So now I remember a film, little later than the ones mentioned that has Streisand in it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Up%2C_Doc%3F_%28film%29

Great film, especially some San Francisco scenes from the late 60's.

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Don't laugh, but do you think the Love Bug with Herbie would qualify? I mean yeah, there's physical comedy, but there's also the love interest, but probably not, because the focus of the film is on the auto, right?

I think it's a descendant, but...

Screwball comedy purports to be pure escapism...but the thing that makes it succeed is its edge.

The really great films have a sly commentary at the back of it all, and the 30s were a good time for that kind of thing, coming out of the Roaring 20s....a lot of people who were "respectable" didn't feel respectable, but they had to appear to be, just the same!

Screwball comedy let them do whatever they wanted, if only vicariously, for a little while.

And everyone needed that, in the Depression. The 70s had a very different feel to them, the whole let-it-all-hang-out vibe.

Just my .02; I am not a film historian!

So back to being frivolous about it all...

I just found The Young in Heart on DVD! Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Janet Gaynor, and Roland Young and Billie Burke.

I've been waiting to see it for 20 years, and it is charming! Some good shipboard scenes, and lots of n'er-do-well charm from them all.

I love Brining Up Baby and most of the Preston Sturges films I have seen.

Rosalind Russell is one of my favorites. She had a real gift for comedy.

Lindydiva, I know that MIDNIGHT is one of your favorite movies of all time, so you'll be pleased to learn that it's due on DVD April 22...

I adore screwball comedies. Definitely different from slapstick.

Here are a few of my faves...

Topper
Arsenic and Old Lace
It Happened One Night
My Favorite Wife
My Man Godfrey
and many many others...

Cary Grant is always wonderful in the screwball comedy. (and everything else too )

Marlowe wrote:

Lindydiva, I know that MIDNIGHT is one of your favorite movies of all time, so you'll be pleased to learn that it's due on DVD April 22...

Yes, I saw that!

I'll probably catch hell for saying this, but I've always found the machine gun like dialogue of a lot of those comedies make exhausting viewing (listening?). It's almost as if they had to cram as much verbiage into a scene before the roll of film ran out.

I like what Hitchcock did with Grant- slowed him down a bit.

Andy

The bubbler wrote:

I'll probably catch hell for saying this, but I've always found the machine gun like dialogue of a lot of those comedies make exhausting viewing (listening?). It's almost as if they had to cram as much verbiage into a scene before the roll of film ran out.

I like what Hitchcock did with Grant- slowed him down a bit.

Andy

The only time I ever thought the dialogue was a distraction was in HIS GIRL FRIDAY, a film I've never warmed up to for whatever reason. Just blah and it takes forever to get started.



BTW, I sent you a Christmas card last year, did you receive it?

Yes I did. IIRC it arrived a short while after Christmas.

Cheers

Andy

I enjoy the Hitchcock films, but I prefer screwball comedy.

Just picked up EASY LIVING (1937) and THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (1942). The former had a bit too much bluster, but I do love Jean Arthur. TMATM is great, as I'm also big on Ginger Rogers, whose crying scene after her balloon gets popped is hilarious. Ray Milland is in both of these films, and is excellent in both. He had a great speaking voice!

Has anyone seen one lately?

I tried to watch TCM last night for one from 1932, but the TV is on the blink. *sigh*

Figures, the one time I turn the thing on myself, it won't work! (It doesn't like me.)

Might have to go to ACME Video (really) and dig through the racks. They've got some good screwball, pre-and-post Code.

RetroKitten wrote:

I adore screwball comedies. Definitely different from slapstick.

Here are a few of my faves...

Topper
Arsenic and Old Lace
It Happened One Night
My Favorite Wife
My Man Godfrey
and many many others...

Cary Grant is always wonderful in the screwball comedy. (and everything else too )

I could have written that myself!

I bought the Cary Grant Columbia Collection, which includes HOLIDAY, THE AWFUL TRUTH, and HIS GIRL FRIDAY. I take back what I posted before regarding His GIRL FRIDAY, as it's a truly marvelous film. HOLIDAY is well worth the Screwballphile's attention and is my favorite of the Grant/Kate Hepburn pairings. THE AWFUL TRUTH is one of my favorite films of the 1930s.

Marlowe wrote:

I bought the Cary Grant Columbia Collection, which includes HOLIDAY, THE AWFUL TRUTH, and HIS GIRL FRIDAY. I take back what I posted before regarding His GIRL FRIDAY, as it's a truly marvelous film. HOLIDAY is well worth the Screwballphile's attention and is my favorite of the Grant/Kate Hepburn pairings. THE AWFUL TRUTH is one of my favorite films of the 1930s.

I love Holiday! Isn't that one of Hepburn's films that was considered a flop?
The Awful Truth was on TCM last Saturday-I love the part when Cary Grant bursts in while Irene Dunn is having her
recital and tears up the chair and she laughs and keeps singing at the same time!

Lesleyann66 wrote:

I love Holiday! Isn't that one of Hepburn's films that was considered a flop?
The Awful Truth was on TCM last Saturday-I love the part when Cary Grant bursts in while Irene Dunn is having her
recital and tears up the chair and she laughs and keeps singing at the same time!

I watched HOLIDAY again yesterday with the wife, who hadn't seen it. Yeah, the movie was during Hepburn's "Box Office Poison" days and there's a nice featurette on the DVD showing Columbia's advertising campaign: "Is it true what they say about Katharine Hepburn?" Pretty daring advertising!

THE AWFUL TRUTH never ceases to amaze, amuse, and entertain me. Even Asta (as 'Mr. Smith") gives a great performance! My wife said, "That's Asta! I recognize his bark!" (BTW, in the THIN MAN novel, Asta's a "she.")

And speaking of Screwball Comedy, Carole Lombard is TCM's "Star of the Month" for October, 2008.