Screwball comedy film

The screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most elusive of the film genres. Very little consensus among students of film has been gathered on the film genre conventions that comprise the screwball comedy genre. As a result, the description "screwball comedy" has continued to be used even when a better descriptor would be slapstick film or situation comedy film.

Related Topics:
Film genres - Film genre conventions - Slapstick film - Situation comedy film

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One proposed definition, is "to paraphrase Andrew Sarris, the screwball comedy can be described as a sex comedy without the sex." http://www.newsradioart.com/Pages/2.Introduction.html

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However, some have suggested the genre has several characteristics:

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• Comedies produced by the American Hollywood Studio system between 1933 and 1942 that contain certain story or stylistic elements (mentioned below). Most acknowledge that the screwball comedy had stragglers through the late 1940s and 1950s, but the onset of World War II and the end of the Depression undermined some of the thematic codes that acted as a spine to the genre.
• Reverse class snobbery. The implied or explicit belief that common folk were superior to the wealthy. Associated with this was the belief that even the wealthy had the potential to exhibit the nobility of ordinary folk.
• Romantic element. The screwball comedies always depicted a couple who were destined to complete each other but had a difficult time getting together.
• The stories almost always revolved around the idle rich and often came into conflict with the guy who has to work for a living.
• Divorce and Remarriage. Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code. There was a move toward freer divorces but with the reassurance that marriage is ultimately a superior way of life.
• Fast-talking, witty repartee. This stylistic device did not originate in the screwballs, but can be found in many of the old Hollywood Cycles including the gangster, journalism, romantic comedies, and others.
• Ridiculous, farcical situations.
• Gender power reversal. Women are often the ones who have power over men in these films. Although the male lead may eventually be the one who resolves the plot's crisis, he is usually still dominated in some part by the female lead at the end of the film.

Some characteristic examples:

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• It Happened One Night (1934) d. Frank Capra
• Twentieth Century (1934), d. Howard Hawks
• My Man Godfrey (1936)
• The Awful Truth (1937), d. Leo McCarey
• Nothing Sacred (1937)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938), d. Howard Hawks
• His Girl Friday (1940), d. Howard Hawks
• The Philadelphia Story (1940), d. George Cukor
• The Lady Eve (1941), d. Preston Sturges
• Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), d. Alfred Hitchcock
• The Palm Beach Story (1942), d. Preston Sturges
• To Be or Not to Be (1942), d. Ernst Lubitsch

Other films from this period in other genres incorporate elements of the screwball comedy. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 thriller The 39 Steps features the gimmick of a young couple who find themselves handcuffed together and who eventually, almost in spite of themselves, fall in love with one another.

Related Topics:
Alfred Hitchcock - Thriller - The 39 Steps

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Some actors most common to the screwball comedies:

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• Carole Lombard
• Cary Grant
• Katharine Hepburn
• Clark Gable

Some notable directors of screwball comedies include:

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• Howard Hawks
• Preston Sturges
 
Screwball comedy film: More recent screwball comedies ►