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Screwball comedy

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The screwball comedy is a principally American genre of comedy film that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. Many secondary characteristics of this genre are similar to the film noir, but it distinguishes itself for being characterized by a female that dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged.[1] Other elements are fast-pace repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, and plot lines involving courtship and marriage.[2][unreliable source?] Screwball comedies often depict social classes in conflict, as in It Happened One Night (1934) and My Man Godfrey (1936). Some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies.

History

Screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres. It first gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night,[3] which is often cited as being the first true screwball. Although many film scholars would agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942,[4] elements of the genre have persisted, or have been paid homage, in contemporary film.

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. As such, they were routinely able to incorporate adult, risqué elements, such as pre-marital sex and adultery, into their plots.[5]

The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce,[citation needed] and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Many elements of the screwball genre can be traced back to such stage plays as Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick, situation comedy, romantic comedy and bedroom farce.

Characteristics

While there is no authoritative list of the defining characteristics of the screwball comedy genre, films considered to be 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. The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined the screwball comedy as "a sex comedy without the sex."[6]

Like farce, screwball comedies often involve mistaken identities or other circumstances in which a character or characters try to keep some important fact a secret. Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross-dressing, further contributing to the misunderstandings (Bringing Up Baby, I Was a Male War Bride, Some Like It Hot). They also involve a central romantic story, usually in which the couple seem mismatched and even hostile to each other at first, but eventually overcome their differences in an amusing or entertaining way that leads to romance. Often this mismatch comes about because the man is much further down the economic scale than the woman (Bringing Up Baby, Holiday). The final romantic union is often planned by the woman from the outset, while the man doesn’t know at all. In Bringing Up Baby we find a rare statement on that, when the leading woman says, once speaking to someone other than her future husband: "He's the man I’m going to marry, he doesn’t know it, but I am."

These pictures also offered a kind of cultural escape valve: a safe battleground on which to explore serious issues like class under a comedic (and non-threatening) framework.[7] Class issues are a strong component of screwball comedies: the upper class tend to be shown as idle and pampered, and have difficulty getting around in the real world. The most famous example is It Happened One Night; some critics believe that this portrayal of the upper class was brought about by the Great Depression, and the poor moviegoing public's desire to see the rich upper class taught a lesson in humanity. By contrast, when lower-class people attempt to pass themselves off as upper-class, they are able to do so with relative ease (The Lady Eve, My Man Godfrey).

Another common element is fast-talking, witty repartee (You Can't Take It With You, His Girl Friday). This stylistic device did not originate in the screwballs (although it may be argued to have reached its zenith there): it can also be found in many of the old Hollywood cycles including the gangster film, romantic comedies, and others.

Screwball comedies also tend to contain ridiculous, farcical situations, such as in Bringing Up Baby, in which 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).

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

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).[8]

Notable examples of the genre from its classic period


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, and Woody Van Dyke's 1934 detective comedy The Thin Man portrays a witty, urbane couple who trade barbs as they solve mysteries together. Many of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s also feature screwball comedy plots, notably The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935), the Eddie Cantor musicals Whoopee! (1930) and Roman Scandals (1933), and slapstick road movies such as Six of a Kind (1934). Some of the Joe E Brown comedies also could be said to fall into this catagory, particularly Broadminded (1931) and perhaps Earthworm Tractors (1936).

Actors and actresses frequently featured in or associated with screwball comedy include:

Some notable directors of screwball comedies include:

Later screwball comedies

Various later films are considered by some critics[weasel words] to have revived elements of the classic era screwball comedies. A partial list might include such films as:

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). Modern updates on screwball comedy may also sometimes be categorized as black comedy (Intolerable Cruelty, which also features a twist on the classic screwball element of divorce and re-marriage). The Coen Brothers often include screwball elements in a film which may not as a whole be considered screwball or even a comedy.

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) Mr. 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 television series Moonlighting (1985–1989), Married... with Children (1987–1997), NewsRadio (1995–1999), Gilmore Girls (2000–2007), and Standoff (2006–2007) have also adapted elements of the screwball comedy genre for the small screen.

The Tintin book, The Castafiore Emerald, contains settings, plots, comic devices and character types that share many similarities to screwball comedies.

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.[9]

See also

References

  • Dobi, Stephen J., Preston Sturgis: American Phenomenon. Masters Thesis, Pennsylvania State University,, 1971.
  1. ^ Ken Dancyger, Jeff Rush (2006) Alternative Scriptwriting, Fourth edition, Chap. 7 Working with Genre I, The Screwball Comedy, pp.84-5 quotation:

    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. ^ Screwball Comedy - Modern Times[need quotation to verify]
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ Citation Quote: 'With the explosive exception of His Girl Friday, screwball comedy had calmed considerably by 1940 from its peak of zaniness in 1937-38' - The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 1934–1942, By Duane Byrge, Robert Milton Miller, McFarland, 1991, ISBN 0-89950-539-2, ISBN 978-0-89950-539-8, page 104
  5. ^ [1] Under the Radar: The Hays Code and the Birth of Screwball - University of Virginia
  6. ^ Citation Sarris, Andrew. You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet: The American Talking Film, History & Memory, 1927–1949, Oxford University Press, New York, 1998
  7. ^ [2] The Screwball and Its Audience - University of Virginia
  8. ^ Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981
  9. ^ Gevers, Nick (16 October 1999). "Corrupting Dr Nice by John Kessel". infinity plus. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  10. ^ Classical Hollywood Comedy By Kristine Brunovska Karnick p.317

Further reading

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