Screwball Comedy

Screwball Comedy gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and, although many film scholars would agree that its classic period ended sometime in the early 1940s, elements of the genre have persisted, or have been paid homage to, in contemporary film.

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, and "meet cute" in some way. Often this mismatch comes about because the man is much further down the economic scale than the woman (Bringing Up Baby, Holiday). The final marriage is often planned by the woman from the beginning, 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 else than to her future husband: "He’s the man I’m going to marry, he doesn’t know it, but I am"

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 brought down a peg. 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).


It Happened One Night (1934)Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert (Frank Capra director)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALmnUBqbhuo

The Thin Man (1934) Myrna Loy & William Powell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgpN1dWnqe0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG3NZjRv2nM

Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k88OCWjMWjQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dTBdhmvjrQ&feature=related

Cary Grant & Rosalind Russell
His Girl Friday (1940)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwnoOKmExww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXS-Aucs7Co

Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, & Katherine Hepburn
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYJ9APs-iVg

Abbott & Costello (1946/1948)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg5N9FJc__Q&feature=PlayList&p=E050077F9A030CAE&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15

Okay, it's not a screwball comedy, but:

Frank Capra was an important director of the 1930's. Here's one of his "best" films with Jimmy Stewart.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm9qaEJ3MBc

After watching these and examining the screwball format from your Marx Brothers' experience, write a 3-5 page film script in the style of Screwball Comedy or romantic comedy (your option).