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Screwball: Hollywood's Madcap Romantic Comedies
A compilation, with commentary, critique, and summaries of plots and situations, and a discussion of some of the Hollywood stars who made them madcap
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Ed Sikov
20 books12 followersEd Sikov has taught at Haverford College, Colorado College, and Columbia University. He is the author of seven books, including On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis, Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers, and Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 13, 2007
Buy it just for the photographs and stay for the text.
October 19, 2020
This is a delightful book for fans of the genre that populated movie theaters during the Great Depression through World War II. It was a filmed environment in which women equaled men and were just as independent and aggressive. Typically, the plot had the two leads loathing each other throughout the ordeal, fighting all the way, until in the end they loved each other. Chapters are included on newspaper reporters in screwball comedies and the sub-genre of screwball mysteries. The index includes a list of recommended screwball comedies to watch, as well as a list of noted directors and their works in the genre. The oversized book is lavishly illustrated with photos.
"Screwball" contains extended treatments of some of my favorite films in the category, including, "It Happened One Night," "Bringing Up Baby," "The Awful Truth," "My Favorite Wife," "Love Crazy," "Midnight," "Libeled Lady," "The Lady Eve," "The Palm Beach Story," "His Girl Friday," "Theodora Goes Wild," "Ball of Fire," and "It's a Wonderful World."
"Screwball" contains extended treatments of some of my favorite films in the category, including, "It Happened One Night," "Bringing Up Baby," "The Awful Truth," "My Favorite Wife," "Love Crazy," "Midnight," "Libeled Lady," "The Lady Eve," "The Palm Beach Story," "His Girl Friday," "Theodora Goes Wild," "Ball of Fire," and "It's a Wonderful World."
September 15, 2014
One of the best I've ever read on the subject. Not just a Term paper on the subject, but a thorough treatment.
September 13, 2013
A brilliant look at some of the funniest movies ever to come out of the Hollywood laugh machine of the 1930's and 40's.
September 30, 2016
hugely entertaining
June 7, 2020
From Wikipedia:
Screwball comedy is a subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is widely known for satirizing the traditional love story. Many secondary characteristics of this genre are similar to 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. The two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes, which was a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time. What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that "screwball comedy puts its emphasis on a funny spoofing of love, while the more traditional romantic ultimately accents love." 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. 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.
Screwball: Hollywood's Madcap Romantic Comedies covers the subject pretty well, but I would hate to read this book without being familiar with many of the films. Ed Sikov makes it seem like all these films were one long lovers' quarrel, with a strong emphasis on the "quarrel"; in most of the films of this type that I have seen, the important word is really "lovers."
Admittedly, I have not seen many of the films discussed here that evidently celebrate physical violence: Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Breakfast for Two, and The Moon's Our Home, to give three examples. And to be honest, I have always had problems with some of the films in which couples are emotionally tortured, such as the highly regarded The Lady Eve, which has always seemed to me to be more nasty than funny.
Sikov's plot summaries are generally quite good, although I think he is occasionally overly generous in leaving out the bad parts of good films. I like Nothing Sacred more than Sikov does, including Fredric March's performance. (But the material that Sikov says was originally planned but was not included sounds incredibly offensive.)
But, oh, My Man Godfrey is splendid! It Happened One Night is fine, as are The Thin Man and Holiday. And there are films that have a high cruelty content that I shouldn't like but I do, including some that I love, such as Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday.
There are films here that Sikov and I agree aren't very good, such as Red Salute and Turnabout.
And there are films which I think are in part brilliant but have stretches that I find either silly or boring, including Design for Living, Libeled Lady, The Palm Beach Story, My Favorite Wife, and Theodora Goes Wild. There are even parts of the much-praised The Awful Truth that bother me (and other parts that I think are wonderful).
Sikov does not quote much of the dialogue from the films, but he chooses extremely well. I am glad that he included the "tabloids" joke from The Thin Man. (But surely Luis Alberni in Easy Living does not actually have what appears to me to be rendered as a Yiddish accent in his quoted dialogue: "Dis is vot you call a beckground!")
One feature that I enjoy and wish there were more of is brief discussions of some of the folks who acted in many of these films but were never the major stars. I believe that there are only four of these, devoted to Franklin Pangborn, Walter Connelly, Gail Patrick, and Eugene Pallette, all fine actors who enhanced the films in which they appeared.
The physical layout of the book is excellent. The undulating borders used to separate out material that is not part of the main text are most effective.
And the pictures included, the marvelous, all-but-glowing pictures! Most of them are stills from the movies, and they are well chosen and perfectly reproduced. (Some of the captioning might have been improved though. And one of the very few pictures that I don't like is the one that is featured on the back of the dust jacket.) It isn't hard, I imagine, to find examples of folks like Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell, Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, Gary Cooper, and many others looking glamorous, but I doubt that it has ever been done better.
Screwball comedy is a subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is widely known for satirizing the traditional love story. Many secondary characteristics of this genre are similar to 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. The two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes, which was a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time. What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that "screwball comedy puts its emphasis on a funny spoofing of love, while the more traditional romantic ultimately accents love." 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. 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.
Screwball: Hollywood's Madcap Romantic Comedies covers the subject pretty well, but I would hate to read this book without being familiar with many of the films. Ed Sikov makes it seem like all these films were one long lovers' quarrel, with a strong emphasis on the "quarrel"; in most of the films of this type that I have seen, the important word is really "lovers."
Admittedly, I have not seen many of the films discussed here that evidently celebrate physical violence: Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Breakfast for Two, and The Moon's Our Home, to give three examples. And to be honest, I have always had problems with some of the films in which couples are emotionally tortured, such as the highly regarded The Lady Eve, which has always seemed to me to be more nasty than funny.
Sikov's plot summaries are generally quite good, although I think he is occasionally overly generous in leaving out the bad parts of good films. I like Nothing Sacred more than Sikov does, including Fredric March's performance. (But the material that Sikov says was originally planned but was not included sounds incredibly offensive.)
But, oh, My Man Godfrey is splendid! It Happened One Night is fine, as are The Thin Man and Holiday. And there are films that have a high cruelty content that I shouldn't like but I do, including some that I love, such as Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday.
There are films here that Sikov and I agree aren't very good, such as Red Salute and Turnabout.
And there are films which I think are in part brilliant but have stretches that I find either silly or boring, including Design for Living, Libeled Lady, The Palm Beach Story, My Favorite Wife, and Theodora Goes Wild. There are even parts of the much-praised The Awful Truth that bother me (and other parts that I think are wonderful).
Sikov does not quote much of the dialogue from the films, but he chooses extremely well. I am glad that he included the "tabloids" joke from The Thin Man. (But surely Luis Alberni in Easy Living does not actually have what appears to me to be rendered as a Yiddish accent in his quoted dialogue: "Dis is vot you call a beckground!")
One feature that I enjoy and wish there were more of is brief discussions of some of the folks who acted in many of these films but were never the major stars. I believe that there are only four of these, devoted to Franklin Pangborn, Walter Connelly, Gail Patrick, and Eugene Pallette, all fine actors who enhanced the films in which they appeared.
The physical layout of the book is excellent. The undulating borders used to separate out material that is not part of the main text are most effective.
And the pictures included, the marvelous, all-but-glowing pictures! Most of them are stills from the movies, and they are well chosen and perfectly reproduced. (Some of the captioning might have been improved though. And one of the very few pictures that I don't like is the one that is featured on the back of the dust jacket.) It isn't hard, I imagine, to find examples of folks like Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell, Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn, Gary Cooper, and many others looking glamorous, but I doubt that it has ever been done better.
October 25, 2020
I love this genre of movies. I could have more. more please.
February 26, 2025
Useful. Gets a little long and tedious at times, but good for research purposes.
August 18, 2016
Sumptuous silver pictures dance alongside pages chock-full of fun facts on everything from gown-makers to art directors to the outright famous famous-figures - a coffeetable book celebrating a bygone era when puritan censorship paved a road to transcendant entertainment. You've probably seen many of these movies on TCM (My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred), but there are plenty of hidden gems and haughty gams to recommend to your to-watchlist. Like, for example, Love Crazy.
December 12, 2011
This book managed to turn a genre that I love into all of the things that I DON'T love about Hollywood. Beyond that, it was mostly plot descriptions of screwball comedies. At least the pictures were pretty!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews