Transcript *The Screwball Comedy* and Frank Capra*s It Happened One Night

‘The Screwball Comedy’ and Frank
Capra’s It Happened One Night
Genre Definition and a Film Analysis
What is the screwball comedy?
• No general agreement among film historians
on what constituted a screwball comedy or
what films belong to the category.
• General agreement, however, is about the
period in which the genre prospered - between
1934 and 1938.
What is the screwball comedy?
• The genre began with Frank Capra’s It Happened
One Night (1934) and ended with Howard
Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby (1938)
What is the screwball comedy?
• One constant in this genre - the teaming up of a
male star and a female star, who are entangled in
love and the centre of comical spectacle.
• Some tendencies among film historians in
understanding and identifying the genre,
screwball comedy.
• Lewis Jacobs in his The Rise of the American
Film (1939) - sociological discussion on the
frustration and energy found screwball comedies.
Jacobs ascribes it to the mood of the depression
era.
What is the screwball comedy?
• Andrew Bergman in his We’re in Money (1971)
saw screwball comedies as a reactionary genre
which was an attempt to clear up and purify
rawer and more bawdry trends in comedy opened
up by the Marx Brothers. Replaced humour.
What is the screwball comedy?
• Griffith and Mayer in their The Movies find in
the genre a new image of courtship and marriage
combined with slapstick or violent elements.
This is attributed to the frustration felt during the
economic crisis.
• While acknowledging the genre elements
identified by film historians, Sarris denies their
sociological connection to the social milieu of
the period, the Depression era in the 1930s.
What is the screwball comedy?
• Andrew Sarris approach the genre not from the
ideological but stylistic angle.
• The screwball comedy is the sex comedy
without sex.
• Constants for screwball comedies
• Hardly no children and no babies. Comedies of
courtship with propensities for quarrels and
bickerings
Presence of talented comediennes
with a variety of trick voices,
insinuating mannerisms, and
unearthly beauty. Irene Dunne,
Jean Arthur, Myrna Loy, and
Barbara Stanwyck
What is the screwball comedy?
• The only actor indispensable to the genre - Cary
Grant with shy, nervous detachment and
clownish behaviour. He was often paired with
Katharine Hepburn.
It Happened One Night
• Generally considered one of the greatest romantic
comedies and the first screwball comedy. An
escapist film about an unlikely pairing of a
mismatched couple - a recently-fired newspaper
man (Gable) and a wealthy heiress (Colbert) on a
run.
It Happened One Night
• An unexpected box office hit and
won five Academy Awards,
unrivaled till One Flew over the
Cuckoos’ Nest (1975) and then
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
were awarded with five Oscars.
• Best Picture, Director, Actor,
Actress, and Screenplay
• Columbia Pictures’ biggest hit till
today.
Genre Elements
• Comic description of the process of a man and a
woman falling in love after quarrels and
bickering – Ellie and Peter meet by chance, have
a series of disagreements and arguments at first,
but gradually fall for each other.
• Strong but sweet at heart woman – Ellie played
by Claudette Colbert
• Looking smart but not really so, but lovable man
– Peter played by Clark Gable
Genre Elements
• Comic reliefs through ludicrous events in a
romance – blancket walls separates their beds;
Ellie manages to hitch a ride at her first attempt
by revealing her shapely leg, while Peter keeps
failing despite his boast.
• Fast paced verbal duel between a man and a
woman – Peter’s sarcasm and Ellie’s irony and
independent thought.
• Fast plot and plot twists – Ellie is mistaken that
she is abandoned by Peter.
Genre Elements
• Battle of sexes – Ellie and Peter fight each other
for dominance. Ambiguous feminist point.
Does the rise of screwball comedy reflect the
change in women’s status in the American
society?
• Class battles – a heiress of a millionaire and a
penniless journalist fall in love with each other.
Ambiguous Marxist point. Classes coexist in
harmony rather than in conflict.