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Screwball comedy

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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.

One proposed definition is "a sex comedy without the sex."

However, some have suggested the genre has several characteristics:

  • Comedies produced by the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and early 1940s 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 themes so necessary to the genre.
  • Reverse class snobbery by implying (or the belief that) common folk had better common sense than the wealthy, and were therefore superior to them. Associated with this was the belief that even the wealthy had the potential to exhibit the nobility of ordinary folk.
  • Romantic elements depicting a couple who were at once opposites but destined to complement each other. This element provided the dramatic tension to the audience who knew that the two would eventually admit that the two were meant for each other, but how and under what circumstances.
  • The stories almost always revolved around an idle rich socialite who comes into conflict with the guy who has to work for a living (Bringing Up Baby), or has to overcome her family's insistence that the man in her life is unacceptable because of his circumstance (Holiday).
  • Divorce and remarriage (The Awful Truth). Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code by showing that despite freer attitudes about divorce, marriage wins out because it is ultimately a superior way of life.
  • Fast-talking, witty repartee (You Can't Take it With You). 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, such as in Bringing Up Baby, in which a Socialite (Katherine Hepburn) ensnares an unsuspecting man (Cary Grant) into helping her keep tabs on her brother's pet leopard.
  • Mistaken identity or circumstances in which a simple explanation could clear up matters, but the parties involved seem either unable or unwilling to do so (My Favorite Wife and its remake Move Over, Darling).
  • 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 other characteristic examples:

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.

Some actors most common to the screwball comedies:

Some notable directors of screwball comedies include:

More recent screwball comedies

Various later films are considered by some critics to have revived elements of the classic era screwball comedies. These include:

The television series Moonlighting (1985–1989) and Gilmore Girls (2000–) have adapted elements of the screwball comedy genre for television.

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