Screwball Comedies

After viewing the recent Sandra Bullock film "The Proposal" I wondered how it should be characterized. It is definitely a comedy with a few serious aspects, but not very relevant to most of today's humorous films. My decision was a product of my recalling movies I particularly liked from my youthful days. These were films prominant in the last years of the Great Depression that dealt with a different take on humor. The films, and there were a number of them, usually dealt with wealthy people and some of the odd things they did. They were generally heavy in eccentrics, the kinds of people who though seemingly normal did a lot of not so normal things. And, they came to be referred to as SCREWBALL COMEDIES.


I have decided to select five films from that period that were typical of those times. In addition I have tried to devote these selections to five different directors, writers and actors prominent in that genre. To complement that five I have come up with five additional films of comparable designation as Screwball. These include one from earlier in the 1930's that is a real classic but not usually so recognized. And, finally, I have noted three films from more recent times that fit the category, and one foreign language film that has similar qualities. All will be presented in the order I describe above.


THE LADY EVE - 1941. This is generally recognized as the finest product from writer/director Preston Sturges who did several films in the Screwball Comedy genre. It stars Barbara Stanwyck in a dual role as Jean Harrington, daughter of the experienced huckster Charles Colburn as "Handsome" Harry Harrington. Later on in the film Miss Stanwyck plays the Lady Eve Sidwich, a suppsedly wealthy member of a titled English family. Miss Stanwyck does the English part of her performance with perfect elan. Her foil is the almost always excellent Henry Fonda playing the eccentric son of a New England Beer Baron, "Pike's Pale, the ale that won for Yale." Fonda plays young Pike sometimes called Popsy by Stanwyck as Jean Harrington.

The film also utilizes many of the performers popularly used by Preston through the years including William Demarest and Eric Blore among others. The story begins on an ocean liner where Jean meets Popsy, moves to Long Island where the senior Mr. Pike, Eugene Pallette lives and includes anothe Preston characteristic, a train ride, and finally ends on another ocean liner. I won't try to tell the whole story, but it turns out quite happily at the end when Mr. Pike Jr. and Miss Harringon head for one of there staterooms for a liaison. Mr. Pike apologizes and notes with sadness that he has married in the interim and Miss Harrington responds subtlely, that so has she. The difference being that Pike married Miss Sidwich never realizing that it was Miss Harrington.




BRINGING UP BABY - 1938. This memorable classic featured two of Hollywood's biggest stars, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn had gained a reputation of being box office poison a negative connotation that was greatly alleviated by her funny performance in this film. Grant already known for his comic skills was cast as a professor in the field of pre-historic mammals, most notably the giant dinasours. He is working on a brontasaurus and lacks only one bone which is being sent to him by parcel post. He is also working on getting a large grant to help his museum work. All kinds of unpleasent things happen to him including a problem on the golf course, a damage to his car and other irritations all caused by Hepburn. The picture includes such items as a pet leopard mailed to her from overseas, a dog who burries Grant's brontosaurus bone and to many others to enumerate including time in jail and his abandonment by his fiance.


An example of his occurences is his soaking of his clothes in a stream while hunting for the dog who took the bone or the leopard or both in a Connecticut woods. On getting back to Susan's Aunt's house, "Susan is played by Katherine hepburn while Grant is known as David." Anyhow, on getting back to Susan's aunt's house he takes a shower and then goes to put on his clothes but Susan has taken them to the cleaners. Left with having to put on something he selects Susan's fluffy bathrobe when the doorbell rings. Susan has disappeared with his clothes so Grant has to answer it. The aunt, Dame May Whitty, is there and wants to know where his clothes are. "These aren't my clothes the exasperated David replies, "I've just suddenly gone gay." This is the first time I had ever heard the term Gay before, but in my innocence of youth assumed he meant happy. There are other outlandish funny events in this classic of the screwball realm.



HIS GIRL FRIDAY - 1940. Grant again in a remake of the "Front Page" a very successful play and earlier film which starred Pat O'Brien. Grant is a newspaper publisher. His former wife a star reporter, Hilde Johnson, is played by the witty Rosalind Russell. The story concerns the execution of a prisoner, apparently a Communist, very bad in those days, who is going to be hung for murder. Russell is engaged to marry ever square and faithful Ralph Bellamy. In one scene, Grant's henchman, Abner Biberman, was tasked to do some dirty work on Bellamy. "What does he look like" he queries Grant, the latter tells him, "He looks like Ralph Bellamy."

Most of the film takes place in the jail waiting for the execution. It mostly involves dialogue between the half a dozen newspapermen/reporters there to cover the event. They are a motley crew, one of which, Roscoe Karns, is known as Stairway Sam, since he parks himself in a chair next to the window that faces the stairs going up and down. Stairway Sam is active in his viewing whenever a lady goes up and he follows her progress carefully until she reaches the top of the stairs providing Sam with a complete underskirt view.

The prisoner escapes and Hilde Johnson who has agreed to cover the execution for Grant, one last time, and with Grant's help hides him in a rolltop desk. After everything is said and done, the sheriff and the mayor are charged with malfeiance in office and the prisoner goes free. An example of the humor includes Grant's request to Biberman, "have you got any counterfeit money on you." Bibberman replies, "always, boss," Do you have 400 hundred dollars." Grant is going to have it planted on Bellamy so he will be arrested. Bibberman, tells him, "Oh, no boss, I never carry that much at any one time."

I also might note the Marian Martin is in the film. She was a long time minor supporting actress with peroxide blond hair, the Jean Harlow look, and a a very pale cupey doll face. She is Biberman's girl friend in the film. Hildy Johnson, in disgust refers to her as, "that albino girl friend of yours." To which Bibberman replies, "I'll have you know she is just as much an American as you are."


THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES - 1941. The Devil and Miss Jones returns Charles Coburn to the Screwball Comedy world. He made this film in 1941 and followed it two years later with an equal screwball effort in "The More the Merrier." His actress partner in both films was the delightful Jean Arthur noted for her wonderful dry deep voice. In this film Coburn, the devil in this case, is the richest man in America and owner among other things of a New York Department store. There have been some labor problems and Coburn has hired a private detective to ferrit out who is the problem maker. This man fails, so Coburn secretly decides to take the task on himself. He gets hired into the store, but because he scores so poorly on the intelligence test he is assigned to the shoe department and then specifically to just slippers. His efforts are rather fruitless. He is hounded by his shoe department manager, but is befriended by Arthur, another employee, and her friend Spring Byington. Many funny things happen to Coburn in his job but gradually he lets up and in particular falls for Byington playing her usual nice self. To keep the roles straight, Arthur plays Mary Jones, Coburn is John P. Merrick and Byington Elizabeth Ellis.


At the end the employees achieve unionization and Coburn, his whole attitude changed, takes all the store's employees on a cruise. Events leading up to the ending are about as funny as things can be. There is a meeting between a select group of employees naturally including Arthur, Byington and Arthur's boyfriend, Joe O'Brien, played by Robert Cummings. Coburn is sitting next to them and to the stores corporate people as well. Both the employees and the corporate type's thing that Coburn is sitting with them. At this time Arthur and Byington don't realize Coburn is the stores owner. In one funny exchange Byington makes a comment that was shot down by one of the corporate types. Coburn is attracted to her and feels very protective. The corporate gentleman is roundly blasted by Coburn. When the employees find out that Coburn is actually the owner of the store they are flagergasted, Cummings enough so that he plain passes out.



ROXIE HART - 1941. This was a remake of another successful stage play which had been made into a movie Called "Chicago." Later the film was remade again as a broadway musical and film starring Catherine Zeta Jones who did most of the dance direction, and Renee Zellweger who played the Roxie Hart Role. When it was made in 1941 under the name of Roxie Hart it was shot as a Screwball Comedy, and is remembered as one of the best of the genre. Ginger Rogers played Roxie and she did it managing to include some great dancing including a solo on the metal jail stairs where she was being held for murder. Earlier a newspaper reporter played by Lynne Overman while she is being interviewed by reporters in the jail asks, "can you do the Black Bottom." She replies she has her own version. which prompts him to ask if people like what she does and she responds, "I haven't had any complaints yet." He then asks her for a demonstration which she does with a very loose version accompanied by background music typical of the times. It soon has all those in the room dancing including, Spring Byington playing a rather advice for the love lorn type reporter named Miss Sunshine and if you can believe it Sara Allgood, yes, lovable Sara, playing the jail matron.

Later Roxie and another prisoner get into a hair pulling fight. Sara tsk tsks and bangs their heads together saying "children, children."


Another very funny incident involves another woman who has been jailed because of a murder. This one is called "Two Gun Gertie" whose crime is holding up of a gas station and killing the owner. She is delightfully played by long time bit player Iris Adrian, who while be interviewed by the reporters turns to Overman and asks with a curved upper lip and snarl in her voice, "Got a match bub?"


The reporter who supports Roxie all the way is played by George Montgomery. While Roxie is on the stars before doing her tap routine she suddenly gets interested in Montgomery and asks him in a silky way while standing very close, "How old are you?'

Adolphe Menjou is also very funny playing Roxie's attorney Billy Flynn. There are as many funny incidents in this film as others of the Screwball Comedy contingent from that period. If you like clever writing and right on humor developed by experienced actors and actresses you will definitely enjoy any of the films above.





30 DAY PRINCESS - 1934


This was one of Cary Grant's earlier films produced before he had fully developed the Cary Grant image. Grant was one of the stars, though the principal one was Sylvia Sidney who like Barbara Stanwyck in "The Lady Eve," plays dual roles. The story is really a fun depiction of the King of an impoverished nation, Henry Stevenson who meets America's most important banker, Richard M. Gresham, played by Edward Arnold in adjoining Turkish mud bath tubs. A conversation develops where the king laments how poor his country is and the need for money. Arnold notes his bank can probably negotiate a loan but needs an image to present to the American public to get approval for the loan. Thus Sylvia Sidney arrives as the King's lovely daughter, Princess Catterina, who affectionately known as Zhi - Zhi.


The dual role comes about with the arrival of Zhi-Zhi in New York and her immediate
catching of the mumps. This results in a search by the detective agency hired by Arnold for a substitute pretending to be the princess. Fortunately, they find the girl in the New York Automat restaurant about to consume a full meal that she got by accident. She is an out of work actress, named Nancy Lane, who can't pay her rent and is stuck with reading her meager credits for entertainment. Sydney immediate reveals her acting talent and takes on and succeeds at the role she is hired to play.


Cary Grant who plays a hot shot newspaper editor named Porter Madison III thinks the whole thing is a phony and tries to discredit her editorially, etc. Unfortunately for him he also manages to fall in love with her..


Everything straightens out fine in the end when the real princess manages to recover enough to play herself at a critical moment in the film. It's a cute film and one totally enhanced by the extremely clever writing by Preston Sturges who as noted above was the writer and director as well for "The Lady Eve."



The other four films which we decided to include in this collection are three contemporary American efforts in the same genre and one French Foreign language film that has much the same characteristics of screwball comedy.




HUDSUCKER'S PROXY - 1994


This was a very funny film by the Coen Brothers who we discussed in a previous column. They used some of the same techniques popularized by Preston Sturges but with a lot less continual energy. They also cleverly thought up different names for the roles.



Charles Hudsucker, played by Charles Durning, was the chief executive of a manufacturing company that specialized in children's toys. Among the firms many, many employees was Norville Barnes, a recent hire right out of college who was from Munsey, Indiana. Norville is really a world class smoe with practically no experience or understanding of what makes the world go round. He works in the mail room, a horrendous huge cavernous space jam packed with employees who are busy as bees sorting and delivering mail. Norville deftly played by Tim Robbins has the smoe quality down pat. The working environment is very similar to that developed by Terry Gilliam for his fantasy "Brazil" where the similar if greatly exagerated environment is portrayed.


The story centers on the CEO, Huddsucker, at a board meeting who decides to take his life by jumping out the board room window. The board room is located on the 40th floor which is a guarantee that he will acomplish his objective. The firms number two man is Paul Newman in the delightfully named role of Sidney J. Mussburger. Mussberger has a scheme to have the company's fortunes take a precipitous nose dive. The objective is for all the board members to sell their stock and then buy it back again after it's precipitous fall. Mussburger puts his plan in place by placing a low level jerk in the CEO job. The jerk turns out to be Norville and the firm does indeed collapse because of an invention of Norville's, the Hula Hoop.


Well, the firm hinges on the brink of disaster until some kid figures out how to use the hula wheel and the film starts making money hand over fist.


Since this is a screwball comedy, this has a happy ending. but only after introducing Jennifer Jason Leigh who plays Amy Archer, ace reporter for a local newspaper. Leigh, has been recognized for her performance whinch has been described as an adept adaptation of the same kind of roles that both Katherine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell made famous back in the late 30's and early 40's, i.e. "Bringing Up Baby," and "His Girl Friday." There is far more detail and several other nice perfromances that help to make the film work. Not to forget, the delightful scene of Tim Robbins in a ballet sequence with a ballarina against an entirely floor to ceiling white background.




STATE AND MAIN - 2000


This film was somewhat of a departure for David Mamet from his usual fare of low level but complex crimes. Though it is a departure it features several of the same actors and actresses who are standard members of his films including wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Ricky Jay, William C. Macy along with a few newcomers who fully exploit the humorous aspects of this screwball comedy.


The film deals with a film company in a Vermont town trying to make a vintage film about conditions around the turn of the century. Macy is the films director and very effective in his frustrations with in particular his leads, Sara Jessica Parker and Alec Baldwin. The former had signed a contract that included exposing her breasts at a handsome addition to her usual fees. She has decided she just can't do it and tearfully tells Macy why. Baldwin's situation is entirely different in that he has taken an interest in young women, some of which are still in their lower teens. Having to overcome these problems is only part of his worries. His writer, Seymour Hoffman is doing the screen play from his own novel. Now he has to rewrite the script because of a major change. He is terribly hung up and can't get started. Somehow he meets the town's book store owner, Rebecca Pidgeon, who has just the genius to help him and guide him through the rewrite.


With all these problems you can well imagine there will be many unusual situations, which the film fully explores. Ultimtely, it all works, despite Baldwin's escapade with a teen ager who works a local diner, Julia Stiles. The problem with Sarah Jessica Parker is solved a different way by having her play a nun thus eliminating any reason to expose her breasts.


It's a remarkably funny film in full accord with the traditions of screwball comedy.




THE PROPOSAL - 2009


This is the film that started this whole subject. Is it a screwball comedy? Well consider these facts. Sandra Bullock plays an egotistical head of a department in a major book publishing firm.
She's a Canadian citizen who never followed through with her requirements to interface with the Immigration Department. This has led her to the unfortunate situation of having to be deported for non-compliance except if she has a legitimate reason to avoid deportation, i.e. a marriage. She solves this problem by forcing a member of her staff into telling a lie that they are planning to get married. Ryan Reynolds is this unfortunate sacrificial victim.


Like with all screwball comedies, the situations are far more complex than those in real life. For example he puts the screws to her and makes her agree to making him a senior editor on her staff and to publish the novel he has written which she has been sitting on. And finally, he makes her get down on her knees and propose to him on a downtown street in New York.


In addition they have to prove their love by spending time together for a short period before having their phony marriage thus establishing her American credentials. These include flying to Sitka, Alaska for his grandmother's 88th birthday. This results in a very clever and funny portrayal by Betty White. Another indignity is the flight actually into Sitka involves being a passenger in a two engine prop plane convertible as needed for either water or land landing. This is extremely distracting to Bullock who always flies first class. In addition they have to get to the family's home by a water taxi which also disturbs her since she can't swim.


There are so many funny incidents that it is virtually impossible to name them all. For one they have to share a bedroom at his parent's house since the family understands that they are adult people and are expected to sleep together. Reynolds solves this by sleeping on the floor.

While sharing this room Bullock on one occasion needs a shower after a trip to Sitka with her upcoming mother-in-law, Mary Steenbergin, who is her usual reliable self, and Reynold's grandmother Betty White. While there they go to a pole dance routine performed by a local scantily clad gentleman. This thoroughly unnerves Bullock. Anyhow, she fails to get a towel before entering the shower and comes out sopping wet, hands protecting vital locations and is just reaching for a towel when Reynolds comes in stark nakid having thought she was in town with his mother and grandmother. The two crash together and land on the floor one on top of the other. This description just doesn't do justice to the whole sequence which is uproaringly funny.


Later Bullock is telling him many things about herself, her parent's died when she was 16, she has been on her own ever since, she has a tattoo, etc. and she also mentions that she hasn't slept with anyone for a year and a half. After she finishes her dialogue he asks her how long has it been since she slept anyone. And she in anger notes I should have realized that's the only thing you would remember

Like, which is largely characteristic of all screwball comedies, there is a happy ending, one where Bullock and Reynolds are definitely set to get married.

Oddly enough, I caught the last part of a film on TCM last night that I had never heard of. It was called "Come Live With Me." It dealt with the situation of an Austrian show girl who had been living and working in the U.S. but was going to be deported back to her home country. Her only out was to make a deal with a single man to marry her with special conditions. The conditions would be that she would see him once a week to deliver his weekly check, amounting to $17.80 to pay for his living expenses. When it came time for a divorce he would grant it and that would be the end of the situation. Sound somewhat familiar? There is also a grandmother who is a real sage. The film was made in 1941 and starred Jimmy Stewart and Hedy Lamarr at that time known as the most beautiful woman in Hollywood a judgment still held by many today. There is a very clever ending where Stewart explains the love affair between fireflies where the female of that species turns her firefly light off and on to indicate she is ready for lovemaking.

BON VOYAGE - 2003

This French film is a combination of mystery and comedy, which is true with many other screwball comedies, think in particular of the Thin Man films with William Powell and Myrna Loy. The setting is the period from just before the German attack on Poland in 1939 and the collapse of the French after the German breakthrough the following year. It deals with Isabelle Adjani playing a French film actress who is attacked in her home by a disgruntled former suiter.

During the attack he apparently falls to his death from a her bedroom balcony which overlooks her living room. She calls a childhood friend, Gregori Derangere, a young man who is writing a novel, and persuades him to come and help dispose of the body. They do this by stuffing it in the cars trunk. He takes off and in a driving rain storm. His poorly operating windshield wipers interfere with his vision resulting in his car running into a post. At the impact the trunk pops open revealing the corpse. The police come and charge him with murder even though he claims he was just trying to steal the car. Much to his chagrin they tell him the man had been shot which was far different from what Adjani had described to him, a all from her balcony bedroom.


He is thrown in the slammer. While there he works on a novel using a small portable typewriter. One night the guards come and gather up the prisoner's and proceed to haul them away because the Germans's are coming. He is handcuffed to a common criminal, but the latter dashes away dragging Derangere along with him.

From there the plot gets increasingly confusing. The writer has managed to get on board a train heading south. On it he meets the prisoner who he had been handcuffed to and also a lovely young woman, Virgenie Ledoyen, who is attending the university in Paris. Somehow the three of them all acting separately get to Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast in the south of France. This includes a ride in a car, a nice woody station wagon, owned by a professor and his driver. The professor is a scientist and has several bottles of heavy water on board that he is trying to save from the Germans.


If you're not confused yet here's what happens next. The actress was greatly admired by a member of the French government, Gerard Depardieu, who has made her his mistress and brought her to Bordeaux with him where the governmetn ministers are meeting and trying to decide what to do.

Also in Bordeaux are thousands of refugees trying to escape the advancing Germans and leave France. Gerard Depardieu, who we met earlier, and who is a member of the govenment cabinet, had taken a fancy to Adjani and she is now traveling with him as his mistress. All kinds of shenanigans take place and end up with the Professor and the girl and our hero trying to escape to the coast where they hope to get a ride in a ship. Eventually they get there despite all kinds of other problems and the professor and Demangere safely get aboard a british warship with the containers of heavy water.


Only the girl, Virginie Ledoyen stays on. Our hero had left his typed manuscript in the car and she is rushing to get it to him when the wind catches it and blows the loose pages out of her hand. The manuscript has already been read by an experienced writer and has been commended as being excellent. After our hero has been hauled away in a rowboat by British sailers she sits on the steps of a small structure reading the pages she has retrieved.

There is a short afterpart a year or two later. In it the girl and the writer meet in a Paris cafe. She is a member of the underground and he has been parachuted into France as a British spy. They talk and she learns the manuscript has been published and has been extremely well received. As they sit talking and drinking she notices some men coming and knows they need to hide. They get away and hide in a movie theatre where a film is playing starring Adjani. I had failed to mention that always an oportunist, she has gone off with an official of the German Reich who had been hiding in france as a German spy.


Of all the films listed here this is the most difficult to write about. Roger Ebert did an excellent review of it back when it was released. To view a more vivid more complete review you should look up his column.


That's a rather varied set of films exploring the Screwball comedy genre. There are many other riches, some just as good or in some cases even better.