# Screwball comedy

Screwball comedy is a film subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1950s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary characteristics similar to film noir, distinguished by a female character who dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged, and the two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes.
The genre also featured romantic attachments between members of different social classes, as in It Happened One Night (1934) and My Man Godfrey (1936).
What sets the screwball comedy apart from the generic romantic comedy is that "screwball comedy puts the emphasis on a funny spoofing of love, while the more traditional romantic comedy 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. Some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies.

## Name

Screwball comedy gets its name from the screwball, a type of breaking pitch in baseball and fastpitch softball that moves in the opposite direction from all other breaking pitches. These features of the screwball pitch also describe the dynamics between the lead characters in screwball comedy films. According to Gehring (2008):
   Still, screwball comedy probably drew its name from the term's entertainingly unorthodox use in the national pastime. Before the term's application in 1930s film criticism, "screwball" had been used in baseball to describe both an oddball player and "any pitched ball that moves in an unusual or unexpected way." Obviously, these characteristics also describe performers in screwball comedy films, from oddball Carole Lombard to the unusual or unexpected movement of Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938). As with the crazy period antics in baseball, screwball comedy uses nutty behavior as a prism through which to view a topsy-turvy period in American history.

## History

Screwball comedy has proved to be a popular and enduring film genre. Three-Cornered Moon (1933), starring Claudette Colbert, is often credited as the first true screwball, though Bombshell starring Jean Harlow followed it in the same year. Although many film scholars agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942, elements of the genre have persisted or have been paid homage to in later films. Other film scholars argue that the screwball comedy lives on.
During the Great Depression, there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes. The screwball format arose largely due to the major film studios' desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced Hays Code. Filmmakers resorted to handling these elements covertly to incorporate prohibited risqué elements into their plots. The verbal sparring between the sexes served as a stand-in for physical and sexual tension. Though some film scholars, such as William K. Everson, argue that "screwball comedies were not so much rebelling against the Production Code as they were attacking – and ridiculing – the dull, lifeless respectability that the Code insisted on for family viewing."
The screwball comedy has close links with the theatrical genre of farce, and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick, situation comedy, romantic comedy and bedroom farce.

## Characteristics

Films that are definitive of the genre usually feature farcical situations, a combination of slapstick and fast-paced repartee, and show the struggle between economic classes. They also generally feature a self-confident and often stubborn central female protagonist and a plot involving courtship, marriage, or remarriage. These traits can be seen in both It Happened One Night (1934) and My Man Godfrey (1936). The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined the screwball comedy as "a sex comedy without the sex."
Like farce, screwball comedies often involve masquerades and disguises in which a character or characters resort to secrecy. Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross-dressing, further contributing to elements of masquerade (Bringing Up Baby (1938), Love Crazy (1941), I Was a Male War Bride (1949), and Some Like It Hot (1959)). At first, the couple seems mismatched and even hostile to each other, but eventually overcome their differences amusingly or entertainingly, leading to romance. Often, this mismatch comes about when the man is of a lower social class than the woman (It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby and Holiday, both 1938). The woman often plans the final romantic union from the outset, and the man is seemingly oblivious to this. In Bringing Up Baby, the woman tells a third party: "He's the man I'm going to marry. He doesn't know it, but I am."
These pictures also offered a cultural escape valve: a safe battleground to explore serious issues such as class under a comedic and non-threatening framework. Class issues are a strong component of screwball comedies: the upper class is represented as idle, pampered, and having difficulty coping with the real world. By contrast, when lower-class people attempt to pass themselves off as upper class or otherwise insinuate themselves into high society, they can do so with relative ease (The Lady Eve, 1941; My Man Godfrey, 1936). Some critics believe that the portrayal of the upper class in It Happened One Night was brought about by the Great Depression, and the financially struggling moviegoing public's desire to see the upper class taught a lesson in humanity.
Another common element of the screwball comedy is fast-talking, witty repartee, such as in You Can't Take It with You (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). This stylistic device did not originate in the genre: it is also found in many of the old Hollywood cycles, including gangster films and traditional romantic comedies.
Screwball comedies also tend to contain ridiculous, farcical situations, such as in Bringing Up Baby, where 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 (1941).
One subgenre of screwball is known as the comedy of remarriage, in which characters divorce and then remarry one another (The Awful Truth (1937), His Girl Friday (1940), The Philadelphia Story (1940)). Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code, as it showed freer attitudes toward divorce (though the divorce always turns out to have been a mistake: "You've got an old fashioned idea divorce is something that lasts forever, 'til death do us part.' Why divorce doesn't mean anything nowadays, Hildy, just a few words mumbled over you by a judge.")
Another subgenre of screwball comedy is the woman chasing a man who is oblivious to or uninterested in her. Examples include Barbara Stanwyck chasing Henry Fonda (The Lady Eve, 1941); Sonja Henie chasing John Payne (Sun Valley Serenade, 1941, and Iceland, 1942); Marion Davies chasing Antonio Moreno (The Cardboard Lover, 1928); Marion Davies chasing Bing Crosby (Going Hollywood, 1933); and Carole Lombard chasing William Powell (My Man Godfrey, 1936).
The philosopher Stanley Cavell has noted that many classic screwball comedies turn on an interlude in the state of Connecticut (Bringing Up Baby, The Lady Eve, The Awful Truth). In Christmas in Connecticut (1945), the action moves to Connecticut and remains there for the duration of the film. New York City is also featured in a lot of screwball comedies, which critics have noted may be because of the economic diversity of the city and the ability to contrast different social classes during the Great Depression. The screwball comedies It Happened One Night (1934) and The Palm Beach Story (1942) also feature characters traveling to and from Florida by train. Trains, another staple of screwball comedies and romantic comedies from the era, are also featured prominently in Design for Living (1934), Twentieth Century (1934) and Vivacious Lady (1938).

## Examples from the classic period

| Year | Title | Director | Stars |
| 1928 | The Patsy | King Vidor | Marion Davies, Marie Dressler, and Lawrence Gray |
| 1931 | Platinum Blonde | Frank Capra | Loretta Young, Robert Williams and Jean Harlow |
| 1931 | The Front Page (remade as His Girl Friday) | Lewis Milestone | Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien |
| 1932 | Trouble in Paradise | Ernst Lubitsch | Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, and Herbert Marshall |
| 1933 | Three-Cornered Moon | Elliott Nugent | Claudette Colbert and Richard Arlen |
| 1933 | Bombshell | Victor Fleming | Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy |
| 1934 | Design for Living | Ernst Lubitsch | Fredric March, Gary Cooper and Miriam Hopkins |
| 1934 | It Happened One Night | Frank Capra | Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert |
| 1934 | Twentieth Century | Howard Hawks | John Barrymore and Carole Lombard |
| 1935 | Hands Across the Table | Mitchell Leisen | Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy |
| 1935 | She Couldn't Take It | Tay Garnett | George Raft and Joan Bennett |
| 1935 | If You Could Only Cook | William A. Seiter | Herbert Marshall and Jean Arthur |
| 1936 | Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Frank Capra | Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur |
| 1936 | The Ex-Mrs. Bradford | Stephen Roberts | William Powell and Jean Arthur |
| 1936 | My Man Godfrey | Gregory La Cava | William Powell and Carole Lombard |
| 1936 | Cain and Mabel | Lloyd Bacon | Marion Davies and Clark Gable |
| 1936 | Libeled Lady | Jack Conway | Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy |
| 1936 | Theodora Goes Wild | Richard Boleslawski | Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas |
| 1937 | Easy Living | Mitchell Leisen | Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold and Ray Milland |
| 1937 | Topper | Norman Z. McLeod | Constance Bennett and Cary Grant |
| 1937 | The Awful Truth | Leo McCarey | Irene Dunne, Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy |
| 1937 | Double Wedding | Richard Thorpe | William Powell and Myrna Loy |
| 1937 | Nothing Sacred | William A. Wellman | Carole Lombard and Fredric March |
| 1937 | True Confession | Wesley Ruggles | Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray and John Barrymore |
| 1938 | The Divorce of Lady X | Tim Whelan | Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier |
| 1938 | Merrily We Live | Norman Z. McLeod | Constance Bennett and Brian Aherne |
| 1938 | Bringing Up Baby | Howard Hawks | Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant |
| 1938 | Bluebeard's Eighth Wife | Ernst Lubitsch | Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper |
| 1938 | Joy of Living | Tay Garnett | Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. |
| 1938 | Vivacious Lady | George Stevens | Ginger Rogers and James Stewart |
| 1938 | Holiday | George Cukor | Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant |
| 1938 | You Can't Take It with You | Frank Capra | Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart and Edward Arnold |
| 1938 | Three Loves Has Nancy | Richard Thorpe | Janet Gaynor, Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone |
| 1938 | The Mad Miss Manton | Leigh Jason | Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda |
| 1938 | Say It in French | Andrew L. Stone | Ray Milland and Olympe Bradna |
| 1939 | Midnight | Mitchell Leisen | Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche |
| 1939 | It's a Wonderful World | W. S. Van Dyke | Claudette Colbert and James Stewart |
| 1939 | Bachelor Mother | Garson Kanin | Ginger Rogers, David Niven and Charles Coburn |
| 1939 | Ninotchka | Ernst Lubitsch | Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas |
| 1940 | His Girl Friday | Howard Hawks | Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy |
| 1940 | Too Many Husbands | Wesley Ruggles | Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas |
| 1940 | My Favorite Wife | Garson Kanin | Cary Grant and Irene Dunne |
| 1940 | The Great McGinty | Preston Sturges | Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus and Akim Tamiroff |
| 1940 | I Love You Again | W. S. Van Dyke | William Powell and Myrna Loy |
| 1940 | Christmas in July | Preston Sturges | Dick Powell and Ellen Drew |
| 1940 | The Philadelphia Story | George Cukor | Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart |
| 1941 | Mr. and Mrs. Smith | Alfred Hitchcock | Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard |
| 1941 | The Lady Eve | Preston Sturges | Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda |
| 1941 | The Devil and Miss Jones | Sam Wood | Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings and Charles Coburn |
| 1941 | Love Crazy | Jack Conway | William Powell and Myrna Loy |
| 1941 | Unfinished Business | Gregory La Cava | Robert Montgomery and Irene Dunne |
| 1941 | Ball of Fire | Howard Hawks | Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper |
| 1941 | Sullivan's Travels | Preston Sturges | Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake |
| 1942 | To Be or Not To Be | Ernst Lubitsch | Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack |
| 1942 | The Major and the Minor | Billy Wilder | Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland |
| 1942 | I Married a Witch | René Clair | Fredric March and Veronica Lake |
| 1942 | The Palm Beach Story | Preston Sturges | Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea |
| 1943 | The More the Merrier | George Stevens | Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea |
| 1944 | The Miracle of Morgan's Creek | Preston Sturges | Betty Hutton and Eddie Bracken |
| 1944 | Arsenic and Old Lace | Frank Capra | Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane |
| 1945 | Eve Knew Her Apples (the first musical remake of It Happened One Night) | Will Jason | Ann Miller and William Wright |
| 1945 | Christmas in Connecticut | Peter Godfrey | Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan |
| 1946 | Cluny Brown | Ernst Lubitsch | Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones |
| 1946 | Easy to Wed (musical remake of Libeled Lady) | Edward Buzzell | Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn |
| 1948 | A Song Is Born (musical remake of Ball of Fire) | Howard Hawks | Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo |
| 1949 | I Was a Male War Bride | Howard Hawks | Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan |
Other films from this period in other genres incorporate elements of the screwball comedy. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The 39 Steps (1935) features the gimmick of a young couple who finds themselves handcuffed together and who eventually, almost despite themselves, fall in love with one another, and Woody Van Dyke's detective comedy The Thin Man (1934), which portrays a witty, urbane couple who trade barbs as they solve mysteries together. Some of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s also feature screwball comedy plots, such as The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), and Carefree (1938), which costars Ralph Bellamy. The Eddie Cantor musicals Whoopee! (1930) and Roman Scandals (1933), and slapstick road movies such as Six of a Kind (1934) include screwball elements. Screwball comedies such as The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Ball of Fire (1941) also received musical remakes, High Society (1956) and A Song is Born (1948). Some of the Joe E. Brown comedies also fall into this category, particularly Broadminded (1931) and Earthworm Tractors (1936).
Actors and actresses featured in or associated with screwball comedy:
* Jean Arthur
* Fred Astaire
* Ralph Bellamy
* Eric Blore
* Jack Carson
* Charles Coburn
* Claudette Colbert
* Gary Cooper
* Marion Davies
* William Demarest
* Melvyn Douglas
* Irene Dunne
* Clark Gable
* Cary Grant
* Jean Harlow
* Katharine Hepburn
* Edward Everett Horton
* Harold Lloyd
* Carole Lombard
* Myrna Loy
* Fred MacMurray
* Fredric March
* Joel McCrea
* Ray Milland
* William Powell
* Ginger Rogers
* Rosalind Russell
* Barbara Stanwyck
* James Stewart
Directors of screwball comedies:
* Frank Capra
* George Cukor
* Howard Hawks
* Garson Kanin
* Gregory La Cava
* Mitchell Leisen
* Ernst Lubitsch
* Leo McCarey
* George Stevens
* Preston Sturges
* W. S. Van Dyke
* Billy Wilder

## Later examples

Later films thought to have revived elements of the classic era screwball comedies include:
* Champagne for Caesar (1950), d. Richard Whorf
* The Mating Season (1951), d. Mitchell Leisen
* Monkey Business (1952), d. Howard Hawks
* How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), d. Jean Negulesco
* Let's Do It Again (1953), d. Alexander Hall, musical remake of The Awful Truth (1937)
* Living It Up (1954), d. Norman Taurog, remake of Nothing Sacred (1937)
* Three for the Show (1955), d. H. C. Potter, musical remake of Too Many Husbands
* The Seven Year Itch (1955), d. Billy Wilder
* The Birds and the Bees (1956), d. Norman Taurog, a musical remake of The Lady Eve (1941)
* High Society (1956), d. Charles Walters, musical remake of The Philadelphia Story (1940)
* You Can't Run Away from It (1956) d. Dick Powell, the second musical remake of It Happened One Night (1934)
* Bundle of Joy (1956) d. Norman Taurog, musical remake of Bachelor Mother (1939)
* Silk Stockings (1957), d. Rouben Mamoulian, musical remake of Ninotchka (1939)
* Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958), d. Satyen Bose
* Rock-A-Bye Baby, d. Frank Tashlin, a musical remake of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
* Bell, Book and Candle (1958), d. Richard Quine
* Pillow Talk (1959), d. Michael Gordon
* Some Like It Hot (1959), d. Billy Wilder
* The Grass Is Greener (1960), d. Stanley Donen
* Lover Come Back (1961), d. Delbert Mann
* One, Two, Three (1961), d. Billy Wilder, which contains elements of Ninotchka, co-written by Wilder
* Charade (1963), d. Stanley Donen
* It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), d. Stanley Kramer
* Move Over, Darling (1963) d. Michael Gordon, remake of My Favorite Wife (1940)
* Man's Favorite Sport? (1964), d. Howard Hawks, homage to Bringing Up Baby (1938), also directed by Hawks
* Send Me No Flowers (1964), d. Norman Jewison
* What's New Pussycat? (1965), d. Clive Donner
* Walk, Don't Run (1966), d. Charles Walters, remake of The More the Merrier (1943)
* What's Up, Doc? (1972), d. Peter Bogdanovich
* For Pete's Sake (1974), d. Peter Yates
* Heaven Can Wait (1978), d. Warren Beatty and Buck Henry
* Arthur (1981), d. Steve Gordon
* ‘’Under the Rainbow’’ (1981) d. Steve Rash
* Poochakkoru Mookkuthi (1984), d. Priyadarshan, based on Charles Dickens's play 'The Strange Gentleman'
* Unfaithfully Yours (1984), d. Howard Zieff, a remake of the 1948 Preston Sturges film of the same name
* Une Femme ou Deux (transl. "One Woman or Two"; 1985), d. Daniel Vigne
* Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), d. Susan Seidelman
* Something Wild (1986), d. Jonathan Demme
* Overboard (1987), d. Garry Marshall
* Raising Arizona (1987), d. Coen Brothers
* Who's That Girl (1987) d. James Foley
* Switching Channels (1988), d. Ted Kotcheff, a remake of His Girl Friday (1940)
* Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), d. Pedro Almodóvar
* Oscar (1991) d. John Landis
* Sólo con tu pareja (1991), d. Alfonso Cuarón
* The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), d. Joel Coen
* Radioland Murders (1994), d. Mel Smith from story by George Lucas
* Flirting with Disaster (1996), d. David O. Russell
* Runaway Bride (1999) d. Garry Marshall
* Little Nicky (2000), d. Steven Brill
* Rat Race (2001), d. Jerry Zucker
* Intolerable Cruelty (2003), d. Coen Brothers
* Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), d. Adam McKay
* I Heart Huckabees (2004), d. David O. Russell
* Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), d. Bharat Nalluri
* Our Idiot Brother (2011), d. Jesse Peretz
* While We're Young (2014), d. Noah Baumbach
* She's Funny That Way (2014), d. Peter Bogdanovich
* Mistress America (2015), d. Noah Baumbach
* Night Owls (2015), d. Charles Hood
* Hail, Caesar! (2016), d. Coen Brothers
* Chongqing Hot Pot (2016), d. Yang Qing
* Hit Man (2023), d. Richard Linklater
* Anora (2024), d. Sean Baker
Elements of classic screwball comedy often found in more recent films which might otherwise be classified as romantic comedies include the "battle of the sexes" (Down with Love, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), witty repartee (Down with Love), and the contrast between the wealthy and the middle class (You've Got Mail, Two Weeks Notice). Many of Elvis Presley's films from the 1960s had drawn, consciously or unconsciously, the many characteristics of the screwball comedy genre. Some examples are Double Trouble, Tickle Me, Girl Happy and Live a Little, Love a Little. Modern updates on screwball comedy are also sometimes categorized as black comedy (Intolerable Cruelty, which also features a twist on the classic screwball element of divorce and remarriage). The Coen Brothers often include screwball elements in a film which may not otherwise be considered screwball or even a comedy.
The Golmaal movies, a series of Hindi-language Indian films, has been described as a screwball comedy franchise.

## Screwball comedy elements in other media and genres

The screwball film tradition influenced television sitcom and comedy drama genres. Notable screwball couples in television have included Sam and Diane in Cheers, Maddie and David in Moonlighting, and Joel and Maggie in Northern Exposure.
In his 2008 production of the classic Beaumarchais comedy The Marriage of Figaro, author William James Royce trimmed the five-act play down to three acts and labeled it a "classic screwball comedy". The playwright made Suzanne the central character, endowing her with all the feisty comedic strengths of her classic film counterparts. In his adaptation, entitled One Mad Day! (a play on Beaumarchais' original French title), Royce underscored all of the elements of the classic screwball comedy, suggesting that Beaumarchais may have had a hand in the origins of the genre.
The plot of Corrupting Dr. Nice, a science fiction novel by John Kessel involving time travel, is modeled on films such as The Lady Eve and Bringing Up Baby.