Screwball Comedy Films Compared to a Modern Film

Pick two scenes from any contemporary work in film that has the same theme (need to be from a modern film of the writer's choice) and compare it to a scene in one of the listed films. These two scenes should be from the same source.

You will need to have one example from one of the following screwball comedy films: 1. It Happened One Night 1934 2. The Thin Man 1934 3. My Man Godfrey 1936 4. Easy Living 1937 5. The Awful Truth 1937 6. Bringing up Baby 1938 7. Midnight 1939 8. Ninotchka 1939 9. His Girl Friday 1940 10. The Lady Eve 1941 11. Ball of Fire 1941 12. Sullivan's Travels 1942 13. To Be or Not to Be 1942 14. The Palm Beach Story 1942 15. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek 1944 16. Some Like it Hot 1959

Also please mention the time stamp of the two scenes from the modern film. Things that we consider characteristic of screwball that you can refer to:

1. Equal partnership – which does not mean that the partners are the same, but rather a relationship where each person contributes his/her skills: for example in The Thin Man Nora’s money, Nick’s knowledge of the world or in Sullivan’s Travels the “girl’s” street knowledge and Sullivan’s studio contacts.

2. Witty erotic banter in which both partners participate as a performance for each other. The couples not only perform as actors for the audience, but for each other as characters in the film, and learning to enjoy the performance is part of the education in love that both characters undergo. Jerry and Lucy Warriner (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne) belong together because they appreciate each other’s performances – and neither Dixie Bell nor Daniel Leeson can keep up with them. Ditto Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) and Walter Burns (Cary Grant) in His Girl Friday. They perform for each other. Another example: Ellie Andrews and Peter Warne begin to enjoy each other (It Happened One Night) when they have fun pretending to be a fighting couple in order to fool the detectives.

3. Women have sexual desires and pursue them without being punished: Katherine Hepburn pursues Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby without apology. Unlike many Hollywood movies, where female desire is punished (think Lily Powers ending up in Pittsburgh at the end of Baby Face or, more recently, the ends of Thelma and Louise in the film of the same name) in screwball female sexual desire is simply taken for granted and it’s “natural” for a woman to trade on her looks for social advancement – think Jean in the Lady Eve, Eve Peabody in Midnight, or Gerry in The Palm Beach Story.

4. American voices: Verbal dynamic shows a transition from a very uniformed white theater speech into something the viewer hears as American speech. Also a real relish for American slang – Ball of Fire. Lots of fun with language, cf. Mugsy asking a “hypothermical question.”

5 .Dramatic irony – areas where the audience is in on the joke that the characters in the film are not aware of as the plot unfolds – in Some Like It Hot almost all of the humor resides in the fact that we know that Daphne and Josephine are men.

6. A forbidden topic - for Screwball it's always sex - what is it for your scene? Persumably your scenes will not be contending with the sort of outright censorship practiced by the Hayes Office, but there are always things that cannot be said - and humor allows us to address them, if not say them. No sex – in the original films sex is forbidden because of the Hayes code; in later films it is forbidden because ? ? ?

7. Divorce is frequent because it allows the woman’s sexual experience to be obvious but not directly addressed—marriage allows a woman to be experienced and express desire but in a "legitimate" way.

8. The embrace of artifice – from Cary Grant in His Girl Friday referring the Archie Leach, his own name, or saying that Ralph Bellamy “looks like that guy, Ralph Bellamy” these films enjoy references to other films. They often make “meta” jokes, as for example when Sullivan says “there’s always a girl in the picture.” Another way in which the films embrace artifice is by setting their plots in the artificial worlds of the wealthy or the paradise of Connecticut or on the road (train, bus) or yachts or Hollywood.

9. There are no children in these films. Parents seem more like friends than parents (with some exceptions like Office Kockenlocker – but his efforts at exerting authority are made to look ridiculous. While there are no children, there are many pets.

10. Screwball embraces many amusing voices and accents– while there are definitely stars true screwball embraces many funny voices and the best ones have ensemble casts. No best friends, but many funny characters surround the romantic pair: in The Palm Beach Story, the Ale and Quail club, the Weenie King, the Princess Centimilia (which means, by the way, a hundred thousand), Toto, etc. Relish in language: People in screwball speak in a rich and engaging American vernacular. "I love him because he get drunk on a glass of buttermilk; I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss, the jerk!" (Ball of Fire); "Don't go putting ideas into other people's mouths" (Easy Living); "What's knitting, kittens?"

11. Physical Humour: no joke is too stupid for inclusion in screwballs. ie. Charles falling everywhere in The Lady Eve; Cary Grant falling over in Bringing Up Baby. This is NOT Noel Coward/Oscar Wilde land where humor is purely verbal. The paper should establish the pattern you are examining using a scene from one of the listed Screwball Comedy films listed above, and then go on to discuss the two scenes you choose.