Author: Thomas C. Renzi
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786488603
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
This is a comprehensive comparative analysis of the screwball comedy and film noir genres--two popular Hollywood staples that emerged around the same time. Despite their contrast in tone and theme, "Screwball" and "Noir" have many narrative elements in common. The author defines the two genres, discusses their historical development and inter-related conventions, and offers detailed comparative analyses of a number of films, among them The Lady Eve and His Girl Friday (screwballs), and Gilda and Sunset Blvd. (noirs).
Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 1461670918
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Famous co-stars such as Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, have made screwball and romantic comedies a big seller at the box office. These seemingly timeless genres are as popular today as ever! This book takes a closer look at the precise meanings of the terms screwball and romantic. Film fans and scholars alike tend to lump film with laughter and love under a screwball/romantic umbrella and use the terms screwball and romantic interchangeably. In reality, there is a distinction; the screwball variety places its emphasis on "funny," while the more traditional romantic comedy accents "love." Covering over 60 titles each of romantic and screwball comedy dating from the 1930s to the present, this research tool not only demonstrates how screwball and romantic comedy are two distinct genres, but also highlights pivotal social and artistic changes which impacted both genres. Includes 24 black and white movie stills, countless quotations from selected films, an annotated bibliography, and a two-part filmography. Not only an informative resource for film students and scholars, but also an interesting read for film buffs.
Author: Grégoire Halbout
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501347624
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
A 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Love at first sight, whirlwind marriages, break-ups, divorces, remarriage... What accounts for the enduring success of the Hollywood madcap comedies of the 1930s? Directed by masters of comedy (Hawks, LaCava, Leisen, Ruggles...) and featuring the decade's most iconic stars (Colbert, Dunne, Grant, Hepburn...), these films set romantic comedy standards for decades to come. Screwball comedy embarked on two challenging missions: to poke fun at established social norms and to undermine stereotypical depictions of gender roles, putting forward a discourse that postulated the possibility of equality between men and women. Grégoire Halbout's reexamination of screwball comedy provides a comprehensive overview of this (sub)genre, eschewing the auteurist approach and including “minor” works never before analyzed through the screwball lens. His book explains how these screwball stories met the expectations of a booming American middle class eager for the liberalization of morals, with daring plots, verbal humor and slapstick techniques. Building on the work of Cavell, Altman and Gehring, as well as international and French scholarship, Halbout's investigation unfolds in three parts. He first establishes a definition of Hollywood screwball comedy through a cross-sectional analysis of its socio-historical context and an in-depth examination of the genre. He then situates screwball comedy in relation to its institutional context. An exclusive study of archival material explains the emergence of a screwball aesthetic meant to subvert the prohibitions of the 1934 Hollywood Production Code through a verbal and visual rhetoric of diversion and mitigation. Finally, Halbout explores the social function of the genre's placement of romantic intimacy at the center of the public sphere and the democratic debate, confirming that screwball eccentricity upholds America's founding values: freedom of speech, free consent, and contractual engagement.
Author: Kate Danley
Publisher: Kate Danley
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 150
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Book Description
Max and Paul are just trying to keep their architecture company afloat, but they accidentally hired the mob as contractors to build a police retirement home. With the help of their dizzy secretary, Trixie, they may never get the project done in this screwball comedy, but they are most definitely building madness. Building Madness is a brand new 1930s screwball comedy penned by USA TODAY bestselling author and Maryland Distinguished Scholar in the Arts Kate Danley. Cast: 3m/3f Running Time: 90 minutes Appropriate for general audiences Search Terms: general audiences, clean comedy, funny roles for women, strong roles for women, full length play, funny, mafia mob, 1930s golden age, screwball comedy
Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Author: Doris Milberg
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786467819
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 201
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Book Description
Part One of this entertaining exploration of screwball comedies and their later offspring begins in the mid-1930s discussing the careers of popular stars such as Cary Grant and Carole Lombard and well-known supporting players like Walter Connally and Ralph Bellamy (also Asta the dog, top animal star of the 1930s!). Writers and directors are given their due: Frank Capra, Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, just to name a few. Part Two, the meat of the book, takes an in depth look at the films, from the genre's inception (1934's It Happened One Night) to the recent 2003 Down with Love, and the stars that appear in them--Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere--ending with some thoughts about the future.
Author: Larry Swindell
Publisher: Echo Point Books & Media, LLC
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Uninhibited, vivacious, and a startling talent, Carole Lombard was the darling of her day. Her wit and charm made her the social as well as artistic hub around which Hollywood revolved during the '30's. She was years before her time in her sophistication, and her independence established her as an oracle of the New Woman. She was an enchanting beauty and a great artist—the supreme comedienne during the high point of American film comedy. Larry Swindell vividly recreates her career and extraordinary personal life. Her fabled love affair and marriage with Clark Gable are here put into proper focus for the first time. Told by a master chronicler o f the movies, this is a vibrant biography of the hometown girl who became one of greatest stars of Hollywood's golden age.
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674739062
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Looks at seven classic romantic comedies of the thirties and forties, and compares what each film expresses about marriage, interdependence, equality, and sexual roles.
Author: David Scott Diffrient
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815650698
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 417
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Book Description
Bringing together seventeen original essays by scholars from around the world, Screwball Television offers a variety of international perspectives on Gilmore Girls. Adored by fans and celebrated by critics for its sophisticated wordplay and compelling portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship, this contemporary American TV program finally gets its due as a cultural production unlike any other, one that is beholden to Hollywood’s screwball comedies of the 1930s, steeped in intertextual references, and framed as a "kinder, gentler kind of cult television series" in this tightly focused yet wide-ranging collection. This volume makes a significant contribution to television studies, genre studies, and women’s studies. Screwball Television seeks to bring Gilmore Girls more fully into academic discourse not only as a topic worthy of critical scrutiny but also as an infinitely rewarding text capable of stimulating the imagination of students beyond the classroom.
Author: Tamar Jeffers McDonald
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231503385
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 145
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Book Description
Romantic Comedy offers an introduction to the analysis of a popular but overlooked film genre. The book provides an overview of Hollywood's romantic comedy conventions, examining iconography, narrative patterns, and ideology. Chapters discuss important subgroupings within the genre: screwball sex comedy and the radical romantic comedy of the 1970s. A final chapter traces the lasting influence of these earlier forms within current romantic comedies. Films include: Pillow Talk (1959), Annie Hall (1977), and You've Got Mail (1998).
