screwball comedy Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Scenes We Love: The Awful Truth
Filed under: Classics », Comedy », Fandom », Trailers and Clips », Scenes We Love »
Over the course of earning a degree in Cinema Studies, I'll be honest with you; I hardly ever got to watch the kind of movies that I liked. Call me lowbrow if you must, but remember, I'm talking about my university years, and getting up at eight AM to watch Berlin: Symphony of a Great City wasn't the best way to nurse a hangover. Don't get me wrong, I learned plenty and I was happy for the chance to see intellectually challenging films -- I just didn't always have that much fun. That is until I signed up for Classic Hollywood Cinema, and finally I got my chance to watch movies like Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth and pretend I was studying.
The great Jean Renoir once said, "[Leo] McCarey understands people - perhaps better than anyone else in Hollywood.", and Truth is a great example of McCarey's way with a character. The screwball romance centered on two 'gay divorcees' by the names of Jerry and Lucy Warriner (played by Cary Grant and Irene Dunne) who only realize how much they mean to each other after they have gotten divorced. McCarey strikes the right balance of farce and humanity with Jerry and Lucy, and even manages to make some keen observations about marital trust. But it is a comedy after all, and there is plenty of funny to go around thanks to stellar performances from Ralph Bellamy as a millionaire hick, and Cecil Cunningham as the wisecracking Aunt Patty.
In spite of all the pratfalls and slamming doors, you really do care about the Warriners, and McCarey even manages to make their reunion pretty sexy for a screwball comedy. Grant and Dunne would go on to star in several other films together, including the hilarious My Favorite Wife (which was also written and produced by McCarey). But, Truth was a little more about people than wild and wacky circumstances, and maybe that's why it will remain their best.
After the jump; Cary Grant meets his muttering comic match in Irene Dunne...
Fan Rant: No Shopping on Cinema Screens!
Filed under: Classics », Comedy », Romance », Celebrities and Controversy », Newsstand », Fan Rant »
I feel bad for you, Isla Fisher. I may have bashed your ridiculous movie in a rant, but I can't believe that everyone is making such a big deal about you playing a confessed shopaholic. Such was my distaste for the film that I initially agreed with everyone mocking its economic ill-timing, and laughed along with them. (The best quote is from Time: "But as an ill-timed anthropological artifact, Confessions offers weird pleasures, not least among them the fact that it makes us root for the debt collector.") Then I came across this Sarah Jessica Parker quote from Access Hollywood pondering how a Sex in the City sequel would avoid a Shopaholic trap. "How do we address these economic times in a franchise that has a lot to do with luxury and labels? How do we do that well? And how do we do that in a not lazy way? There is a lot that we have to think about because times are very different. So these are nice challenges, these are good challenges."
My first thought upon reading that? Gold lame gowns and the Marx Brothers. While I've tried in vain to find if a Marx Brothers film actually features the delectable costume I'm thinking of (if it does exist, it has to be in Animal Crackers or The Cocoanuts), the point is a historical one. The Great Depression was the era of the screwball comedy, and the majority of them took place among the creme de la creme of society. There's jewels and fabulous gowns galore, piles of money, and champagne being chugged by the gallons. The Carole Lombard and Claudette Colbert heiresses are arguably ill-timed anthropological artifacts, but people couldn't get enough of them -- and this was during years when people were starving to death, when theaters handed out bread along with tickets. But people lost themselves in tales of the rich falling in and out of love, and undoubtedly loved the sheer glamour portrayed onscreen.
Review: Leatherheads
Filed under: Comedy », Sports », Universal », Theatrical Reviews »
As Leatherheads arrives in theaters, you're going to be hearing the phrase "screwball comedy" a lot, either in the barrage of pre-opening publicity or in review after review. "Screwball comedy" implies a certain snap and rotation -- a velocity to the gags and a vector to the plot -- but the people who made Leatherheads don't quite have the strength of arm or skew of angle to make Leatherheads truly screwball; it kind of fizzles out on the way to the plate. And that's not to say Leatherheads is charmless or unenjoyable or ill-made; it just isn't quite as good as the pedigrees and passions of the people involved would have you think it will (or, frankly, should) be.
Tribeca Review: Kettle of Fish
Filed under: Comedy », Independent », Romance », Tribeca », Cinematical Indie »
Claudia Myers' Kettle of Fish is, in many ways, a throwback, but this is not a bad place to throw back to every now and then. Recalling all manner of classic screwball romantic comedies, from When Harry Met Sally ... back to The Awful Truth, it's essentially really well-done fluff that makes full use of the greatest unnatural backdrop in the world, New York City.
As per the conventions of the genre, a sometimes whimsical, sometimes melancholy jazz score propels the proceedings, which concern the adventures of Mel (a surprisingly no-longer-boyish Matthew Modine), a full-time bachelor and sometime saxophonist with deep attachments to a ramshackle railroad and a goldfish named Daphne, but who is otherwise incapable of commitment.
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