The Art of the

Screwball Comedy
 ALSO BY DORIS MILBERG

World War II on the Big Screen: 450+ Films,

1938–2008 (McFarland, 2010)
 The Art of the
Screwball Comedy
Madcap Entertainment
from the 1930s to Today

D ORIS M ILBERG

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Milberg, Doris.
The art of the screwball comedy : madcap entertainment
from the 1930s to today / Doris Milberg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7864-6781-5
softcover : acid free paper

1. Comedy films—United States—History and criticism.

I. Title.
PN1995.9.C55M52 2013
791.43'617—dc23 2013001097

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2013 Doris Milberg. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover photograph: Katharine Hepburn as Susan Vance, Cary

Grant as Dr. David Huxley with Nissa as Baby, the leopard in
Bringing Up Baby, ¡938 (Photofest)

Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
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 To Ted,
my husband and best friend,
who was a tremendous help in this endeavor.
With all my love.
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 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part I: The Essence of Screwball

ONE. Cut and Print: The Anatomy of Screwball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
T WO. Screwball Personnel: The Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
THREE. Screwball Personnel: They Also Serve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
FOUR. Screwball Personnel: Behind the Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Part II: The Sub-Genres of Screwball

FIVE. Screwball Guys and Gals: Heirs and Heiresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
SIX. Screwball Guys and Gals: The Working Stiffs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
SEVEN. Screwball Cinderellas and Cinderfellas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
EIGHT. Show Business Screwballs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
NINE. The Screwball Literati: Anything for a Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
TEN. Love on the Rocks: Marital Mix-Ups, Screwball Style . . . . . . . . . . . 87
ELEVEN. William and Myrna: Nick and Nora et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
T WELVE. Mixing Murder and Mayhem: Screwball Comedy-Mysteries. . 112
THIRTEEN. Screwball Families: The Mamas, the Papas, the Kids . . . . . . 122
FOURTEEN. Morale Boosters: Screwball Goes to War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
FIFTEEN. Screwball Lives On: Part One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
SIXTEEN. Screwball Lives On: Part Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

vii
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 Preface

In the pages that follow, we will trace the journey of the screwball genre
from its inception in the 1930s to its present incarnation. We will meet some
of the most famous people in the entertainment business, past and present,
and we will understand why, as Irving Berlin put it so well, “There’s No
Business Like Show Business.”
In the early 1930s, a group of moviemakers gave birth to a film genre
which evoked smiles, chuckles and downright guffaws from a public desper-
ately trying to emerge from the depths of an economic depression which
lasted, in various forms, throughout the decade and into the second world
war.
The history of this “birth” is an interesting one. With the collapse of
Wall Street on that October day in 1929 and with men and women standing
on breadlines or selling pencils and apples on street corners, the mood of the
country was one of despair, emanating out of a hopelessness from which
they were receiving no respite. In 1933, however, the tide slowly began to
turn. The year before, to the strains of “Happy Days Are Here Again,”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had become the 32nd president of the United
States. Under his leadership, the New Deal began. His economic policies
and social reforms, his ideas and ideals and, most of all, his confidence were
like a tonic. A growing sense of optimism took hold in the land. People
dared to hope once more, to dream once more and to move up and out of
the dark valleys.
Hollywood, on the other hand, seemed to be plunging into some “dark
valleys” of its own. During the Roaring Twenties, it was charged that the
movie capital was to blame for the nation’s lapse in morality. Lurid film titles
such as Forbidden Fruit from Paramount, Sinners in Silk from Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer and A Shocking Night from Universal, just to name a few,
did not help matters. Added to this were the scandals involving several well-
known figures in the industry. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, accused in 1921 of

1
2 PREFACE

the rape and subsequent death of a Hollywood party girl/actress (the come-
dian was later acquitted, but the stigma remained); the unsolved 1922 murder
of director William Desmond Taylor, in which popular stars Mabel Normand
and Mary Miles Minter were involved; the drug addiction of actor Wallace
Reid—these were only a few of the scandals in which Hollywood was mired.
Before long, Congress got into the act. To paraphrase a United States
Senator: Hollywood was a place where riotous living, drunkenness, dissipa-
tion and free love seemed to be conspicuous and contagious. The august
Senator concluded his remarks with this nugget: “Looks like there is some
need for censorship.”
The film moguls evidently took the Congressman’s words to heart. In
1922, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America was formed
in order to coordinate industry policies and practices. The organization, under
the stewardship of former United States postmaster Will Hays, devised a Pro-
duction Code to police the studios in their moviemaking endeavors. It set gen-
eral standards of good taste and more specific guidelines for each film made.
The main thrust of the Code was that presenting evil on the screen is
often essential, but it should not be presented alluringly. In the film, the evil
must be punished commensurate with the crime.
The moviemakers eventually were not as careful with their product as
members of the clergy, educators and the various groups of “reformers” would
have wanted. As a result, in 1934, strict censorship became a reality. A group
of Roman Catholic bishops formed the National Legion of Decency; its
stated aim was to review all films. Those deemed “objectionable” were to be
boycotted. The Legion attracted a nationwide following.
Frightened by a projected loss of revenue, Hays had the old Code
expanded. He then entrusted its enforcement to Joseph Breen, a Catholic
newspaperman. The Breen Office soon became the industry’s chief censor.
They had the authority to license films for screening. Scripts had to be sub-
mitted to a board of censors before cameras could roll. Comparing the films
of the present day with those of the 1920s and 1930s—today, when movies
play “Show and Tell All” in every genre—it is hard to believe, when seeing
these golden oldies, that there were so many restrictions governing them.
Taboos included open-mouth kisses, double beds (twin beds were de rigueur
and if a man kissed a woman in a bedroom scene, one of his feet had to be
firmly planted on the floor) and any form of blasphemy. Virtue was to be
rewarded and vice punished.
Even the titles were scrutinized. Mae West’s It Ain’t No Sin became I’m
No Angel (Paramount, 1933) while Jean Harlow’s opus Born to Be Kissed was
released by MGM in 1934 as The Girl from Missouri. During this era, when
the Code reigned supreme, producers, directors and writers were constantly
trying to outwit and circumvent its restrictions.
 PREFACE 3

In this frenetic atmosphere, the screwball comedy came into existence.

Many films of this genre are being enjoyed by this generation via television
and on DVDs.
The first part of this book discusses the stars, producers, directors and
writers who were there at the beginning and were responsible for some of
the greatest comedies ever made.
The films discussed in my last two chapters are modern incarnations of
the genre. Some of today’s producers and directors of comedies have learned
their craft by harkening back to the 1930s and 1940s and use many of the
techniques of that era.
The second half of this book is made up of what I call the subgenres
of the screwball comedy. I have written at length about certain films which
I consider more interesting than others. Scattered throughout are anecdotes
and trivia relating to both stars and films. Also noted and discussed are the
remakes of several of these productions.
Some films that I’ve written about may overlap into other subgenres
but I’ve placed them where I think it most appropriate.
There are probably many films in the genre that have been overlooked
in these pages—for this I apologize. There are going to be fans and students
of film who will not agree with the choices and placements within my sub-
genres, but as the French say, “Vive la difference.”
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 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Chapter One

Cut and Print:

The Anatomy of Screwball

Madcap heiresses, zany families, opportunistic newspaper people, off

and on marriages, murders with a twist plus other unusual situations—these
are the characters and plotlines which make up the body of motion pictures
known as screwball comedies. The films that are part of this valuable heritage
burst the bubble of pomposity and make us laugh at the antics of those
involved while gently mocking an artificial social structure. They also poke
innocent and not-so-innocent fun at the sacred institutions of love, marriage
and family.
Screwball comedies are at once warm and healing, lighthearted and off-
beat. Most of the characters are warm-blooded and human, with good and
bad traits—exaggerated, yes, but human just the same. The films of this genre,
when first seen in the 1930s and even now, when modern screwball comedies
have taken their place, appeal to all types of people, to rural America and
to urban America; to the haves, of which there were and are too few, and to
the have-nots, of which there were and are all too many. These films, how-
ever, at that time and this, tend to unify the people in one important way:
They enable the viewer to laugh and display a sense of humor peculiar to
this nation. To see the eternal battle of the sexes played out on the screen in
a humorous and often slapstick fashion gave the population just what it
needed at that time and also gives people what they need in the hazardous
times of today—an escape from their troubles, for at least a little while. It
was, then, and perhaps now, in its way, good for America.
The screwball comedy began during the height of the Depression and
after a fashion, is still ongoing. Several of the most popular Hollywood stars
of that bygone era let their hair down, engaged in broad slapstick and made
some great contributions to the art of moviemaking.
I also think of stars who have followed in later generations: Streisand,

5
6 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Midler, Zellweger, Roberts, Gere et al. They have also made their contribu-
tions to the genre.
I am not a purist in any sense of the word when it comes to defining
the screwball comedies. Many comedies in this narrative may not be screwball
for some readers, but to my way of thinking, they have enough of the essential
elements to warrant inclusion. No one can tell me that such films as For
Pete’s Sake, The Main Event, Pretty Woman, The Runaway Bride and Down
with Love do not contain elements of the screwball comedy. This premise
will be examined as I end my narrative.
The dictionary defines the word “screwball” as an erratic, eccentric and
unconventional individual and “comedy” as a series of light and humorous
incidents. Put both words together and we have the essence of screwball
comedy: light and humorous incidents involving erratic, eccentric and uncon-
ventional individuals. Comedy and romance are intertwined in the films dis-
cussed in the following pages, giving way to what I call the screwball romantic
comedies.
What made the screwball comedies of the 1930s and ’40s (and even the
present) so popular? Dialogue, for one thing. Lively or satirical, some of the
most delicious lines ever heard on the screen are part and parcel of the genre.
“Waiter, will you serve the nuts? I mean, will you serve the guests the nuts?”
This line, as delivered with off-handed aplomb by Myrna Loy as Nora Charles
in The Thin Man (MGM, 1934), simply crackles with humor. She knows,
and the audience does too, that she’s gotten her point across the first time.
“I’m more or less particular about whom my wife marries” is a line spo-
ken by Cary Grant to Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday (Columbia, 1940).
This is only one of the lines in this fast-paced newspaper yarn delivered with
impeccable timing, a raised eyebrow and just the slightest hint of mockery
by the peerless Cary, a master of the double entendre.
“Doctor,” says Merle Oberon to Alan Mowbray in That Uncertain Feel-
ing (United Artists, 1941), “I’m absolutely certain there’s nothing wrong with
me.” Retorts the sardonic Mowbray, “I’m sure you’ll feel differently when
you leave this office.” This is a light mix of truth and satire.
In The Bride Walks Out (RKO, 1936), Barbara Stanwyck asks a constantly
bickering couple why they got married in the first place. Their answer to
this age-old question: “Well, it was raining and we were in Pittsburgh.”
Irrational? Yes. Screwball? Definitely!
These are only a few classic examples of dialogue to be found in a genre
known for some of the most hilarious ever committed to film.
Another key element in screwball comedy is the conflict to be resolved
before THE END is flashed upon the screen. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant,
as the battling Warriners in The Awful Truth (Columbia, 1937), stage a classic
scene in a divorce court as they fight over the custody of their pet pooch Mr.
 ONE. CUT AND PRINT: THE ANATOMY OF SCREWBALL 7

Smith (played by Asta, Hollywood’s top dog of the 1930s). Dunne cheats and
the canine trots over to her. The lady has a triumphant smirk on her face.
In screwball comedy, all’s fair in love and war, with love ever triumphant.
And speaking of fighting, a different kind of warfare can be seen 40
years later: In That Old Feeling (Universal, 1977), Bette Midler and Dennis
Farina, divorced for many years, having a battle royale at their daughter’s
wedding, prompting one guest to remark: “It was a perfect wedding except
for two things—the bride’s parents.”
Merle Oberon and her peripatetic husband (Dennis Morgan) have been
divorced as Affectionately Yours (Warner Brothers, 1941) begins. He will use
any ruse to get her back. The fact that she is set to marry another man fazes
him not one iota. The battle is on.
And speaking of “battles,” we come to another aspect of screwball com-
edy: its physicality. Comedy came out of the drawing room in the mid–1930s
and became more physical, adding the element of slapstick to many of its
situations. In Breakfast for Two (RKO, 1937), boxing gloves are used by Bar-
bara Stanwyck as she tries to knock some sense into irresponsible playboy
Herbert Marshall (before she marries him). Carole Lombard, engaged in
combat with Fredric March in Nothing Sacred (Selznick International-United
Artists, 1937), whimpers, “Lemme sock you just once—just once and I won’t
care what happens.” Instead, she is the recipient of a Sunday punch.
Fast forward 40 years: At the end of 1979’s The Main Event (Warner/
First Artists), Ryan O’Neal and Barbra Streisand are the ones wearing boxing
gloves. She is the victim of an embezzlement. The one asset she has left is
a has-been boxer. Upon meeting him, she remarks, “Why couldn’t I own
something that doesn’t eat?”
The finale of The Moon’s Our Home (Paramount, 1936) finds Margaret
Sullavan at an airport in a straitjacket, being whisked away by Henry Fonda
and two men in white, while in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (Paramount, 1938),
the reverse occurs, with Gary Cooper in a straitjacket fighting on the floor
with Claudette Colbert. In Cafe Society (Paramount, 1939), the glamorous
Madeleine Carroll falls into water while arguing with Fred MacMurray.
The last three films are marital mix-ups—more sights and sounds of
the screwball comedy. They and others will be discussed at length in later
chapters.
The stars mentioned above are only a small part of the passing parade
who participated in the early days of the beginning of this body. They and
their peers are a most important reason for the popularity of the early screw-
ball comedies. Easily recognizable, they are still able to evoke pleasant mem-
ories in many of us.
Let’s take a look at some of these never-to-be-forgotten players and in
later chapters take a look at the new generation of “screwballers.”
 Chapter Two

Screwball Personnel: The Stars

When discussing the screwball comedies of the 1930s and early 1940s,
we think of several performers, superstars of that era, still fondly remembered
today. Although adept at drama, they were able to project the qualities inher-
ent in the best of the screwball genre: a sense of the outrageous, a feeling for
comedy, an ability to satirize and the chutzpah to engage in slapstick. All of
this, while preserving their style and glamour. This chapter is dedicated to
these masters of the screwball comedy. Also mentioned are several major stars
who went against type and performed in some of the lesser-known films of the
genre.
When most people reminisce about the early screwball comedies, the
first names that come to mind are Carole Lombard and Cary Grant. The
two made only two films together, both dramas, The Eagle and the Hawk
(Paramount, 1933) and In Name Only (RKO, 1939).
Blonde, beautiful and spirited, Carole Lombard was, and still is to some,
the finest satirical comedienne the screen has ever known, the embodiment of
screwball comedy, the queen of the genre. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana,
she was a working actress by 1929. A stint with Mack Sennett, the acknowl-
edged “king of comedy” during the silent era, taught her the impeccable timing
which was at the heart of her comedic genius. In 1934, a golden opportunity
arose for her: She took a trip on a train with the great John Barrymore, play-
ing a bombastic actress born with the improbable name of Mildred Plotka.
Twentieth Century (Columbia) scored a resounding hit at the box office.
Barrymore was once quoted as saying that Lombard was one of the greatest
actresses he had ever worked with.
Though the blonde star mixed drama and comedy and did both with
equal skill, the screwball comedy became her signature genre. Her films
include Hands Across the Table (1935) and The Princess Comes Across (1936),
both from Paramount, My Man Godfrey (Universal, 1936) and Mr. and Mrs.
Smith (RKO, 1941)—a cross-section of the genre.

8
 T WO. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: THE STARS 9

Tragedy struck when her life was snuffed out in a plane crash while she
was on a bond tour in her home state of Indiana during the early stages of
World War II. Ended was a career that had given much to the industry and
also to her legion of fans. For many students and fans of film, there is only
one Carole Lombard.
And only one Cary Grant. There was an elegance and casual charm
about England’s Archie Leach who became the matinee idol Cary Grant.
An upwardly mobile eyebrow, a faint air of cynicism, an athletic grace, an
impeccable sense of timing and a sublime sense of the ridiculous—is it any
wonder that, like Lombard, who shared many of these characteristics, he
became a leading exponent of the screwball genre? Though his two Academy
Award nominations came for showing the darker side of his persona (about
which much has been written) and talent, many of his fans preferred to see
him in the light and airy fluff at which he was a master. His gallery of screw-
ball screen characters in the classics Topper (Hal Roach, 1937), The Awful
Truth (Columbia, 1937), Bringing Up Baby (RKO, 1938), His Girl Friday
(Columbia, 1940) and My Favorite Wife (RKO, 1940) have become immortal
with time—different, each one of them, but all imbued with the charm and
talent which helped to make their portrayer a household name.
The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife rank among the best screwball
comedies. Both are marital mix-ups involving divorce and reconciliation.
Premises like these are made to order for the genre and for Cary’s co-star,
Irene Dunne. With an elegance and panache matched only by Carole Lom-
bard and Claudette Colbert, whom we’ll meet in a bit, the Louisville (Ken-
tucky) Lady was able to do broad comedy in a deliciously lighthearted way
which enchanted both critics and fans and still does, decades later, when her
films are shown on television. Catch her at a meeting of a literary society in
Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936), doing a hilarious song-and-dance rou-
tine in The Awful Truth or talking endearingly about Randolph Scott in My
Favorite Wife and you have the screwball comedy in all its brilliant manifes-
tations. All this plus a lovely singing voice.
Another alumnus of the “Cary Grant Co-star Club” is Katharine Hep-
burn. With the urbane actor, she made three comedies that are still a joy to
behold when seen on the small screen at home. Bringing Up Baby is pure
screwball while Holiday (Columbia, 1938) and The Philadelphia Story (MGM,
1940), considered by many to be romantic comedies, contain enough screw-
ball elements to warrant a mention here. In all three productions, Hepburn
is cast as an eccentric, off beat heiress. Bringing into play an aristocratic bear-
ing and an odd Bryn Mawr pattern of speech, she is able to inject into each
portrayal her own personality and independent spirit. With these comedic
performances under her belt, the actress went on to co-star in several films
with Spencer Tracy at MGM, among them Woman of the Year (1942), Without
10 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Love (1945), Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952), romantic comedies
all. Each one contains elements of the screwball comedy: eccentric characters
and humorous incidents.
Like Hepburn, Loretta Young was a versatile actress, successfully star-
ring in both comedic and dramatic fare. Her appearances in several screwball
films including Fox’s Love Is News, Second Honeymoon (both 1937) and Wife,
Husband and Friend in 1937, and Columbia’s Bedtime Story (1941) and A Night
to Remember 1943), are all good reasons as to why the lovely Loretta should
be counted among the screwball immortals. (Behind an ultra-feminine and
glamorous facade was a razor-sharp mind and an excellent sense of timing.
Ms. Young went into television with an anthology series aptly titled The
Loretta Young Show and made a fortune opening a door and gliding into a
smartly arranged close-up as the program’s hostess and occasional star.)
Viewers of early television programming will no doubt remember
another Young coming into their living rooms on a weekly basis. Robert
Young starred in TV’s long-running Father Knows Best and was also seen as
the kindly title character on Marcus Welby, M.D. Before his tenure on the
small screen, the popular actor enjoyed a long and profitable career as a hand-
some leading man and starred in several screwball comedies, both major and
minor. Two of his early comedic performances are in The Bride Comes Home
(1935) and I Met Him in Paris (1937), both Paramount releases. In the first
film he loses Claudette Colbert to Fred MacMurray; in the second feature,
the lovely Claudette winds up in the arms of Melvyn Douglas. In Red Salute
(United Artists, 1935), however, he does “get” Barbara Stanwyck in the final
fadeout (and, as his star ascended in the Hollywood firmament, he usually
got the girl). He also gets the girl in two minor screwball comedies made at
MGM: Married Before Breakfast in 1937 and Married Bachelor in 1941.
Armed with a gift for sardonic humor, a debonair manner and an ability
to charm the ladies, the aforementioned Melvyn Douglas was another impor-
tant exponent of the screwball comedy. He was an actor of great depth, as
he proved in the dramas in which he appeared and, in the later phase of his
career, when he won the 1963 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in
Hud. He was, nonetheless, able to convey a lighthearted and often zany qual-
ity to his performances, complementing the antics of his leading ladies,
among them Jean Arthur, Joan Blondell, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert
and Rosalind Russell. His screwball comedies at Columbia include She Mar-
ried Her Boss (1935), I Met Him in Paris (1937), There’s Always a Woman
(1938), Too Many Husbands (1940) and They All Kissed the Bride (1942).
Fans familiar with the era will, however, remember more than any other
film his teaming with Greta Garbo in Ninotchka. The vintage romantic com-
edy, released by MGM in 1939, contains many screwball elements. Its pub-
licity ads proclaimed, in large letters, “Garbo Laughs.” It is Melvyn Douglas,
 T WO. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: THE STARS 11

at his best, goading her on. (He Stayed for Breakfast, a 1940 screwball comedy
from Columbia with Loretta Young, has the actor in a reversal of his Ninotchka
role.) Douglas also co-starred with the enigmatic actress in her last film,
MGM’s 1941 production Two-Faced Woman.
In his later career, Joel McCrea enacted mature, stoic Western-type
heroes, but as a young leading man he was seen in both comedies and dramas,
partnering with some of Hollywood’s most famous leading ladies. Among
his screwball successes are The Richest Girl in the World (RKO, 1934), Three
Blind Mice (Fox, 1938), The Palm Beach Story (Paramount, 1942) and the World
War II comedy The More the Merrier (Columbia, 1943). He was not a great
actor by any means, but he was none the less able to hold his own.
A frequent co-star of McCrea’s is Miriam Hopkins. Although not well-
known today, she was one of the top stars of her era. The talented blonde
actress appears in such delightful screwball comedies as Trouble in Paradise
(1932), Design for Living (1933), Wise Girl (1937) and Woman Chases Man
(1937).
Like McCrea, Henry Fonda typified the earnest, stoic, straight-talking
film hero of his era. Though his most famous roles came in such stark melo-
dramas from Fox as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
and My Darling Clementine (1946), he was more than agreeable in his screw-
ball appearances. Three of his best co-starred Barbara Stanwyck: The Mad
Miss Manton (RKO, 1938) and two 1941 films: The Lady Eve (Paramount)
and You Belong to Me (Columbia). An earlier screwball comedy, The Moon’s
Our Home, paired the much-married Fonda with his first wife, Margaret
Sullavan.
In the mold of Grant and Douglas is David Niven. The suave English-
man is hard to place in these pages due to the fact that he plays second lead
in some screwball comedies, while starring in others. In Three Blind Mice
and Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, his roles are secondary to those of Joel McCrea
and Gary Cooper, respectively, while in two 1939 releases, Bachelor Mother
and Eternally Yours, he is the star. He also appears in several later film ven-
tures which contain elements of the screwball comedy plus a 1957 remake
of My Man Godfrey co-starring June Allyson.
What set the Lombards, the Grants, the Dunnes and their ilk apart
from the hundreds of hopefuls who took Horace Greeley’s advice to “go
west” during the film industry’s early days? Luck and the studio system
which gave them ample opportunity to show their wares, yes, but in the final
analysis, it was more than that. A look, a gesture, a voice, a style, something
unmistakably individual. It took longer for some than others, but all of them
paid their dues.
The last statement is certainly true of the sublime Jean Arthur. Noted
for one of the most distinctive and expressive voices of the era, childlike in
12 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

quality, yet warm and reassuring, the petite blonde actress seems to have been
put upon this Earth for the screwball comedy, as we shall see in the ensuing
chapters.
In the profession since the mid–1920s, she spent a good ten years plying
her trade before she hit her stride in such films as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
(Columbia, 1936), Easy Living (Paramount, 1937), You Can’t Take It with You
(Columbia, 1938), Too Many Husbands and The More the Merrier (for the last
named, she received an Oscar nomination). Once she got these plums, she
more than made up for the time spent doing lesser roles.
So did many of her peers. Another case in point is Ginger Rogers, who
paid her dues on both stage and screen before her big break came along with
Fred Astaire in RKO’s 1933 Flying Down to Rio.
Though she is mainly remembered for that musical and the ones she
subsequently made with Astaire, she was a definite cog in the screwball
machine. With a sparkle in her eyes, a toss of her blonde mane and a voice
which smacks of independence, she typifies the working girl in the genre,
hoping for the best, but ready to take on the world: a nightclub entertainer
in Vivacious Lady (RKO, 1938), a department store clerk in Bachelor Mother
(RKO, 1979), a homeless girl looking for work in Fifth Avenue Girl (RKO,
1939), a telephone operator in Tom Dick and Harry (RKO, 1941) and a man-
icurist in The Major and the Minor (Paramount, 1942).
Another lady typifying the working girl in both comedy and drama is
Rosalind Russell. Except for different leading men and a switch in title, the
roles she plays are stamped out of the same mold: sharp, crackly dames until
the films’ final few minutes. Her screwball comedies include Hired Wife (Uni-
versal, 1940), No Time for Comedy (Warner Brothers, 1940), His Girl Friday
(Columbia, 1940) and Take a Letter, Darling (Paramount, 1942). A crisp
delivery and a great sense of timing make many of her films seem even better
than they are.
Of the all-time greats discussed in this chapter, only Clark Gable,
Claudette Colbert and James Stewart won Academy Awards for their screw-
ball comedies: Gable and Colbert for It Happened One Night, (Columbia,
1934) and Stewart for The Philadelphia Story (MGM, 1940).
Apple-cheeked, with saucer eyes and a throaty laugh, Paris-born
Claudette Colbert served her apprenticeship both on Broadway and on the
sound stages of Hollywood. Her big break came in a dramatic film, The Sign
of the Cross, a 1932 Paramount release; from then on, showing her versatility,
she switched from comedy to drama and then back again to comedy with
grace and ease. The screwball characters that she created in I Met Him in
Paris, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, Midnight (Paramount, 1939), It’s a Wonderful
World (MGM, 1939) and The Palm Beach Story remain among her best-known
and most delightful, in a career which lasted for over 60 years.
 T WO. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: THE STARS 13

Claudette’s co-star in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife is Gary Cooper. Winning

his two Academy Awards for his portrayals of baseball great Lou Gehrig in
The Pride of the Yankees (RKO, 1942) and the stoic sheriff of High Noon (UA,
1952), he also appears in such classic screwball comedies as Design for Living,
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Ball of Fire (Goldwyn, 1941). His “yup” and
“nope” style of delivery are admirably suited to the comedies in which he
appears.
A lesson in longevity is the career of Fred MacMurray. “Steady” and
“dependable” are not the sort of characteristics you usually find in the screw-
ball genre, but MacMurray was just that sort of actor. A shrewd businessman
who saw the possibilities of television long before many of his peers, he is
today perhaps best known for the long-running My Three Sons sitcom.
His screwballs gave him several of his most popular roles and the envi-
able task of playing opposite some of the top Hollywood actresses, among
them Lombard, Russell and Colbert.
For Paramount, as leading man to those three lovely ladies, MacMurray
appears in six great screwball comedies. With the divine Lombard, he stars
in Hands Across the Table, The Princess Comes Across and True Confession; he
partners with Russell in Take a Letter, Darling and with Colbert in the
comedic delights The Gilded Lily (1935) and No Time for Love (1943). It was
MacMurray’s appearance, against type, in the starkly dramatic Double Indem-
nity (Paramount, 1944) which brought him the best notices of his career.
Co-starred with Fred is Barbara Stanwyck, whose performance in that film
remains one of the most incisive portrayals of greed ever recorded on the
screen. Though much of her career lies in the realm of the dramatic, the tal-
ented Brooklyn-born actress found a niche for herself in the screwball com-
edy. The Mad Miss Manton, Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve and You Belong to Me
are ample proof of this. Like Fred MacMurray, Stanwyck saw the possibilities
of television and for some time starred in the series The Big Valley.
Few actors in the fickle world of entertainment had longer careers than
James Stewart, last in our list of screwball superstars. In his eighties, he was
writing poetry, doing television commercials and speaking out against the
colorization of the classics. The beloved Stewart was once described by a
director as “so unusually usual.” His roles in Vivacious Lady, You Can’t Take
It with You, It’s a Wonderful World, No Time for Comedy and his Academy
Award–winning performance in The Philadelphia Story serve to make him
an immortal in this (or any) genre.
The screwball comedy was so immensely popular during the 1930s that
several others of the era’s most famous motion picture personalities tried
their hands at it, in sharp contrast to what the public had come to expect of
them.
Some readers will be surprised to note that Bette Davis and James
14 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Cagney, who achieved lasting fame in highly charged dramatic fare, were
teamed in two Warner Brothers films that are considered screwball: Jimmy
the Gent (1934) and The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941). Davis also stars in three
others for Warner Brothers, It’s Love I’m After (1937), The Man Who Came
to Dinner (1941) and June Bride (1948). In 1938, Cagney appeared in a dev-
astating satire on Hollywood scriptwriters titled Boy Meets Girl (also from
Warners).
Margaret Sullavan, she of the unforgettably husky voice, also kicks up
her heels in screwball comedies, starring in the previously mentioned The
Moon’s Our Home plus two others, both from Universal: The Good Fairy (1935)
and Appointment for Love (1941).
Others not known for comedy also ventured into the genre. Among the
stars and the screwball comedies in which they appear are Herbert Marshall
in If You Could Only Cook (Columbia, 1935), Breakfast for Two and The Good
Fairy, Fredric March in Design for Living and Nothing Sacred, Robert Mont-
gomery in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and June Bride, Joan Crawford in Love on the
Run (MGM, 1936) and They All Kissed the Bride and Olivia de Havilland in
three for Warner Brothers: Call It a Day (1937), Four’s a Crowd and Hard to
Get (both 1938). Clark Gable did two more screwballs for MGM, Love on
the Run and Comrade X (1940), the latter film with a Ninotchka-like premise.
Even John Barrymore got into the act with the aforementioned Twentieth
Century, plus Midnight and True Confession.
Anyone familiar with the screwball genre will note the omission of two
of its most endearing practitioners, William Powell and Myrna Loy. Because
of their teaming in the Thin Man series and other films in the genre, I have
left the delightful duo for later and star them in a chapter of their own.
 Chapter Three

Screwball Personnel:
They Also Serve

Sandwiched in between Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, each a top animal star
of its era, is Asta, the lovable wire-haired fox terrier who appears in the Thin
Man series.
We begin our discourse on Screwball Supporting Players with the clever
canine who made the decade of the 1930s his own, “acting” in the memorable
detective series as well as in three top screwball comedies: The Awful Truth,
Topper Takes a Trip (Hal Roach–United Artists, 1939) and Bringing Up Baby.
A “bone” of contention in some films and a partner in mayhem in others,
the precocious pooch justly deserves to be considered as one who also serves,
an integral part of the screwball comedy.
Let us continue with the “male animal” and take a look at the men
below the title. Franklin Pangborn’s name is probably unrecognizable to all
but the true movie buff. One look at his face, however, and the comment
invariably is, “Oh, I know him.” Pangborn appears in more screwball come-
dies than many of his peers. His patented style of comedy—fussy, flustered
and temperamental, while trying to preserve a modicum of dignity—makes
for much hilarity in some of the finest productions in the genre: My Man
Godfrey, Easy Living, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Viva-
cious Lady and The Palm Beach Story, to name just a few.
Walter Connolly is a better-known screwball staple, playing more sub-
stantial roles than many of “those who also serve.” His presence makes a
delightful addition to the classics Twentieth Century, It Happened One Night,
Fifth Avenue Girl, Libeled Lady (MGM, 1936) and Nothing Sacred. These are
just a few of the in which he appeared during his rich and varied career.
The puckish Eric Blore parlayed playing a “gentleman’s gentleman,”
along with several other character types, into a long and happy life in the
movies. His droll brand of acting enhances the genre favorites The Ex-Mrs.

15
16 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Bradford (RKO, 1936), It’s Love I’m After, Breakfast for Two, Joy of Living
(RKO, 1938), The Good Fairy and The Lady Eve.
The cherubic Charles Coburn began his film career after many years
on the legitimate stage. Armed with a monocle and a mischievous glint, he
is best remembered for his role in The More the Merrier, which won him a
Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the age of 66. He is also to be seen in Viva-
cious Lady, Bachelor Mother, The Lady Eve and The Devil and Miss Jones (RKO,
1941). Movie fans are always in for a treat when the production features Mr.
Coburn, who made his screen debut in 1938 at 61 years of age.
Luis Alberni and Mischa Auer were versatile comedic actors who usually
played roles calling for dialects. If a volatile Latin type was needed, Alberni
got the role. The Gilded Lily, Easy Living, The Lady Eve and The Gay Decep-
tion (Fox, 1935) are some of his forays into screwball comedy.
When the script called for zany Russians or other comedic East Euro-
pean types, Auer was the likely choice to play them. His off beat appearances
in The Princess Comes Across, My Man Godfrey, The Rage of Paris (Universal,
1938), You Can’t Take It with You and Public Deb Number One (Fox, 1940)
rank among the classic performances of the day.
The delightful Roland Young was another popular character actor of
the era. Best known for his role as the whimsical Cosmo Topper in Topper,
Topper Takes a Trip (1939) and Topper Returns (1941), he also lends his
comedic talents, in supporting roles, to such films as Call It a Day, The Young
in Heart (Selznick International–United Artists, 1938), He Married His Wife
(Fox, 1940) and, in a stand-out performance, The Philadelphia Story.
Playing butler to Young’s Topper is Alan Mowbray, another in the line
of versatile performers who served the studio system so well. This talented
character actor toiled in the vineyards of most of the major Hollywood studios
in dramas and in comedy. From villains to butler to supercilious psychiatrists,
he played them all. His best remembered efforts in the screwball genre
include the first two Topper films, plus two from Roach–United Artists: There
Goes My Heart in 1938 and Merrily We Live in 1940, and from the same com-
pany That Uncertain Feeling.
Donald Meek’s name was well-suited to his persona. The unique Mr.
Meek had a virtual monopoly on timid, befuddled little men. His career began
in 1929 and lasted until his death in the mid–1940s. His droll demeanor and
performances in such comedic delights as The Gilded Lily, The Bride Comes
Home, Love on the Run, Breakfast for Two, You Can’t Take It with You, plus
two 1940 entries from MGM, Come Live with Me and The Thin Man Goes
Home, encompass a compendium of the screwball.
Another lengthy show business career was enjoyed by William Dema-
rest, whom aficionados of the television series My Three Sons will remember
as Uncle Charley. His crusty yet sentimental acting style put him in good
 THREE. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: THEY ALSO SERVE 17

stead in such screwball gems as Hands Across the Table, Love on the Run , Easy
Living, The Lady Eve, Christmas in July (Paramount, 1940), The Devil and
Miss Jones, The Palm Beach Story and two wartime comedies released by Para-
mount, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero (both
1944).
A well-known name below the title is that of Edward Everett Horton.
In an acting career which began in 1918 and lasted through the mid–1960s,
he is the eternal fussbudget, always trying to maintain his cool in the face
of impending disaster. His screwball appearances include The Front Page
(United Artists, 1931), Design for Living, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife and Holiday.
It is interesting to note that in 1938, the actor recreated the role he had
played in the 1930 version of Holiday.
The specialty of Charles Ruggles, an actor of much charm, was his abil-
ity to play genial blunderers for whom movie fans felt great affection. This
skill he parlayed into a long and distinguished career. Among his better
known comedic appearances are No Time for Comedy, Bringing Up Baby, Pub-
lic Deb Number One, The Doughgirls (Warner Brothers, 1944 and Model Wife
(Universal, 1941).
Another “Oh, I know him” actor, Raymond Walburn, scored in a variety
of screwball films. The harrumphing performer makes memorable contribu-
tions to such golden oldies as She Married Her Boss, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,
Eternally Yours, Christmas in July, Third Finger, Left Hand (MGM, 1940) and
Hail the Conquering Hero.
Edgar Buchanan will be remembered by fans of TV’s Petticoat Junction
for his role as Uncle Joe. Master of the “slow burn” school of humor, he also
had a long and successful career in the movies. His screwball credits include
Too Many Husbands, Bride by Mistake (RKO, 1944) and You Belong to Me.
A small fussy man in so many memorable films was Ernest Truex. In a
career spanning almost half a century, he played second banana to the likes
of Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant and Claudette Colbert, among
others. His screwball appearances help to brighten up It’s a Wonderful World,
Bachelor Mother, His Girl Friday, Christmas in July, Twin Beds (United Artists,
(1942) and True to Life (Paramount, 1943).
Another well-known “name below the title” belongs to Eugene Pallette.
A sandpaper voice and a pear-shaped figure made the actor a natural for
comedy and he appears in several screwball productions as a gruff, rotund,
bass-voiced character. Father, detective, business executive—he plays all of
these and is always fun to watch. My Man Godfrey, Topper, There Goes My
Heart, The Lady Eve, He Stayed for Breakfast, Appointment for Love and The
Bride Came C.O.D. owe much of their success to this portly perennial.
There is much more typecasting to be found on the distaff side of screw-
ball supporting players and several talented actresses did some of their finest
18 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

and best known work in the genre. The fluttery female, carefully coiffed and
matronly, was personified by Billie Burke and Spring Byington.
Three Topper films, Merrily We Live, The Young in Heart, Eternally Yours,
and They All Kissed the Bride are only some of Billie Burke’s excursions into
screwball. The widow of famed showman Florenz Ziegfeld, the actress made
her first screen appearance in 1918 and her last in 1960. Though her long
career was highlighted by many fine performances, both comedic and dra-
matic, she will forever linger in our memories as Glinda the Good Witch in
MGM’s all-time classic The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Spring Byington’s first film, RKO’s Little Women (1933), established her
motherly image for most of her successful tenure in motion pictures. Her
contributions to screwball comedy include warm and appealing performances
in It’s Love I’m After, You Can’t Take It with You and The Devil and Miss Jones.
In 1936, she was cast against type in Theodora Goes Wild as the town gossip
and in Rings on Her Fingers (Fox, 1942) as a motherly con artist. The younger
than Spring-time actress spent a few years during the 1950s on television’s
December Bride. In the show, she portrayed a mother living with her daughter
and son-in-law, always getting into scrapes. It was a senior citizen version
of I Love Lucy.
Like Billie Burke, Alice Brady was a distinguished stage star before
coming to Hollywood. Though she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress
for the 1937 Fox drama In Old Chicago, she is mainly identified with giddy,
lame-brained matron roles such as those she plays in My Man Godfrey (she
is the perfect foil for Eugene Pallette as his ditsy wife), Call It a Day and Joy
of Living.
In the latter part of her career, Mary Boland played a series of domi-
neering, dimwitted matrons. Film buffs will remember her as the scheming
but not too bright mother in Pride and Prejudice (MGM, 1940) and as the
much married countess (“L’amor, l’amor—where love leads I always follow”)
in the all-star MGM production The Women (1939). Three Cornered Moon
(Paramount, 1933), There Goes the Groom (RKO, 1937) and He Married His
Wife are among her other screwball credits.
Other screwball ladies are not the ditsy type, but are masters of the put-
down. The many genre back-talkers are memorably brought to the screen
by some very talented performers, among them Helen Broderick, Margaret
Hamilton, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly and the one and only Eve Arden.
Each lady was skilled in the delivery of the tart and sharply honed dialogue
so much a part of the 1930s.
Stately Helen Broderick, mother of Academy Award–winning actor
Broderick Crawford, portrayed many an acerbic and sharp-witted middle-
aged lady. Her wry and cynical screen persona graces such screwball comedies
as Love on a Bet, The Bride Walks Out, The Smartest Girl in Town (all 1936)
 THREE. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: THEY ALSO SERVE 19

and She’s Got Everything (1937), all four made at RKO. In these last two
films, Broderick appears with Ann Sothern. In the first, she is Sothern’s
older sister; in the second, she is Ann’s aunt—so much for consistency in the
screwball movies. Broderick’s other credits in the genre include The Rage of
Paris, Honeymoon in Bali (Paramount, 1939) and Father Takes a Wife (RKO,
1941).
Both Nothing Sacred and The Moon’s Our Home feature former school-
teacher Margaret Hamilton as salty New England types. Though she is most
famous for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz,
she enjoyed a long and very satisfying career as a character actress, showing
her versatility in both comedy and drama. Among her other screen credits
are two more screwballs, Four’s a Crowd and Twin Beds.
Hattie McDaniel, the memorable Mammy of Gone with the Wind and
the first black actress to win an Academy Award, had been steadily employed
since 1932. She made screwball appearances in True Confession, The Mad
Miss Manton, Affectionately Yours, The Bride Walks Out and in a small bit in
Nothing Sacred. Though most of her movie roles are as maids, the lovable
Hattie plays them in a remarkable (for the era), free-spirited, feisty and inde-
pendent manner, utterly devoid of any aspect of subservience.
An actress skilled in the delivery of a zinger in an off-handed manner
is Ruth Donnelly. She was a no-nonsense type, in her younger days special-
izing in sassy secretaries and sharp-tongued friends of the heroine and in the
later stages of her career as a “quick with a quip” mother. Donnelly’s many
screwball films include Red Salute, Hands Across the Table, Mr. Deeds Goes to
Town, The Amazing Mr. Williams (Columbia, 1939), Model Wife and You
Belong to Me.
The most famous practitioner of sarcasm, however, has to be Eve Arden.
The statuesque blonde stage veteran played several screwball characters before
attaining stardom in both radio and on television as the lovesick Our Miss
Brooks of Madison High. Among her genre films are Eternally Yours, Comrade
X, That Uncertain Feeling, Bedtime Story and The Doughgirls, in which she
steals the show as a daffy Russian sniper who comes to wartime Washington
on a government mission.
A couple of other statuesque actresses, Mary Astor and Gail Patrick,
personify the glamorous “Other Woman of Screwball.” Astor began her
career during the early 1920s; by the mid to late 1930s, Astor, once leading
lady to John Barrymore, was playing more character roles than leads and
taking part in such comedic hits as the first screen version of Holiday, There’s
Always a Woman, Midnight, Turnabout (Hal Roach–United Artists, 1940)
and The Palm Beach Story.
Her “comrade in arms,” lanky brunette Gail Patrick, is known to fans
of the Perry Mason television series as the show’s executive producer. She is
20 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

also known to screwball comedy buffs as the “other woman” in such frolics
as My Favorite Wife, Love Crazy (MGM, 1941) and The Doctor Takes a Wife
(Columbia, 1940) and the obnoxious sister in My Man Godfrey. The proto-
type for such roles, she came to Hollywood as a contestant in one of the
thousands of beauty pageants held throughout the nation during the early
1930s. She lost the contest but, unlike many young hopefuls, stayed to carve
out a long and successful career.
Astor and Patrick may have had much success as the “other woman” in
films, but their male counterpart, Ralph Bellamy, typecast in the screwball
comedy as the man who never winds up with the girl, beats both ladies. In
fact, he is the most successful “other man” in the genre’s history, losing Carole
Lombard in Hands Across the Table, Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth, Rosalind
Russell in His Girl Friday, Merle Oberon in Affectionately Yours and, in a
minor screwball comedy, Public Deb Number One, Brenda Joyce. This may
have been a blow to his movie ego, but professionally, these roles gave him
the opportunity to appear in some of the finest films ever made. His biggest
success, however, was on the Broadway stage portraying Franklin Delano
Roosevelt in the acclaimed Sunrise at Campobello. In 1960, he recreated the
role in the film version.
Most actors credit the success of their performances to their directors.
The early screwball comedies were made under the guidance of some of the
most talented men in the industry, several of whom are the subjects of our
next focus. Besides directing, a few even produced their films. We’ll also
zero in on a group of writers, brilliant men all, who put pen to paper and
came up with these gems. Their words are satirical, sophisticated, witty,
warm, totally appealing and all wrapped in one package.
 Chapter Four

Screwball Personnel:
Behind the Scenes

Gable and Colbert may have scintillated on screen in It Happened One

Night, but the blockbuster film was the baby of director Frank Capra and
his favorite writer, Robert Riskin.
Under the guidance of producer-director Howard Hawks and with a
great script by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Twentieth Century scored
big at the box office and made Carole Lombard a star.
Capra and Riskin; Hawks, Hecht and MacArthur—these and other
producers, directors and writers gave of their talents to create the screwball
comedy genre. This chapter concentrates on the partnership between a pro-
ducer, a director and a writer. As previously stated, many of the films men-
tioned herein will be discussed at greater length in Part II of this book.
In any discussion of the screwball comedy, a name invariably mentioned
is that of Frank Capra, a premier director of the 1930s. His films glorify
America and its rich heritage, while gently mocking its pomposity. Sicilian
by birth, he was six years old when he arrived on these shores in 1903 and
promptly began a love affair with his adopted land, one which never lessened
with the passage of time. He was an assistant and also gag writer for both
Hal Roach and Mack Sennett; his first feature film as a director came in 1926.
In 1928, he joined Columbia Pictures and remained at that studio until 1939.
East met West when Robert Riskin, an alumnus of New York’s Colum-
bia University, and Frank Capra, who had graduated from the California
Institute of Technology, discovered that they shared the same values and
ideas about filmmaking. Thus began a friendship and a collaboration result-
ing in some of the finest films ever made, four of which are part of the screw-
ball legend: Lady for a Day (Columbia, 1933), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and
the team’s two Oscar winners, the aforementioned It Happened One Night
and You Can’t Take It with You.

21
22 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Howard Hawks, an alumnus of Cornell University, spent summers in

the prop department at Famous Players–Lasky (which later became Para-
mount Pictures) and by 1924 was in the movie business to stay, at first making
several two-reel comedies. In 1934, he directed Twentieth Century, with a
screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur based on the Broadway
hit. The two writers had come into prominence via their stage hit The Front
Page. Both Hecht and MacArthur (the latter married to the well-known
actress Helen Hayes) had been Chicago journalists and their scathing com-
mentaries on the Fourth Estate had brought them fame and fortune. Inter-
estingly enough, the duo was not, however, hired to write the screenplay for
The Front Page. While MacArthur concentrated mainly on drama, Hecht
went on to write such screwball hits as Nothing Sacred, It’s a Wonderful World
and Design for Living.
Hawks’ other ventures into screwball comedy are Bringing Up Baby,
Ball of Fire and two post-war Fox releases, I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
and Monkey Business (1952).
Both Capra and Hawks remade one of their biggest hits, but neither
film reached the heights of the original. Capra’s Lady for a Day became Pock-
etful of Miracles (United Artists, 1961) with a woefully miscast Bette Davis
in the May Robson role while Hawks’s Ball of Fire re-emerged as A Song Is
Born (Goldwyn, 1948), a musical, with Danny Kaye in the role played by
Gary Cooper.
In contrast to Capra and Hawks, German-born Ernst Lubitsch brought
charm and sophistication to the American screen. Emigrating to the United
States in 1923, he directed a film with Mary Pickford. For a time in the
1930s, he was chief of production at Paramount and among the films made
during his tenure at that studio are Trouble in Paradise, Design for Living,
and Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife. After the Paramount stint, he moved over to
MGM and the incandescent Ninotchka. It was Lubitsch who directed Carole
Lombard in her last film To Be or Not to Be (United Artists, 1942).
After a varied career in Germany as a dancer, a journalist and a
scriptwriter, Austrian-born Billy Wilder migrated first to Mexico and then
to Hollywood. He began his long partnership with New York–born Charles
Brackett in 1938. Brackett, a New Yorker, had an interesting background:
While working as an attorney, he wrote novels and also articles for famous
magazines. Going to Hollywood on a six-week Paramount contract in 1932,
he remained with the studio until 1950. His meeting with Wilder gave the
movie capital one of its best behind-the-screen duos. One of their most
interesting collaborations is a comedy-drama titled Hold Back the Dawn
(Paramount, 1941). The idea for the film came from Wilder’s fertile mind;
it is supposedly a fictional and romanticized version of the time he spent in
Mexico awaiting his entrance into the United States.
 FOUR. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: BEHIND THE SCENES 23

For Ernst Lubitsch, Wilder and Brackett wrote the screenplays for Blue-
beard’s Eighth Wife and Greta Garbo’s Ninotchka. At work for Howard Hawks,
they penned the original story and screenplay of Ball of Fire and for Mitchell
Leisen, the script for Midnight.
The Major and the Minor, co-authored by the talented duo, marked
Billy’s debut as a film director. He and Brackett went on to write, produce
and direct several films together. Wilder was once quoted as saying that the
reason he became a director was simple: “I wanted to protect my words.”
Trained as an architect, Mitchell Leisen entered the film industry during
the silent era and served as an art director for Cecil B. DeMille (one of the
films he worked on is the 1923 silent version of The Ten Commandments). In
the 1930s, he began to direct his own films. His screwball hits include Hands
Across the Table, written by Norman Krasna, Easy Living, a story from the
pen of Preston Sturges, whom we will meet shortly, Take a Letter, Darling
and No Time for Love, both having an original story and screenplay by Claude
Binyon, and Practically Yours (Paramount, 1944), with Krasna providing story
and screenplay.
The prolific Krasna, New York City–born and bred, attended law school,
then served as drama editor on two East Coast newspapers, before making
the trek westward. After a stint in the publicity department at Warner Broth-
ers, he focused on his writing. Besides those mentioned above, his contri-
butions to the screwball genre include The Richest Girl in the World, Mr. and
Mrs. Smith and The Devil and Miss Jones.
Claude Binyon also led a rich and varied professional life in Hollywood.
Producer and director were two of the hats he wore, but he is best known
for his credits as a writer. For several films, he teamed with director Wesley
Ruggles. A native Californian, Ruggles, like his brother Charles, was an actor
in silent films, learning much from his boss Mack Sennett. In 1917, he tried
his hand at directing, but his budding career was interrupted by World War
I (he served as a Signal Corps cameraman). After the cessation of hostilities,
he returned to filmmaking. Switching from silents to talkies with ease, he
worked for Universal during the 1920s, Paramount in the 1930s, and MGM
and Columbia in the 1940s.
When screwball films became popular, Binyon became his head writer.
The Ruggles-Binyon team produced such classics as The Gilded Lily, The
Bride Comes Home, True Confession, I Met Him in Paris, You Belong to Me and
Too Many Husbands.
Like many of his peers, Leo McCarey’s career began in the early days
of the film industry. After earning a law degree at the University of Southern
California, he worked as an assistant director for Hal Roach. It was McCarey
who first envisioned Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as a comedy team, sub-
sequently directing several of their most famous films.
24 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

During his long tenure in Hollywood, he was a producer, writer and

director, and received Oscars for The Awful Truth (Best Director) and for
Paramount’s 1944 Going My Way (one as Best Director, the other for Best
Original Story). Besides The Awful Truth, his screwball hits include My
Favorite Wife (producer and co-writer), Ruggles of Red Gap (Paramount, 1935)
and Once Upon a Honeymoon (RKO, 1942). On the last film, a curious mix
of drama and screwball comedy, with some elements of screwball thrown in,
McCarey served as co-writer and director.
Like McCarey and several others in this chapter, George Cukor was
probably expected to become a lawyer as had his father before him. Instead,
the native New Yorker took an active interest in the theater, working as a
stage manager on Broadway and as a director in summer stock. In the latter
capacity, he came into contact with future stars Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins
and Robert Montgomery.
After a stint as a dialogue director at both Paramount and Universal,
Cukor became a full-fledged director, noted for his ability to tame tempera-
mental female stars. Two of his contributions to the screwball genre starred
Katharine Hepburn and were based upon hit plays by Philip Barry: the sec-
ond version of Holiday and the unforgettable The Philadelphia Story. Both
screenplays were written by longtime Hepburn friend, Donald Ogden Stew-
art.
Cukor also directed Two-Faced Woman, the swan song for Greta Garbo.
Though certainly not on a par with Ninotchka, the film is not quite the
“turkey” of legend.
A good friend to both Hepburn and Cukor, Garson Kanin was a triple
threat personality. A producer-director (and, in collaboration with his actress
wife Ruth Gordon, a screenwriter), Kanin began his show business career as
assistant to theatrical producer-director George Abbott and by 1938, he was
directing on his own in Hollywood. Among his screwball ventures are The
Next Time I Marry (RKO, 1938), a minor effort starring the queen of the
RKO “B” films, Lucille Ball, and three major hits: Bachelor Mother, My
Favorite Wife and Tom, Dick and Harry.
With Cukor directing, Kanin and his wife co-authored two highly
entertaining comedies of the post-war era for Hepburn and Spencer Tracy,
MGM’s Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952). Each contains elements
of screwball. In 1971, Kanin wrote a memoir about his friends. It is a look
into the relationship, both public and private, between the two great stars.
Michigan-born Norman Z. McLeod’s formative years gave no indica-
tion as to his future choice of career. The son of a clergyman, he went to
the University of Washington and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force
during World War I. He then began a stint as a gag writer and soon gravitated
into directing films. Between 1930 and 1946, he worked for Paramount,
 FOUR. SCREWBALL PERSONNEL: BEHIND THE SCENES 25

MGM and United Artists. His screwball ventures include Merrily We Live,
There Goes My Heart, and Topper Takes a Trip.
Some directors take an interminable amount of time in making a film,
demanding take after take after take to achieve the desired results. Not so
W.S. Van Dyke, a.k.a. “One Take Woody.” A native of San Diego, Van Dyke
performed in stock and in vaudeville. By 1915, he was a member of the film
community, working as an extra in silent films. His apprenticeship in the
burgeoning industry continued with a stint as an assistant to D.W. Griffith
on the latter’s monumental 1916 production Intolerance. As a full-fledged
director, he freelanced at Fox and MGM; after 1929, he worked solely for
the latter company.
Upon completion of the crime yarn Manhattan Melodrama (1934) which
starred Clark Gable, William Powell and Myrna Loy, he put the last two
named to work in a fast-paced comedy-mystery, The Thin Man, based upon
characters created by popular writer Dashiell Hammett. The film was a run-
away hit, prompting MGM to make a slew of sequels, five in all. Van Dyke
directed all but the last two, which were filmed after his untimely death in
1943 at the age of 58. Besides the Thin Man series, he also directed the
Powell-Loy duo in the delightful I Love You Again (MGM, 1940). His other
screwball comedies are the zany It’s a Wonderful World and Love on the Run.
Gregory La Cava did not make many screwball comedies during his
long career, but he deserves mention here if only for the brilliant My Man
Godfrey (he not only directed, he co-wrote the screenplay). An art student
(The Chicago Institute of Art and New York’s Art Students League), then
magazine cartoonist, La Cava began his Hollywood career by drawing car-
toon characters for Walter Lantz.
By the mid–1920s, he had turned to directing. His ventures into the
screwball genre include Columbia’s She Married Her Boss, filmed just before
Godfrey, and RKO’s Fifth Avenue Girl, released three years after his master-
piece.
William A. Seiter began directing silent shorts in 1918 and graduated
to full-length features during the 1920s. His forays into screwball include
The Richest Girl in the World, If You Could Only Cook, The Moon’s Our Home,
Three Blind Mice and Hired Wife.
A native of Philadelphia, William Keighley got his start by acting and
directing on the Broadway stage. He came to Hollywood in the early 1920s
and became a leading film director. In 1938, he married actress Genevieve
Tobin, whom he directed in No Time for Comedy, Other screwballs under his
belt include The Bride Came C.O.D. and George Washington Slept Here
(Warner Brothers, 1942). Radio buffs will also remember Keighley replacing
Cecil B. DeMille as host of The Lux Radio Theater, a weekly program which
recreated films for the listening audience, often using their original stars.
26 PART I : THE ESSENCE OF SCREWBALL

Two writers who worked for Keighley share the distinction of being,
thus far, the only set of twins in the fraternity of Hollywood scribes. Philip
and Julius Epstein are better known, however, as the co-scriptwriters of the
legendary Casablanca (Warner Brothers, 1942), for which they received an
Oscar. The brothers’ association with Keighley brought forth such screwball
hits as the aforementioned No Time for Comedy and The Bride Came C.O.D.,
also The Man Who Came to Dinner (the latter adapted from the Broadway
hit by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart). On his own, Philip wrote the
original screenplay for the delightful screwball comedy mystery The Mad
Miss Manton.
Last, but not in any way least, we turn our attention to Preston Sturges,
the inventive genius behind several of Hollywood’s finest comedies. In true
screwball style, he had a sharp biting wit, his films satirizing many of our
sacred cows and established institutions.
Chicago-born Sturges received his education in Europe and, while still
in his teens, worked in his mother’s cosmetics business. After serving in the
Air Corps towards the end of World War I, he became a Broadway stage
manager and was soon writing plays, among them Strictly Dishonorable, which
was later filmed twice, once in the early 1930s and again in the 1950s. During
the latter half of the 1930s, Sturges became a familiar part of the Hollywood
scene, writing The Good Fairy and Easy Living.
Sturges’ first opportunity as a director came at Paramount in 1940 with
The Great McGinty, an assault upon American politics, for which he won an
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. This was his first directing
job and all of Hollywood was agog. In quick succession, he followed McGinty
with the comedic gems Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels
(1941), The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Hail the Con-
quering Hero (all Paramount) and Unfaithfully Yours, a 1948 Fox release.
By the early 1950s, Sturges had moved to France. The films made during
this period of his life lacked the combination of sophisticated comedy and
pratfall farce which had been his trademark. Gone since 1959, he is remem-
bered with fondness by buffs and students of film.
Capra and Sturges—the beginning and end of this chapter. In between
are the many producers, directors and writers who gave of their talent and,
in some cases, their genius to the art of the screwball comedy.
It is time now to take a look at the finished products of these collabo-
rations.
 PART II. THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Chapter Five

Screwball Guys and Gals:

Heirs and Heiresses

Young, attractive, spoiled, very rich, and prone to get into all sorts of
zany situations—these are the screwball heirs and heiresses of the 1930s and
early 1940s.
These high-toned ladies and gentlemen populate some of the most hilar-
ious motion pictures ever made. Down deep, all of them crave happiness
with the right mate. Armed with their looks and their wealth, they go about
attaining their goals in various ways, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
They range from Barbara Stanwyck’s tough-minded Texan of Breakfast for
Two and radical’s girlfriend of Red Salute to the “decadent” count Melvyn
Douglas portrays in Ninotchka to Tyrone Power posing as a member of royalty
in Cafe Metropole to Robert Young’s wealthy playboy in The Bride Comes
Home and Katharine Hepburn’s dizzy heiress of Bringing Up Baby. In between
are the many others whose “lifestyles of the rich and famous” go from being
mistaken as a maid, to posing as a secretary to find true love, to being the
other man in a triangle. In most cases, it’s the girl who has all the money.
The fact that there are problems inherent in being rich is made abun-
dantly clear in the screwball comedies of the era. Depression audiences
delighted in the shenanigans which gave them respite from their own woes.
The icing on the cake was that they could watch some of the biggest stars
(and stars-to-be) in the industry engaging in these antics.
To wit: Lucille Ball is the zany heiress of The Next Time I Marry (RKO,
1938) and is in a real bind: She must marry a working stiff in order to inherit
$20 million. She devises a plan where she’ll marry as stipulated. When the
money is in her hot little hands, she will fly to Reno, get a divorce and then
tie the knot with a poor but titled nobleman, played by American-born actor
Lee Bowman.
She marries a good-looking government projects worker, a real “pick

27
28 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

and shovel” man, played by James Ellison. (There is an element of realism

in this as, by that time, President Roosevelt had initiated several such projects
in order to create jobs.) His character is a man of principles and their initial
battles are continued on a cross-country dash during which she realizes that
she loves him. Exit the nobleman, who really isn’t so noble after all.
The Next Time I Marry was more than a decade away from the lovable
redhead’s sensational television debut; for some of those years, she was a
contract player at RKO, then at MGM, starring in both comedies and dra-
mas.
Several screwball comedies in the runaway rich girl vein had their genesis
in It Happened One Night. None achieved the everlasting fame of this classic,
but a few are quite amusing. We will take a look at some others as we go
further into this chapter.
A tougher image of the screwball heiress is to be found in Barbara Stan-
wyck’s portrayal of Valentine Ransom in Breakfast for Two (RKO, 1937). She
is a sharp, no-nonsense gal who meets a profligate playboy named Jonathan
Blair (Herbert Marshall). His once prosperous business, a family-owned
steamship line, is suffering and he is perpetually hung over from the revelries
of a constant round of nightclubs, but he doesn’t care. He thinks he’s happy
and he’s even engaged to a gold-digging actress named Carol, played by
Glenda Farrell.
Enter Valentine, the Texas Tornado. For some unfathomable reason,
she has fallen for Jonathan and decides to “rehabilitate” him: “Men are like
horses. Sometimes they need a whip to put some sense into them.”
In this screwball, the man is the weak one; the woman is stronger and,
in this case, brainier. Valentine secretly buys up all the stock in Jonathan’s
company, thinking that this will make him fight for what is his. He, however,
does nothing. She takes over his household and only then does the tension
begin to mount. Valentine picks up a pair of boxing gloves “conveniently”
lying around and the struggle is on. He is now fighting to recoup his business
and recover his life.
If Jonathan thinks that Valentine will soon be out of his hair, he is
wrong. The resourceful gal has one more trick up her sleeve. Just as he is
about to marry the brainless Carol, his butler (Eric Blore, in one of his
patented roles) finds a marriage license in his employer’s pocket. “That’s big-
otry,” yells Carol, and she exits.
Of course, there is no real license; Valentine has planted a phony one
in the pocket. At the film’s “happy” ending, the two marry. As the judge,
played by Donald Meek, pronounces them man and wife, he throws his hands
above his head—and a boxing glove is on each.
An interesting star pairing. The dialogue between Stanwyck and Mar-
shall and the scenes with Blore and Farrell make for a fun film.
 FIVE. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: HEIRS AND HEIRESSES 29

In Red Salute (United Artists), Barbara is Drue Van Allen, the wealthy
and badly spoiled daughter of an army general. She imagines herself in love
with a radical student (Hardie Albright), and her dad (Henry Kolker) is
afraid for her. He arranges to have her shipped (read “kidnapped”) to Mexico
in hopes that she will give up her extremist ways and equally extremist boy-
friend.
South of the border, Drue meets up with a soldier named Jeff (Robert
Young). He goes A.W.O.L. to help her get back to the States. Along the
way, they argue about politics, but also fall in love. He lets her know that
he is on to her, that she is not the radical she thinks she is. He then shows
his political views by breaking up a rally of Liberal League of International
Students, which has been organized by Drue’s ex-boyfriend.
When the film was released in 1935, critics called it “a bad imitation”
of It Happened One Night. At its New York City premiere, members of the
leftist National Student’s League picketed the theater, urging patrons not
to see it. The majority of moviegoers seeing the film were not interested in
any message; they were paying their money to see Stanwyck and Young in
action.
On a similar theme, Brenda Joyce and George Murphy are the adver-
saries in Public Deb Number One (Fox, 1940). The film tells the tale of Penny
Cooper ( Joyce), the heiress of the Cooper Soup fortune. At the beginning
of the film, the spoiled young lady is seen taking part in a rally taking place
in New York City’s Union Square. She and her leftist pals are picked up and
hauled into court, but she is released.
Soon after her “arrest,” Penny and her sometimes suitor (Ralph Bellamy)
dine at The Red Samovar. She and a waiter, Alan Blake (played by top-
billed future U.S. Senator Murphy), argue about Communism and also about
her “friends”—he calls them “a bunch of people who want something for
nothing.” The two continue the argument until Alan suddenly decides to
spank the deb and he does just that, to her utter humiliation. He is now the
darling of the press.
Enter our ditsy heroine’s uncle (Charles Ruggles), Mr. “Cooper Soups”
himself. He offers Alan an executive position and encourages the enterprising
young man’s courtship of his niece. She realizes that in spite of, or perhaps
because of what has occurred, that she really loves him. Penny is now a former
Red Sympathizer; she has undergone a 180-degree change. Another victory
for capitalism. An interesting premise, a lively film.
Along for laughs are Mischa Auer, Maxie Rosenbloom, Franklin Pang-
born and America’s foremost party giver of the 1930s and 1940s, Elsa Max-
well.
But wait, there are more triumphs ahead for the capitalistic way of life.
After a spate of somber roles, Greta Garbo felt she needed a change of pace.
30 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Ninotchka (1939): Greta Garbo and her troika (Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman and
Alexander Granach) are up to something.

She wanted to star in a comedy and work with her fellow European, Ernst
Lubitsch. The feeling was mutual on the part of the famed director, and the
result was MGM’s delightful Ninotchka.
The brainchild of Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch,
the film concerns three Soviet commissars who are sent to Paris to recover
jewelry taken out of the country by members of the White Russian nobility,
led by Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire). Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopolski,
hilariously played by screwball veterans Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart and
Alexander Granach, respectively, are seduced by the magic of this lovely city
and are loathe to return to Mother Russia.
Enter special envoy Lena Yakushova (Garbo), whose assignment is to
check up on the bumbling threesome. Through them, she meets Count Leon
Dalgout (Melvyn Douglas), an elegant, debonair heir to a fortune. At first
the man about town is amused by her and then finds himself falling in love
with her. She is caustic, stoic and self-controlled. He talks about love, she
talks about sewers and engineering. But gradually, she falls under his spell.
He calls her “Ninotchka”—she smiles—she laughs—she is happy.
When she and her friends are summoned home, they go. Through a
 FIVE. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: HEIRS AND HEIRESSES 31

ruse, engineered by Leon, they are all reunited in Constantinople, Ninotchka

slipping into the arms of her lover, the troika to open a restaurant, sponsored
by Dalgout, featuring the specialties of the Russia they once knew and loved.
In the supporting cast are George Tobias and 1930s bogeyman Bela Lugosi.
Garbo, the film and its trio of writers were all nominated for Oscars, but as
1939 was the year of Gone with the Wind, none of them were winners.
A musical remake of Ninotchka, Silk Stockings, was released by MGM
in 1957. It stars Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Although Fred and Cyd are
spectacular in the musical numbers, there is no comparison to Douglas and
Garbo.
In a change of pace, Douglas is seen as a Communist agitator in He Stayed
for Breakfast (Columbia, 1940). The setting is again Paris, where Douglas
has shot a banker and unknowingly takes refuge in the apartment belonging
to the latter’s estranged wife (Loretta Young). From the lovely Loretta, the
erstwhile Communist learns about life, love and luxury. Though the two
stars struggle bravely, and there is a scene-stealing performance by Una
O’Connor as Young’s dizzy maid, the film is a minor one and has largely been
forgotten by all but the most serious movie buffs. Others in the cast include
Eugene Pallette, Alan Marshall and Leonid Kinskey.
Loretta is teamed with Tyrone Power in Cafe Metropole (Fox, 1937). Power,
unlike the “hero” of He Stayed for Breakfast, is no Communist. He plays an
American in debt to a nightclub owner. He is ordered by the owner to pose
as a Russian nobleman and pursue heiress Young; the object matrimony and
money. The plan backfires when the two fall in love. A nice solution to the
problem, if there ever was one. The movie was a money-maker for Fox.
Posing as someone else is part of Miriam Hopkins’ movie world as can
be seen by two of the films she made in the 1930s. In The Richest Girl in the
World (RKO, 1934) she plays the title role. Dorothy Hunter (Hopkins) is an
unconventional heiress who thinks that every man who looks in her eyes
sees dollar signs. This poor little rich girl poses as her own secretary in order
to avoid publicity and possibly find a man who will love her for herself. This
leads to several humorous complications.
Anthony Travis ( Joel McCrea) makes no secret of the fact that he would
like to be the richest guy in the world. He makes a play for Sylvia (Fay Wray,
famous for her blood-curdling King Kong scream), the phony Dorothy, but
is attracted to the real one. The latter pushes him away, but soon realizes
that she’s fallen for him—and now she is sorry that she started the whole
thing. By film’s end, when Travis tells the phony Dorothy that he loves her
secretary, the masquerade is revealed. The guy is thrilled. And why not? He’s
hit the daily double. He has the girl he loves and all that lovely money. The
film’s original story and screenplay were written by young screenwriter Nor-
man Krasna.
32 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

RKO remade The Richest Girl in the World in 1944 as Bride by Mistake
with Marsha Hunt, Alan Marshal and, in the Hopkins role, Laraine Day.
As in most cases, the remake is a “mistake” and does not have the verve of
the original.
Hopkins portrays another heiress in Wise Girl (RKO, 1937). This time,
the plot concerns her attempts to take the children of her dead sister away
from their paternal uncle (played by Ray Milland), a Greenwich Village
artist whom she considers unfit to raise the children. She has tried to get
them by any means possible, but the artist is adamant that she cannot have
the kids.
The two adults have never met so Hopkins devises a scheme: She passes
herself off as a working girl, disowned by her family years before, and infil-
trates the zany artists colony. When the two adversaries meet, there is a
mutual dislike as the battle of the sexes begins. But in true screwball style,
all is forgiven: Aunt and Uncle will marry and raise the children in tandem.
A Greenwich Village artist is also one of the central characters in Live,
Love and Learn (MGM, 1937). An heiress (Rosalind Russell) leaves her
cushy life to marry a struggling artist (Robert Montgomery). Through her
connections, he becomes successful, but his newfound fame goes to his head.
Wife leaves husband, his swelled head comes back to normal and the two
get a second chance. They’ve lived, they’ve loved and he’s learned. Heading
a veritable “Who’s Who” lineup of supporting players are Robert Benchley,
Mickey Rooney and Billy Gilbert.
Greenwich Village could be a good place for a lady architect to attract
a wealthy man to invest in her dreams. Joel McCrea is again leading man to
Miriam Hopkins in Woman Chases Man (Goldwyn, 1937). In an about-face,
it is McCrea, as Kenneth Nolan, who has all the money and is tight-fisted
when it comes to matters financial. His father B.J. Nolan, engagingly played
by Charles Winninger, and Virginia Travis (Hopkins), an architect, scheme
to get him to invest in a building project.
The young woman is very serious about her profession. She tells a
prospective client, “I know what you’re thinking—that I’m a girl.... I’ve stud-
ied like a man and researched like a man. There is nothing feminine about
my mind.” In other words, she can prove that she is as good as any male in
the profession she has chosen.
The son is reluctant to join the two in their project, so Dad pretends
that he is the one rolling in dough. He and Hopkins arrange a party to raise
money and get two movie usher friends, Judy (Ella Logan, who would later
star in the Broadway musical Finian’s Rainbow) and Hank (Broderick Craw-
ford), to serve as maid and butler. These two do not know what they’re doing
and the result is hilarious chaos, a screwball staple.
McCrea finally surrenders as he is in love with the lady architect. At
 FIVE. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: HEIRS AND HEIRESSES 33

Woman Chases Man (1937): Miriam Hopkins is not the delicate female she seems
to be. Watch out, Joel McCrea!

film’s end, she winds up in the arms of the millionaire, much to the delight
of his father. She will definitely not give up her career.
Though some of the films discussed thus far may not be one hundred
percent screwball, they contain enough of its elements to be included in this
chapter.
In the main, the Misses Stanwyck and Hopkins are the more clever of
the screwball heiresses: They know what they want, and their cleverness comes
out through the antics they indulge in to get what they want. A couple of
the ladies we are about to meet are just as pretty and just as rich, but there
is one big difference: They are exasperating to their families and to the men
in their lives, being eccentric and unconventional in various ways.
Exasperating is just the word to describe Susan Vance in Bringing Up
Baby. The film, which stars Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, was con-
sidered an unmitigated disaster in 1938, the year of its release. While Grant
was popular and his films were bringing money into the RKO coffers, the same
could not be said for Hepburn. After a series of poor quality films, she had
just been labeled “Box-Office Poison” by the Independent Theater Owner’s
Association (Fred Astaire and Marlene Dietrich were two other personalities
34 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

making the list). Another problem besetting the film was that producer-
director Howard Hawks allowed it to go over-budget. It lost over $360,000.
All of this aside, Baby is pure screwball and is now considered a classic.
In the film, Grant plays David Huxley, a stuffy paleontologist. His life
is sedate and orderly. He is trying to obtain a grant to keep his work ongoing.
He is engaged to a dull, drab girl named Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker)
who exhorts him to forget about their forthcoming honeymoon and keep
going on with his project.
A far cry from Alice is Hepburn’s Susan Vance, a giddy society girl.
David meets her on a golf course where she uses his ball and then in the
parking lot where she damages his car. He soon learns that it is her Aunt
Elizabeth from whom he hopes to get his grant, so David is now irretrievably
tied to Susan.
Susan’s pets include George, a fox terrier played by the lovable Asta,
and “Baby,” a leopard who purrs in ecstasy upon hearing the song “I Can’t
Give You Anything but Love, Baby.” This tune is heard throughout the film.
Susan asks David to help her transport “Baby” from her apartment to
her farm in Connecticut. Her reasoning? “Imagine Aunt Elizabeth coming
here and running into a leopard. That would mean an end to your million
dollars.” This is to say that she is the one who will help him to get the money.
At breakneck speed, the scenario finds the duo losing a priceless bone
which the dog finds and buries, making them scamper after him in search
of the burial spot. They also mistake a dangerous wild leopard on the loose
for “Baby,” after which they wind up in jail.
Some frantically funny scenes stand out. While at a nightclub, David
tries to shield Susan, whose dress has been torn off in the back; David wears
a frilly housecoat (Susan has sent his suit out to be pressed without his
knowledge); the jail scene during which she pretends to be a gangster’s moll.
Aiding and abetting the two are May Robson as Aunt Elizabeth and Charles
Ruggles as a big game hunter who specializes in imitating loons. Also in the
cast are Fritz Feld, Jonathan Hale and Barry Fitzgerald.
At film’s end, David is working on his project, the building of a bron-
tosaurus skeleton. In comes Susan, who she has the lost bone and announces
that Aunt Elizabeth has given her the money for him. She climbs on a rickety
ladder that collapses and pushes her into David. The skeleton collapses and
so do David’s defenses. His last words are, “Oh dear, oh my.” He will give
up his strait-laced fiancée and opt for the uncertainties of life with the unpre-
dictable Susan.
A change of pace role for Hepburn was her character in Holiday, made
the same year as Bringing Up Baby, but for a different studio (Columbia) and
again pairing her with Grant. It was based on the play by Philip Barry; the
leading role had been understudied by Hepburn on Broadway. The first ver-
 FIVE. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: HEIRS AND HEIRESSES 35

Bringing Up Baby (1938): Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Baby. Cary is
befuddled. Katharine is dizzy and what about the bone?

sion of Holiday was filmed in 1930 with Ann Harding, Mary Astor, Robert
Ames and Edward Everett Horton in the principal roles. The second version,
besides its two stars, features Lew Ayres, Doris Nolan, Jean Dixon and,
reprising his 1930 role, Edward Everett Horton.
Johnny Case (Grant) is a cheerful non-conformist who has no money
to speak of and really couldn’t care less. His take on life is that a man should
enjoy a “holiday” from regular employment while still in his prime so as to
discover life and enjoy himself, then return to the work force in his later
years.
He meets a socially prominent heiress, Julia Seton (Nolan), daughter
of a wealthy banker, and becomes engaged to her. He is then introduced to
her family: her father Edward Seton (Henry Kolker), whom she worships,
her brother Ned (Ayres), who usually has a drink in his hand, and her sister
Linda (Hepburn), an unconventional girl, exasperating to her father and her
sister.
Seton Sr. has it all worked out: He will give them the wedding, he will
build them a house and Johnny will work in a bank. All of this Julia applauds.
36 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Johnny tries to explain to her that this is not at all what he wants, but he can-
not change her mind. This begins a gentle battle of the sexes.
Johnny takes refuge with Julia’s sister. Linda is very unlike her sibling:
She is sympathetic to Johnny, agreeing with his philosophy of life. In her
playroom, in contrast with a fancy dress dinner going on downstairs, he lets
his hair down, joins in on the antics, plays games and really enjoys himself.
They invite his friends, Nick and Susan Potter (Horton and Dixon), to spend
time with them and Linda’s brother Ned. Johnny is happy being himself.
The conclusion has Johnny breaking off with Julia and boarding a steam-
ship to far-away places. Linda, having been tipped off to his plans by the
Potters, joins him and the two realize that they truly belong together. The
last scene shows Grant doing a backflip, an acknowledgment of his pre-
acting career as an acrobat.
Holiday is a sharp and penetrating commentary on the values of the era’s
so-called upper classes, a screwball requisite and, in one way, a case of mis-
taken identity, as Johnny soon realizes that Linda, not Julia, is the girl for
him. The film did well at the box office. Two years later, Grant and Hepburn
scored a resounding hit in the movie version of another Philip Barry play (see
Chapter Thirteen).
Hepburn’s Linda of Holiday is very unlike her daffy Susan Vance in
Bringing Up Baby, but the two are sisters under the skin in their relish for
life and their quest for happiness. They just go about attaining their goals
in different ways. And when the prize is Cary Grant in the guise of Johnny
Case or David Huxley, anything goes.
Just as scatterbrained as Susan Vance is Irene Dunne’s character in Lady
in a Jam. In this minor 1942 Universal release, she is an heiress with a passion
for numerology who has squandered away the fortune that her grandfather left
her. She meets and falls in love with a psychiatrist played by Patric Knowles.
Enter Irene’s feisty grandma (Queenie Vassar), who facilitates a happy
ending by opening up an old but rich vein in an abandoned Arizona quartz
mine. This feat allows granddaughter and the shrink the continuation of a
lifestyle to which they are accustomed. Along for the ride are such screwball
stalwarts as Eugene Pallette and Ralph Bellamy, the latter in his usual role
as “the other man.”
The film was not among Dunne’s finest and neither was it a feather in
the cap of director Gregory La Cava. He would make one more movie before
his death in the early 1950s.
A discernible quality in many a screwball heiress is her stubbornness.
The most famous example of this is Claudette Colbert’s Ellie Andrews in
It Happened One Night. Colbert and her imperious peers think they can get
what they want just by crooking their little fingers, but in screwball comedies,
it doesn’t always work out that way (see Chapter Nine).
 FIVE. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: HEIRS AND HEIRESSES 37

Socialite Merle Oberon wants barrister Laurence Olivier in The Divorce

of Lady X (United Artists, 1938) and will do all in her power to get him. The
film, using the theme of mistaken identity, was produced in England by
Alexander Korda, whom Oberon married in 1939 and divorced six years later,
and contains many of the elements that are to be found in the American
screwball comedies so popular during that pre-war era.
As the story unfolds, Oberon is at a charity ball in an over-crowded
hotel. She and another woman (Binnie Barnes) are wearing identical gowns.
When a thick fog envelops the area and Oberon can’t get home, she spends
the night in the room of a young barrister. It is all very innocent and every-
thing would be fine, except that a case of mistaken identity has taken place.
A friend of the barrister’s (Ralph Richardson) thinks that his wife, the woman
wearing the same dress as Oberon, is having an affair—and he sees a woman
coming out of a man’s suite in the morning. He doesn’t know who the man
is and hires Olivier to represent him. The lawyer, upon hearing the story,
knows that he is the man and concludes that Oberon is Richardson’s wife.
This comedy of errors is finally straightened out to everyone’s satisfaction:
The married couple are happily reunited and Olivier and Oberon wind up
in a clinch. It’s a well done comedy of errors.
In the same year, Merle appeared in UA’s The Cowboy and the Lady, this
time as an American. She is bored and rich, the daughter of a presidential
candidate. One night in Palm Beach, she goes out with her maid (played by
the always hilarious Patsy Kelly) and meets up with rodeo rider Gary Cooper.
She tells him that she is a lady’s maid. The two fall in love and elope. His
plans are to quit the rodeo and settle down in Montana.
Prior to traveling west, she returns to Palm Beach to help her father
with an important political dinner. Cooper, still unaware of his wife’s true
identity, unexpectedly shows up at the mansion as the dinner is about to
begin. He discovers his wife’s duplicity and, during the course of the evening,
proceeds to tell the august stuffed shirts what he thinks of them. He goes
to Montana; she is in tears. Dad comes through and, with his help, she goes
to Montana to be a rancher’s wife.
The film’s attempt to poke fun at the rich and powerful is a weak one.
A good supporting cast, including Walter Brennan and Fuzzy Knight as
Cooper’s rodeo pals, Harry Davenport as Merle’s uncle and Thelma Todd
as another maid, are wasted. Also, Oberon and Cooper are an incongruous
pair. With another actress, an American, the film might have been somewhat
better.
In Maid’s Night Out (RKO, 1938), there is a double case of mistaken
identity. Joan Fontaine is cast as an heiress whom leading man Allan Lane
thinks is a maid. She, in turn, thinks that he is a milkman. He is nothing
of the kind. He is as wealthy as she is; he is only delivering milk to settle a
38 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

bet with his father. Dad doesn’t think that his son can last for even a month
in any kind of job, and Sonny is out to prove him wrong.
After a series of zany escapades, including a mad dash in a milk wagon,
Fontaine and Lane discover the truth about each other and, as Shakespeare
once wrote, “all’s well that ends well.” Also taking part in the goings-on are
Billy Gilbert, Cecil Kellaway and Hedda Hopper. Fontaine went on to true
stardom in dramatic fare and won a 1941 Oscar for her performance in Alfred
Hitchcock’s Suspicion.
Another Oscar winner, Bette Davis, plays Joan Winfield, a stubborn
girl who usually gets what she wants, in The Bride Came C.O.D., a Warner
Brothers 1941 release. She is a temperamental oil heiress, about to elope with
egotistical bandleader Allen Brice ( Jack Carson) whom she has only known
for four days. Her astounded father Lucius Winfield (rotund screwball vet-
eran Eugene Pallette) hires charter pilot Steve Collins ( James Cagney) to
bring her home unmarried.
Joan is infuriated by this interference and tries to thwart Steve at every
turn. Eventually, after several screwball escapades, including an escape
attempt from a ghost town in which they have had to make a forced landing,
she has fallen for the rough-hewn Steve who has taken her down a peg and
given Brice the heave-ho. It’s an enjoyable romp, with Davis and Cagney
doing a good job of playing off each other with the laughs coming fast and
furiously.
A truly perplexing problem facing several rich and beautiful screwball
heroines is that of choosing between two eager swains. In Love Before Break-
fast (Universal, 1936), Carole Lombard is sought after by both Preston Foster
and Cesar Romero. Each pursue the lovely blonde avidly—their intentions
are matrimony—and the fun is in the ways that they try to outdo one another.
In the final reel, it is Foster, the older, wealthier man who puts the ring on
her finger. In true Hollywood fashion, the guy who gets the gal was the more
important actor at the time. It was a minor Lombard film.
Claudette Colbert, another highly skilled practitioner in the art of
screwball, faces a similar dilemma, but with a difference, in Paramount’s The
Bride Comes Home. She plays Jeannette Desmareau, a recently impoverished
society girl who is loved by both wealthy Jack Bristow (Robert Young) and
his bodyguard, Cyrus Anderson (Fred MacMurray). She is constantly switch-
ing her matrimonial decisions back and forth and is about to elope with
Young, but in the final reel, it is Fred who winds up with the curvaceous
Claudette. As in the case of Preston Foster vs. Cesar Romero, MacMurray
was a bigger star than Young in 1936. As the latter’s star ascended in the
Hollywood firmament, he got the girls (Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr
and, yes, Colbert, among others).
Young is again a wealthy man in Bridal Suite (MGM, 1939). A playboy
 FIVE. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: HEIRS AND HEIRESSES 39

by nature, he proposes to women, but seldom appears at his own weddings.

His new bride, played by French import Annabella, makes sure he will be
beside her in the chapel. In this minor screwball scenario, the cast also
includes Walter Connolly, the everpresent Billie Burke, Reginald Gardiner
and Arthur Treacher.
Vivacious Ann Sothern was some years away from her MGM Maisie
series and even further away from superstardom as television’s Private Sec-
retary when she appeared in RKO’s Walking on Air (1936). In the film, she
plays a rich girl whose father is outraged by her choice of husband: a slick
fortune hunter (Alan Curtis). The resourceful young woman concocts an
ingenious scheme to make Dad change his mind: She hires a struggling
singer (Gene Raymond) to impersonate a suitor so obnoxious that her family
will have to approve of her marriage. In the meantime, Raymond has decided
that he wants Ann for himself and mounts a radio campaign to get her. In
true screwball fashion, Curtis gets the “air’’ and Raymond will marry the
girl. Also featured in the cast are Jessie Ralph as Ann’s salty, no-nonsense
aunt and Henry Stephenson as her bemused papa.
RKO was pleased with the results of the teaming and that same year
paired them again in The Smartest Girl in Town. The plot line deals with a
romance between a lovely model and a millionaire. This time it is Raymond
who has the money. It’s another case of mistaken identity as model Sothern
thinks that the wealthy young man is a fellow model. She doesn’t know that
his butler (the irrepressible Eric Blore) is merely fronting the ad agency for
his boss. In the end, she knows the truth and is happily nestled in the hero’s
arms. It was another hit for the studio. Also involved in this merry mix-up
is veteran actress Helen Broderick as Sothern’s sister.
There is an old saying, “Don’t mess with success.” So RKO bought a
third story for its two stars, She’s Got Everything. In this 1937 release, Ann
is an heiress who is very much in debt. As the film opens, her aunt (Helen
Broderick) and one of her creditors (Victor Moore) are trying to promote a
marriage between Ann and a wealthy young coffee tycoon (Raymond—again
it’s the man who has the money), after which she will be able to pay off all
that she owes.
Neither is aware that their strings are being pulled. When they do find
out what their elders, Moore and Broderick, are up to, they are incensed and
they separate. True to the code of Hollywood screwball comedy, they are
reunited before “The End” is flashed on the screen. Aiding and abetting are
Billy Gilbert and Jack Carson.
It must be remembered that the ladies and gentlemen we have met thus
far are not the only “heroes” and “heroines” of the genre. Various types inhabit
its several subgenres. Many work for a living and their jobs are integral to
the screwball plot. It is time now to meet some of these working stiffs.
 Chapter Six

Screwball Guys and Gals:

The Working Stiffs

Ginger Rogers is Polly Parrish, a department store clerk in Bachelor

Mother. Passing a foundling home, she finds an abandoned baby on the door-
step and spends much of the film’s running time denying that the child is
hers.
No one believes her, including her employer J.B. Merlin (Charles Coburn)
and his son David (David Niven), whom the home has contacted. She is
fired by Niven for being an unwed mother. But when the young man becomes
intrigued with her and begins to take an interest in both her and the baby,
even though at first she evinces none in him (it is a classic case of cross class
relationships), old man Merlin begins to think that the little tyke is really
his natural grandson. We know that the baby is not, but by the time the final
credits roll, it is obvious Polly will become “Mrs. Young Millionaire” and
that, in one fell swoop, the cherubic Mr. Merlin will have two new additions
to his family.
The film turned a tidy profit for RKO in 1939. It is interesting to note
that Rogers did not like the Norman Krasna script, but had to play the role
because she was under contract to the studio. This delightful comedy was
one of the best films in her long and varied career.
In 1956, RKO remade the film as a musical. Bundle of Joy stars the then-
married Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, with Adolphe Menjou
in the Coburn role. The public considered Reynolds and Fisher to be Amer-
ica’s Sweethearts (this was, of course, before Elizabeth Taylor appeared on
the scene) and the studio wanted to cash in on their popularity. The film
does not compare to the original: This version plays up the slapstick scenes,
and the added musical interludes (no song leaves a lasting impression) make
a mockery of the subtle and witty elements so evident in the Krasna script.
The foregoing makes it clear that the characters in screwball don’t always

40
 SIX. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: THE WORKING STIFFS 41

Bachelor Mother (1939) with Charles Coburn, Elbert Coplen, Jr. (the baby), Gin-
ger Rogers and David Niven. This lady is not the baby’s mama. Why won’t the
men believe her?

have to be wealthy society types. A varied group populates the working class
screwball subgenre—capricious, non-conforming, happy-go-lucky, scheming.
All are off beat personalities who either instigate or are the victims of the
antics within.
The screwball working stiffs hold a variety of jobs. From shopgirl, office
personnel, sandhog, cook and butler to con artists, their involvements in
screwball fun and games are all in a day’s work for them.
Alice Brady (two years away from her Best Supporting Actress Oscar
for In Old Chicago) goes from construction worker’s cook to society lady in
Lady Tubbs (Universal, 1935). In a series of amusing events, she exposes the
shallowness of some of her “new friends” while helping along the romance
of a young couple (Anita Louise and Douglass Montgomery). It’s a minor,
but interesting film. Supporting the leading players are Alan Mowbray,
Minor Watson and Hedda Hopper.
Model Wife (Universal, 1941) finds stars Joan Blondell and Dick Powell
at work in the same place. They are married but, because of the strict con-
ditions of their employment, must keep their marriage a secret. They would
42 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

like to start a family but do not have the financial resources. And therein lie
the screwball elements including their dilemma in trying to keep their secret
from their disagreeable employer (Lucile Watson). At the time of filming,
Blondell and Powell were indeed married. As Warner Brothers contract
players, though they appeared in several of the same films, rarely were they
teamed romantically.
Myrna Loy took some time off from being the perfect wife in the Thin
Man series to being the object of working stiff Robert Montgomery’s affection
in Petticoat Fever (MGM, 1936). He is a United States wireless operator,
stationed on a lonely Labrador outpost, who hasn’t seen a woman in two years.
Who should drop in unexpectedly but the lovely Myrna and her stuffy fiancé
(Reginald Owen), whose plane has been forced down nearby.
When Montgomery makes a play for her, the lady isn’t having any, but
by the end of the film, Owen is the one left out in the cold: Myrna ditches
him for the handsome smooth operator (who wouldn’t?) and all is well in
Screwball Land. The stars make this unusual film work.
In Youth Takes a Fling (Universal, 1938), handsome Kansas-born Joel
McCrea has always craved a life on the sea. He comes to New York in pursuit
of his dream. Because there are no berths available, he takes a job in a depart-
ment store. Working at the same store is a beautiful young lady (played by
Andrea Leeds) who, upon seeing Joel, is immediately smitten with him. His
thoughts, however, are thoroughly water-logged. The storyline has Leeds
doing anything and everything to make him a landlubber. She does succeed.
Also in the cast are Frank Jenks, Virginia Grey, Grant Mitchell and Willie
Best. The minor comedy lacks a strong female star who possibly would have
been able to draw fans to the ticket window.
McCrea expresses a desire to see those faraway places with the strange-
sounding names. Fred MacMurray lives on one in Honeymoon in Bali (Para-
mount, 1939). Finding life in the fast lane not his cup of tea, he has moved
to the South Sea Island of Bali. On a subsequent trip to the States, he meets
and falls in love with a beautiful but harried department store executive
(Madeleine Carroll). She is attracted to him but is also involved with a hand-
some opera singer (Allan Jones). She has been seeing Jones for years, but
they’ve never set a wedding date. During the course of the film, the lovely
lady agonizes over her choice: the steady Jones and her career, or MacMurray
and her chance to “smell the roses.” At first, she opts for the fast lane, but
changes her mind and sets off for a life with MacMurray amidst palm trees
and pineapples. Supporting the stars are Helen Broderick, Akim Tamiroff
and Osa Massen. The stars make the most of their roles and come up with
a winner.
Life in the South Seas must have seemed like Heaven to a nation still
suffering through a Depression and also witnessing the gathering storm in
 SIX. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: THE WORKING STIFFS 43

Europe. By 1940, Paris was under the thumb of the Nazis. One year later,
America would be in the midst of that storm.
The next film under discussion takes place in pre-war Paris. A native
Parisian, Claudette Colbert, goes back to the city of her birth, if only on
celluloid, in I Met Him in Paris (Paramount, 1937). She plays Kay Denham,
a dress designer, bored with her life and her staid fiancé, who, on a much-
needed vacation, sets off for that lovely city. There she meets and is wooed
by George Potter, a cynical playwright (Melvyn Douglas), and Gene Anders,
a married novelist (Robert Young).The latter is even willing to give up his
wife (Mona Barrie) for her. Soon another complication sets in with the arrival
of Claudette’s fiancé (Lee Bowman). Which of the three does she choose?
Simple. As Melvyn Douglas was the top-billed male in the film, the reader
will readily guess that it is he with whom our heroine will bill and coo. Again,
the three names on the marquee make it work. In the hilarious skiing scenes,
Sun Valley doubles for the Alps.
Claudette’s frequent co-star Fred MacMurray played leading man to
several other top stars, among them Carole Lombard. With the beautiful
blonde, he appeared in some of the most successful screwball comedies of the
1930s.
Carole literally has her Hands Across the Table in the Paramount 1935
film of the same name. Regi Allen is a manicurist out to snare a rich husband.
She meets disabled millionaire Allen Macklyn (Ralph Bellamy, again the
other man) and then Theodore Drew II (Fred MacMurray). Because of his
name, Regi assumes that Ted is rich. She gives him a manicure, during which
his fingertips begin to bleed from her “tender ministrations.” Regi uses a nail
file like a lethal weapon.
After a night on the town with him, she learns that Ted is also on the
prowl (read: fortune-hunting) and is engaged to Vivian Snowden (Astrid
Allwyn), whose father is “the pineapple king.” She now knows that he is
penniless and yet, against her better judgment, Regi is attracted to Ted. They
have a romantic fling, which they enjoy so much that they ditch their respec-
tive love interests and vow to see life through in tandem.
Among many, one hilarious scene stands out: Ted calls Vivian, telling
her that he is in Bermuda. Regi, trying to distract him with comical gestures
and faces, pretends to be a long-distance operator. In other hands, both action
and dialogue might seem trite and silly, but when Lombard goes into her act,
it is a comedic gem. MacMurray matches her word for word, gesture for ges-
ture. The two bring out every possible nuance in the scene. In his book Screw-
ball: Hollywood ’s Madcap Romantic Comedies, Ed Sikov quotes director
Mitchell Leisen describing the effect Lombard had on MacMurray: “Carole
was a great help to Fred. She’d get him down on the floor and sit on his chest
and say, ‘Now be funny, Uncle Fred, or I’ll pluck your eyebrows out.’ ”
44 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Hands Across the Table was a resounding hit for Paramount. It was also
another triumph for Norman Krasna, head of the film’s script-writing team.
With Lombard and Colbert, MacMurray made some of his finest come-
dies. Paramount’s 1943 production No Time for Love is a case in point.
Claudette is again his co-star. She plays a photographer who, on an assign-
ment, meets tunnel digger Fred. She is both attracted and repelled by him.
At first he thinks of her as a “dame.” The battle of the sexes is on. He becomes
her “mentor” while she’s on the job, giving her a tour of the tunnel and
answering her questions. When the tunnel collapses with MacMurray in it,
the now smitten lady shows her true mettle and tries to help out in any way
she can—her face even gets dirty. He now realizes that she’s the gal for him.
Like Lombard and Colbert, Ginger Rogers had become a major star by
the late 1930s. In Vivacious Lady (RKO, 1938), a sparkling screwball comedy
of clashing cultures, she plays Francey La Rochelle, a night club dancer. She
is pitted against the family of Peter Morgan ( James Stewart), professor of
botany in a small college town. Francey has impulsively married Morgan after
a whirlwind courtship. He explains his feelings for her in terms of chemistry.
Peter had gone to New York to rescue his cousin, Keith ( James Ellison), from
the “perils” of big city life.
There is more than one fly in the ointment. For openers, Peter is engaged
to a girl named Helen (Frances Mercer) who is respectable and dull. Sec-
ondly, he is the son of the stuffy president of the university where he works
(Charles Coburn, who, a year later, in Bachelor Mother, is eager to have Gin-
ger in his family). Peter is expected to one day take over for his father.
Peter has neglected to tell the members of his family that he is married.
It is this inability to confront them that leads to some comical situations,
including one in which Francey and Helen mix it up at a college dance, kick-
ing, slapping and wrestling with each other. When the staid Coburn steps
into the fray, he is socked in the jaw by Francey. The latter, unable to tolerate
the situation, leaves. On the train, she meets her mother-in-law (Beulah
Bondi) who, for years, has felt put upon by her husband. The wives’ actions
galvanize the two men. They meet the train and Coburn feigns illness. Both
men show remorse and all is forgiven.
In one stroke, Francey has liberated both herself and her mother-in-
law and in today’s culture could be called a founding member of the woman’s
lib movement. She has also liberated Peter from the domination of his college
president father. He will be his own man now. In the supporting cast are
such screwball veterans as Jack Carson, Franklin Pangborn, Hattie McDaniel
and Willie Best, the latter in a very funny scene on the train.
Clashing of cultures of a different sort are at the heart of Tovarich
(Warner Brothers, 1937). Based on a stage success by playwright Robert E.
Sherwood, it is the story of a couple of aristocratic Russians (Charles Boyer
 SIX. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: THE WORKING STIFFS 45

Vivacious Lady (1938) with Ginger Rogers and James Stewart. Jimmy hasn’t told
his family that he is married. Why can’t he?

and Claudette Colbert) who have fled to Paris after the Revolution. Finding
themselves out of funds, they take jobs in the Paris household of Melville
Cooper and Isabel Jeans—he as a butler, she as a maid. Much of the comedy
comes from their unskilled labors.
All is going along fairly well until they are recognized by Basil Rathbone
in the role of their employer’s friend. Rathbone, in reality, is anti–Royalist—
his appearance in the film gives it its bite. Audiences of the 1930s enjoyed
the stars; they had come to expect a sparkling performance from Colbert.
The surprise is Boyer, who usually played in dramas. He was by no means
a comedic actor, but in Tovarich, he handles himself quite well.
Again without funds in Paris is Colbert’s Eve Peabody in Midnight
(Paramount, 1939). She has arrived there from Monte Carlo. When the train
porter asks about her luggage, she replies that it is in a pawn shop in that
gambling mecca. She is, however, dressed in gold lamé, with purse to match,
souvenirs of better days.
It is raining when she steps onto the platform so she spends her last sou
on a newspaper to keep her head dry. She is picked up by a cab driver named
Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), who is the true working stiff in this film.
46 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Eve is up front with him, saying that there’s no money to pay him. “What
I need is a taxi to find myself a job and I need a job to pay for a taxi. No
taxi, no job, no soap.” He treats her to lunch and she airily tells him that she
was paid off by a millionaire’s family in Monte Carlo to leave their son alone.
Obviously, this money has been left on the gaming tables.
After he pays for her meal, she dumps him, then crashes a party in
order to keep out of the rain. She is spotted by Georges Flammarion ( John
Barrymore) whom she soon finds out wants to hire her to seduce his wife
Helen’s lover. In another room, she sees Helen (Mary Astor) and her lover
Jacques Picot (Francis Lederer) at a bridge game. She introduces herself as
the Baroness Czerny, taking the name of her cab-driving friend. Flammarion
sees that Jacques seems interested in the “baroness.” He buys her a stunning
wardrobe, sets her up in a posh hotel suite and invites her to his home. Tibor,
getting wind of the scheme, arrives at the Flammarion home, pretending to
be the Baron Czerny.
The film is vintage screwball and vintage Colbert, with strong assists
from the writing team of Brackett and Wilder and a supporting cast which
includes Hedda Hopper and Monty Woolley.
Colbert and Ameche got on well during the making of Midnight. In
their book Hollywood Anecdotes, Paul Boller and Ronald Davis reveal an
amusing incident involving the duo. Ameche picked a very old extra on the
set and sent him to Colbert’s dressing room. When she opened the door, the
man said, “Miss Colbert, I’ve adored you ever since I was a little boy.” Guess-
ing at once who the culprit was, the 35-year-old actress chased her co-star
all over the lot.
A pallid remake of Midnight was released by the same studio in 1945
under a new title, Masquerade in Mexico. The stars were Dorothy Lamour and
Arturo de Cordova (his character is now a bullfighter rather than a cab driver).
Claudette’s con artist in Midnight is an amateur compared to Barbara
Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (Paramount, 1941). Jean Harrington, like Colbert’s
Eve, is a working girl of sorts. She and her father, “Colonel Harrington”
(Charles Coburn), are a couple of card sharps plying their trade aboard an
ocean-going luxury liner. They meet their match in Charles “Hopsie” Pike
(Henry Fonda), snake scholar and heir to the Pike’s Ale fortune.
By sticking her foot out in his path, Jean meets Hopsie, and means to
fleece him, but suddenly she finds that she cannot do this to him. She is
strongly attracted to him and, to the consternation of her father, she is unwill-
ing to go along with his plans.
Mugsy (William Demarest), Hopsie’s friend and employee, soon dis-
covers, by nosing around, that the Harringtons are crooks and informs his
boss. The latter rejects her, not realizing that she is in love with him and is
willing to give up her crooked ways for him.
 SIX. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: THE WORKING STIFFS 47

Midnight (1939) with Don Ameche, Claudette Colbert and John Barrymore. A
cab driver, an adventuress and an aristocrat. How do they fit together?

Smarting from this rejection, Jean vows revenge. With entree supplied
to her by a phony lord (Eric Blore), she gains admittance to the Pike home
as “The Lady Eve.” Hopsie, in his wonderment about this lady, finds himself
doing off-the-wall things: He trips over a couch and lands head first into a
bowl of lobster dip and, when leaving the room, pulls the drapes along with
him. Later, at dinner, a platter of meat is dumped on him. “Eve” succeeds
in getting him to marry her. On their wedding night, she tells a truly pre-
posterous story about all of her other “marriages.” Repelled by this, Hopsie
leaves. When he requests a divorce, she will give it to him only if he asks for
it himself. He refuses and decides to go on another ocean voyage. Jean is
there and trips him again. The romance is rekindled. He tells her that he
can’t understand it, that he adores her, but tells her that he is married. She
answers, “So am I, darling, so am I.” The End.
A sparkling script by Preston Sturges, who also directed, plus a cast of
screwball veterans including Eugene Pallette and Luis Alberni, made the
production a box-office smash. Paramount’s 1956 remake The Birds and the
Bees stars George Gobel, Mitzi Gaynor and David Niven. Gone is the sparkle
of the Sturges script plus the Stanwyck-Fonda combo. It was not a profitable
venture for the studio.
48 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

The Lady Eve (1941): A con artist father-and-daughter team (Charles Coburn,
Barbara Stanwyck) seemed to have found a mark in rich man Henry Fonda, but
love conquers all, even a card sharp.

Light years away from con artists and card sharps are the secretaries,
the honest working girls, who make up a most important part of the screwball
genre. In some films, they are the leading characters, in others, the name
below the title, i.e., supporting players. Stars marry the boss, character people
do not. The amusing and quite often unrealistic situations that crop up in
the various films probably had the real Gal Fridays laughing into their steno
pads while, at the same time, wishing that their bosses looked like the ones
they saw in the movies (except for possibly one film, Take a Letter, Darling,
in which Rosalind Russell is the boss and Fred MacMurray her “man” Friday;
most men, however, would not have minded having that lady as their boss).
George Brent in More Than a Secretary (Columbia, 1936) is the publisher
of a magazine called Body and Brain. He is also in constant need of good
office help. A passing parade of capable candidates is furnished him by Jean
Arthur, who owns and runs a secretarial school.
Why can’t Brent hold on to his employees? Jean wants to find some
answers to this perplexing problem. She goes to his office and is mistaken for
 SIX. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: THE WORKING STIFFS 49

a stenographer. After taking a look at the boss, she decides not to correct
this error. While on the job, she changes not only his attitude towards office
personnel and procedures, but also his thoughts on love and romance. In the
supporting cast are Lionel Stander, Reginald Denny, Ruth Donnelly and
Dorothea Kent as a ditsy blonde stenographer. A cute idea and a sparkling
Arthur go far to make for an entertaining hour and a half.
Unlike hard-working Brent in the previous film, Robert Young is the
opposite in Vagabond Lady (MGM, 1935). Evelyn Venable, a leading lady in
“B” films of the 1930s, plays the secretary of a department store owner. She
is coveted by both of her employer’s sons, devil-may-care Young and staid,
stuffy Reginald Denny. (The talented Denny was typecast in these roles
throughout much of his lengthy career.) Naturally, it is the youthful, more
exciting Young whom she chooses; presumably, she will straighten out her
feet-of-clay hero. This minor flick probably did nothing for the careers of
its players.
A twist to the old saw of the boss falling in love with his secretary
is the basis for the plotline of Take a Letter, Darling. In this Paramount
1942 release, Roz is A.M. MacGregor, an advertising executive who hires
male secretaries so that the wives of her clients don’t get wrong ideas.
Enter Tom Varney (Fred MacMurray). Things go well at the beginning
and the relationship is strictly business until they go to work on an account
involving handsome, wealthy Jonathan Caldwell (Macdonald Carey). The
latter is attracted to Russell and brings his man-hunting sister Edith (Con-
stance Moore) into the picture to distract MacMurray. The British title of
the movie, Green-Eyed Woman, is very apropos for Roz, who becomes jealous
when she thinks there may be a relationship between her secretary and the
beautiful Miss Moore. It turns out that Fred is not interested in the man-
trap and in the natural progression of the screwball comedy, he winds up with
Ros (he has been in love with her almost from the start). In the supporting
cast are Robert Benchley as Roz’s partner, who would rather indulge in his
expensive hobbies, Cecil Kellaway and Dooley Wilson.
Jealousy may not be the word to describe Joan Blondell as Jenny Swan-
son in Good Girls Go to Paris (Columbia, 1939), but she is envious of the
wealthy college girls who frequent the campus restaurant at which she works
as a waitress. She dreams of money and travel, including a trip to Paris, hence
the film’s title, which originally ended with the word Too. The Hays office
insisted that it be switched to protect “America’s moral fiber.”
The young lady sets out to find a rich mate. Alan Curtis plays Tom
Brand, the collegiate son of tycoon Olaf Brand (Walter Connolly), and he
seems to fit the bill. He proposes and invites his fiancée to meet the family.
Jenny then takes a shine to Ronald Brooke (top-cast Melvyn Douglas), a
visiting professor of Greek mythology, and decides that he is the man for
50 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

her. By film’s end, he agrees.

Will she get to Paris? As the film ends before this question is resolved,
we can only guess at the answer. The zesty Blondell and the urbane Douglas
were a delightful team and made other screwballs together.
Douglas plays a reporter in They All Kissed the Bride, but the story is
more about a high-powered career woman ( Joan Crawford) who has inher-
ited a large trucking company than the Fourth Estate. The lady in question
has no time for a private life. When marriage does intrude upon her, it is
not her own, but that of her sister. At the ceremony, the details of which
have been arranged by her, she meets reporter Douglas and literally goes
weak in the knees, which we later find out is a family trait, signifying an
attraction to the opposite sex.
He, however, is not attracted to what he sees on the outside. He sends
her a bunch of violets with a note saying, “I debated before sending these.
With them, you might be mistaken for a girl.”
Once warmed up, however, this lady proves more than a match for him
with words. She tells him that he runs scared, that he has always hidden
behind his typewriter. She gets drunk and is involved in a jitterbug contest
(Crawford had started her show business career as a dancer) and later, during
a business conference with her staff, starts talking about flowers and babies.
She even wants to learn to knit. (Remember folks, this was 1942.) In the
end, this executive will give in to her feminine instincts and a life with the
man who makes her feel weak in the knees.
The role that Crawford plays in They All Kissed the Bride was originally
intended for Carole Lombard. As a gesture to Lombard’s memory, Crawford
donated her entire salary to the war effort.
Like Joan Blondell in Good Girls Go to Paris, Lana Turner goes the small
town waitress route in Slightly Dangerous (MGM, 1943). Lana, however, has
a far different and more complicated scheme for achieving the good life: She
travels to the big city and feigns amnesia, pretending to be the long-lost
daughter of a millionaire. All goes according to plan until her hometown
boyfriend (Robert Young) is suspected of being involved in her disappearance.
In the end, the ersatz heiress confesses all and goes into the sunset with her
“Young” man. A supporting cast of well-known players, including Dame
May Whitty, Walter Brennan, Alan Mowbray, Ward Bond and Ray Collins,
are on hand to give this slight comedy a helping hand.
Waitress, shop girl, secretary, dancer, manicurist, executive and yes,
even con artist and card sharp—they and their peers succeed, screwball-style,
in the attainment of their goals in one way or another. For the final film in
this chapter, we come to a production which celebrates one of the ultimate
“screwballian” triumphs—that of the worker over the super rich.
The Devil and Miss Jones (RKO, 1941) stars Jean Arthur and Robert
 SIX. SCREWBALL GUYS AND GALS: THE WORKING STIFFS 51

Cummings. Third-billed Charles Coburn, Oscar-nominated for his per-

formance, plays John P. Merrick, a flinty multimillionaire who goes under-
cover as Thomas Higgins at his department stores in order to find out why
his employees are so disgruntled. In this guise he meets co-workers Mary
Jones (Arthur), her hot-headed boyfriend Joe O’Brien (Cummings) and
matronly Elizabeth Ellis (Spring Byington).
In the course of the action provided by Norman Krasna’s Oscar-
nominated script, Coburn learns a lesson in humility and humanity from
the young and falls in love with the soft-spoken Byington, who has awakened
feelings long dormant within him.
The fine supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn as a smarmy section
manager, S.Z. Sakall as Coburn’s butler and William Demarest as the store
detective.
The clash of the classes, the theme of mistaken identity and scenes of
Coburn being irate in various stages (one of which, dressed in a bathing suit,
being hauled off to a police station) all add to the atmosphere of the screwball
comedy. An interesting sidelight to this production is that writer Krasna once
worked in a department store similar to the one he depicts in this film.
By now, it should be abundantly clear that the working stiff is well-
represented in the screwball comedy. What might almost be called a subgenre
of this subgenre will be examined next as we come to the Cinderellas and
Cinderfellas of Screwball.
 Chapter Seven

Screwball Cinderellas
and Cinderfellas

Cinderella was a poor but beautiful young girl whose fairy godmother
(with the aid of a few mice and a pumpkin) brings her love, marriage and
all the riches she could ever want.
Ginger Rogers doesn’t need a fairy godmother in Tom, Dick and Harry.
Her Janie is a telephone operator, living in the requisite small town with the
requisite small town family. She is pert and vivacious and thinks she knows
what she wants: steady and dependable car salesman Tom (George Murphy).
Complications set in when she becomes involved with rich playboy Dick
(Alan Marshal), who treats her like a princess, and non-conformist Harry
(Burgess Meredith), a mechanic who hasn’t a dime and couldn’t care less.
Janie imagines herself in love with all three of them.
There is a dream sequence, in real screwball style, during which Janie
finds herself marrying all three men. The minister solemnly proclaims, “I
now pronounce you the only solution.” She wakes up with a headache, but
thinks she knows what to do.
She has chosen rich, but at the last moment, she hops on Harry’s motor-
cycle and they go off to who knows where. Why has she chosen the devil-
may-care mechanic? Because she hears bells ring when he kisses her.
“Cinderella” Ginger could have chosen rich, but she finds her true
“prince” in a mechanic. Love and marriage, but no riches. Well, two out of
three isn’t bad.
The 1941 release marked the end of Ginger’s exclusive contract with
RKO and was the last picture director Garson Kanin made before entering
the armed forces.
Tom, Dick and Harry was remade as The Girl Most Likely in 1958. The
RKO film stars Jane Powell, who is engaged to three men at the same time.
Keith Andes is the rich prospective husband, Cliff Robertson the mechanic

52
 SEVEN. SCREWBALL CINDERELLAS AND CINDERFELLAS 53

and Tommy Noonan a real estate salesman. In the end it is Robertson wind-
ing up with Jane, who even gets to sing a few numbers. The remake does not
compare to the original. Powell, though a personality, is no comedienne.
Cinderella isn’t always young, isn’t always pretty and isn’t always a she.
Among others in our cast of Cinderellas and Cinderfellas are a typist, a fruit
peddler, a tuba player, a struggling architect, an inventor, and a trio of young
ladies who set out to find wealthy husbands. Most of the foregoing, like
many of us, are searching for the proverbial pot of gold. Unlike most of us,
they find what they are looking for.
Hollywood has devised several ways for a gal to find her Prince Charm-
ing. How about on a bus? Or on a park bench? It happens to Jean Arthur in
both Easy Living and If You Could Only Cook.
In the first, the blonde actress plays Mary Smith, a typist, riding to
work on an open-top bus. All of a sudden, a gorgeous fur coat flies down and
envelops her. Unbeknownst to her, it has been thrown from a window by an
irate tycoon (Edward Arnold) named J.B. Bull, “The Bull of Broad Street.”
The flighty Mrs. Bull (Mary Nash) has been overly extravagant, buying the
coat even though she already has a closet full of furs.
The bewildered Mary walks back in the direction of where the coat has
come from and meets Bull. During their conversation, he not only decides
to let her keep the coat, he also takes her out to buy her a matching hat. The
store owner, a fussy little man named Van Buren (Franklin Pangborn), has
a change of attitude when he discovers the identity of his famous customer.
Van Buren talks about Mary and Bull to his friend Louis (played to perfection
by Luis Alberni), owner of the hotel that Bull is about to foreclose on. They
wonder, why would J.B. buy a hat for such a young lady if she is not his mis-
tress? Louis gives Mary the best suite in the house. Everyone in town wants
to get into the act and Mary has clothes beyond her dreams—plus a matched
pair of Russian wolf hounds.
In the meanwhile, Mary has met and fallen in love with Johnny Bull
(Ray Milland), who has been ostracized by his father. He has taken a job at
the Automat (where one could get meals from vending machines). A funny
scene takes place there: Johnny asks Mary to meet him behind the grapefruits
and is fired for this “infraction of the rules.” He causes a riot in which food
is thrown about, and all the lucky people in the place are treated to free food.
All ends well: Father and son are reconciled and lucky Mary will become
a “Bull.” With a script by the irrepressible Preston Sturges and direction by
Mitchell Leisen, the film is a pure delight in every way.
The premise of If You Could Only Cook has the distinctive-voiced Arthur
portraying a jobless blonde who befriends Herbert Marshall, whom she meets
in the park. Unaware of the fact that he is a well-known millionaire auto-
mobile executive, she obtains jobs for them as cook and butler. She is also
54 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

unaware of the fact that their bombastic boss, played by Leo Carrillo, is a
gangster.
The latter immediately recognizes Marshall as a prime pigeon, ripe for
the plucking, and stages a kidnap attempt. After a merry melee of police
sirens and car chases, the millionaire reveals himself to the blonde. In true
screwball style, this Cinderella will live happily ever after with her “prince.”
The hapless mobster is not so lucky.
When this 1936 film, directed by William Seiter, was shown in London,
it was advertised as a Frank Capra production. The latter threatened to sue
both Columbia and studio head Harry Cohn, the man responsible for the
deception. Cohn apologized to Capra and promised to buy the screen rights
to the Broadway smash You Can’t Take It with You which the director wanted
to do.
Arthur was Capra’s only choice to play opposite Gary Cooper in Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town (Columbia, 1936), a comedy with screwball elements,
but at the same time containing a message. The feisty Cohn balked at using
Arthur but the equally feisty Capra prevailed. Who could argue with one of
the industry’s most successful directors?
This time, it is a Cinderfella who is our subject: Longfellow Deeds
(Cooper) is an unassuming tuba-playing Vermonter whose lifestyle under-
goes a dramatic change when he inherits $20 million from an uncle he hardly
knew. He leaves his hometown for New York City where he has to live in
his benefactor’s mansion (a condition of the inheritance).
As he leaves Mandrake Falls, he plays at his own going-away ceremony.
In New York, he finds that a cynical press agent named Cornelius Cobb
(played by Lionel Stander) has been hired to show the ways of the big city.
He even has a valet (Raymond Walburn) he is not too thrilled about. Though
he is thought to be naïve, he has the common sense not to be taken in by
many of those around him and for this, gains the respect of Cobb.
Arthur is Babe Bennett, a hard-nosed reporter who is assigned by her
paper to cover the newly rich man in every aspect of his life. She’ll do it for
a month’s vacation, all expenses paid. She hangs around him (with photog-
raphers following them), observing his habits and what he has to say. She
thinks he’s a screwball, but keeps this thought from him. Within days, how-
ever, Deeds is in love with her.
She cannot believe that he’s for real and ridicules him in every way pos-
sible. She has invented a new persona for herself and plays up his naivete and
hick ways, not realizing that she is slowly falling for him.
When Deeds finds out who Babe really is and that what she’s written
about him has made him a subject of ridicule, he is disillusioned and vows
to give his money away to any farmer in need. His conniving big city lawyer,
John Cedar, well-played by Douglass Dumbrille, is fearful of losing his fat
 SEVEN. SCREWBALL CINDERELLAS AND CINDERFELLAS 55

fees, so he maintains that this is a mark of insanity and imports two elderly
ladies from Mandrake Falls to testify that he is “pixilated.” Deeds doesn’t
seem to care about the courtroom proceedings, but when Babe admits her
love for him, he decides to fight and fight he does, with the crowd gathered
in the courtroom cheering him on.
Everyone should be as “pixilated” as Longfellow Deeds. The film echoes
Capra’s own belief that “a simple, honest man, when driven into a corner by
predatory sophisticates, can, if he will, reach down deep into his God-given
resources and come up with the necessary handfuls of courage, wit and love
to triumph over his environment” (Hirschhorn, The Columbia Story, 68).
The film, Capra and Cooper were Oscar-nominated, but only the direc-
tor received the coveted statuette, his second within three years. He always
maintained that Robert Riskin should also have been honored, for his super -
lative script.
A not-very-good remake, Mr. Deeds (2002), starred Adam Sandler in
the Cooper role and Winona Ryder as the reporter. In no way can it be com-
pared to the Capra classic of 1936.
An earlier Capra version of the Cinderella saga, Lady for a Day was a
1933 comedy fantasy from Columbia based upon a story by famed New York
writer Damon Runyon with a script by the aforementioned Riskin. This
time, the lady in question is an elderly fruit peddler named Apple Annie.
The role is played by character actress May Robson, who got the part when
Columbia was unable to obtain the services of Marie Dressler from MGM.
It seems that Annie has a daughter whom she hasn’t seen for years.
Convent-educated in Europe, the girl, now grown and newly engaged, is
under the impression that Mama is a rich dowager (she’s been receiving
letters written on expensive stationery which Annie has filched from a lux-
urious hotel).
The action heightens when the girl writes that she, her fiancé and his
father will be in New York for a day’s visit. What does Annie do? She appeals
to Dave the Dude (Warren William), a superstitious gambler who never makes
a bet without buying an apple from the old lady.
With Dave’s help, Apple Annie becomes Mrs. E. Worthington Man-
ville. She is beautifully gowned and living in a beautiful apartment. She sees
her daughter and has the satisfaction of knowing that her little girl will be
happy. When her “guests “ have left, she goes back to selling apples, but has
the memory of being a lady for a day.
The film is a gentle satire of class distinction. Do clothes make the per-
son? Or is it that innate sense that makes Apple Annie into the mother of
whom a girl can be proud? The film’s supporting cast includes Jean Parker
as the daughter, Walter Connolly as the fiancé’s father and Guy Kibbee as
a judge who has a soft spot in his heart for Annie and goes along with the
56 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

scheme. Much of the comedy comes from the characters inhabiting Dave’s
world.
The film, Capra, Riskin and Robson were nominated for Oscars, but
none were forthcoming. An incident at the awards ceremony has gone down
in Hollywood lore: Capra was so sure that he had been named Best Director
that when presenter Will Rogers said, “Come and get it, Frank,” he bounded
down the aisle only to realize that Rogers meant Frank Lloyd, director of
Cavalcade. The next year, however, a triumphant Capra stepped up to the
podium when It Happened One Night won all five major awards.
Bette Davis as Apple Annie? Unbelievable, but true. A miscast Davis
plays the old lady in Pocketful of Miracles, a 1961 production from United Art -
ists. Glenn Ford plays Dave the Dude and Hope Lange is Dave’s girlfriend.
Even with Capra (who should have known better) directing and a cast which
includes Thomas Mitchell, Peter Falk, Sheldon Leonard and Ann-Margret,
the remake does not in any way live up to the original.
Like May Robson and Bette Davis, Dick Powell’s reign as a male Cin-
derella is short-lived in Preston Sturges’ Christmas in July. Sturges was writer
and director on this Paramount film, which satirizes the popular American
custom of contest-entering.
Powell plays a clerk who, in the
mistaken belief that he has won
$25,000 for a coffee slogan, goes
on a shopping spree, paying
for everything on credit—buy
now, pay later, a forerunner of
modern-day practices. He gets
gifts for his girl (Ellen Drew),
his mother and all of his neigh-
borhood pals.
When he learns the truth,
and he is forced to return every-
thing he has bought, he is sad-
der but much wiser, of course.
All is resolved by the end of the
picture, with Powell and Drew
hopeful for a bright future by
working for it. The two stars are
ably supported by such Sturges
screwball standbys as Raymond
Pocketful of Miracles (1961): Bette Davis as Walburn, William Demarest,
Apple Annie in this remake of Lady for a Ernest Truex, and Franklin
Day. Pangborn.
 SEVEN. SCREWBALL CINDERELLAS AND CINDERFELLAS 57

Buying on credit figures largely in another Dick Powell film, Hard to

Get, only this time he is not the one who says, “Charge it.” He is a struggling
architect who, unable to get a job in his field, is riding out the Depression
by doubling as a filling station attendant and motel manager. While on the
job, he meets Olivia de Havilland, a spoiled heiress. She seeks revenge after
he refuses to extend her credit for the gas she has bought (she has no money
with her) and then further humiliates her by making “Her Highness” work
in the motel to pay off what she owes. The battle of the sexes has begun.
Powell, thinking that Olivia is a maid in the home of a millionaire (who,
in reality, is her father), dates her and talks about an architectural project
for which he needs financing. The spiteful girl, with the help of her doting
daddy (Charles Winninger) and moronic maid (Penny Singleton), sends the
poor guy on a fool’s errand in pursuit of his dream.
Meanwhile, she tries to fight her growing feelings towards him, which
complicates matters. Powell soon catches on to the scheme and wants nothing
to do with her or her family, but before “The End” is flashed upon the screen,
you know that Cinderfella has won both the girl and the money to finance
his project. Also in the cast are Thurston Hall as the family butler, Bonita
Granville as Olivia’s sister, Isabel Jeans as Winninger’s wife and Allen Jenkins
as Powell’s assistant at the filling station.
The film, released by Warner Brothers in 1940, is not one of the better-
known screwball comedies, but the premise is a clever one and it does have
its moments, especially when the engaging Winninger and the peppery Sin-
gleton take center stage. The scene in which the latter impersonates Olivia
is a howl. (Singleton, born Dorothy McNulty, went on to fame and fortune
as the carnation of Chic Young’s lovable cartoon character Blondie on radio
and in films.)
If buying on credit is an American tradition, what can we call the mil-
lions of dollars we spend each year on lottery tickets? And what about sweep-
stakes? Hardly a novelty—we all dream the impossible dream. In 1940,
Ginger Rogers and Ronald Colman made an RKO film called Lucky Partners,
a gentle satire on these impossible dreams. It opens with Greenwich Village
sketch artist Colman calling out from a window wishing a pretty passerby
(Rogers) good luck.
When the girl is suddenly gifted with a brand new ensemble after this
chance encounter, she becomes the artist’s partner in a sweepstakes ticket and,
through it, comes into money. Though she is engaged to a somewhat nerdy
insurance salesman ( Jack Carson, who gives the movie several very amusing
moments in pursuit of his fiancée), she goes to Niagara Falls with Colman,
falls in love with him and then finds out that he is a famous painter. He
winds up with Ginger, and Carson goes to bed with his policies.
Adapted from a French story by Sacha Guitry (“Bonne Chance”), the
58 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

film features Spring Byington as Ginger’s aunt and Harry Davenport as a

small town judge.
Inventor Tom Wakefield gets a lucky break in Married Before Breakfast
(1937), a minor MGM film. A leading razor company has given him a huge
sum of money not to publicize his latest invention, a hair-removing shaving
cream that would make razors obsolete. To celebrate, Tom wants to take his
fiancée on a cruise. While booking the trip, he meets Kitty Brent. She is
engaged also. Her fiancé needs to sell one more insurance policy so that he
can get promoted and they can get married. Tom decides to help and, in doing
so, embarks on an adventure with Kitty involving cops, cab drivers, firemen
and gangsters. He even lands in jail. Before this is straightened out, Tom
has lost his lady, which is fine: He has fallen in love with Kitty and she with
him. Amazingly, all this has taken place in one day and the two are indeed
married before breakfast. Robert Young is Tom and Florence Rice is Kitty.
June Clayworth plays Tom’s fiancée and Hugh Marlowe is Kitty’s intended.
Our next film tells the story of a Cinderella and a Cinderfella and a
fairy godfather: In The Good Fairy (first a 1931 Broadway play with Helen
Hayes starred), Margaret Sullavan made one of her few forays into screwball
comedy and came up with a winner. With a script by Preston Sturges and
direction by her then husband William Wyler, she turns in a beguiling per-
formance as a naive young girl with the unlikely name of Luisa Gingle-
busher.
Luisa meets a wealthy lecher named Konrad (Frank Morgan) who is
attracted to her. To fend off his amorous advances, she invents a husband.
Konrad tells her he will help her spouse; the old roue will do this to keep
hubby busy, so busy that he, Morgan, will be able to pursue Luisa.
She resists, he persists. She has to produce a husband and does this by
picking a name at random from the nearest telephone book. Her choice is
struggling lawyer Max Sporum (Herbert Marshall). Rich in If You Could
Only Cook, in this one, he’s as poor as the proverbial church-mouse. By the
final reel, Luisa and Max have fallen in love, much to the consternation of
Konrad, who now knows the truth. Even so, he will be giving Max the “busi-
ness”: The younger lawyer will be handling the older man’s legal affairs. The
latter has become the couple’s “fairy godfather.”
Max is the Cinderfella and Luisa is both the Cinderella and the good
fairy who, innocently at the start, has made it all possible. She will marry
her “prince” and, with fairy godfather Konrad’s help, they will struggle no
more. Adding to this scenario are Reginald Owen, Alan Hale, Beulah Bondi,
Eric Blore and Cesar Romero.
Deanna Durbin plays the Sullavan role in I’ll Be Yours, a 1947 Universal
remake of the foregoing with Tom Drake as the lawyer and Adolphe Menjou
as the philanderer. Six years earlier, Durbin starred in an interesting screwball
 SEVEN. SCREWBALL CINDERELLAS AND CINDERFELLAS 59

It Started with Eve (1941) with Charles Laughton, Walter Catlett and Deanna
Durbin. An ailing grandfather wants to meet his grandson’s fiancée; she’s not
available and Deanna substitutes, with predictable results.

for Universal titled It Started with Eve. In this version of the Cinderella
story, as in the previously discussed film, there is a fairy godfather, Charles
Laughton, seen here in a change-of-pace role: He plays a cantankerous old
millionaire whose deathbed wish is to meet his son’s fiancée.
The lady in question is unavailable at the moment, so the son (Robert
Cummings) brings in the first replacement he can find (Deanna). He intro-
duces her to Dad, who instantly takes a shine to her. Complications set in
when the old codger suddenly gets better and when the real fiancée (Margaret
Tallichet) is set to arrive on the scene. The Norman Krasna script resolves
the “conflict” by the final reel: exit fiancée, enter Durbin, all under the benev-
olent gaze of Papa Laughton.
It Started with Eve was remade almost a quarter of a century later as I’d
Rather Be Rich (Universal-International, 1964). In a reversal of the sexes,
Sandra Dee plays the Cummings role, Robert Goulet the one enacted by
Durbin and Maurice Chevalier is Papa Millionaire. It was not a bad imitation
of the original.
60 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

As has already been seen, the plotline of many a screwball comedy turns
on a case of mistaken identity. In Easy Living, Jean Arthur is thought to be
Edward Arnold’s sweetie, in If You Could Only Cook, she thinks that Herbert
Marshall is as down-and-out as she, and in Hard to Get, Dick Powell mistakes
Olivia de Havilland for her own maid. In a 1938 release from Universal, the
heroine takes part in a scheme which involves her being mistaken for a
wealthy heiress: Danielle Darrieux, a French actress unfamiliar to many
American movie-goers, is top-cast in The Rage of Paris. She is paired with
two well-known leading men of the era, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Louis
Hayward, plus a pair of screwball veterans, Helen Broderick and Mischa
Auer.
Mlle. Darrieux plays Nicole de Cortillon, who loses her job in the Casino
de France, a posh hotel, and finds another as an artist’s model. She goes to
the wrong address and starts to disrobe in front of Fairbanks, who immedi-
ately suspects blackmail.
The plot thickens when, after extricating herself from this mess, she
agrees to a “get rich” scheme thought up by her friends Broderick and Auer
(who could be thought of as her fairy godparents). Cinderella/Nicole will
take up residence in an expensive hotel and set her cap for millionaire Louis
Hayward.
The mixture boils over when Fairbanks, a friend of Hayward’s, reap-
pears. He tries to save his buddy from the “imposter” only to fall in love with
her himself. There is another screwball happy ending: Fairbanks and his
French pastry are in a clinch as Broderick and Auer look on approvingly.
Three Blind Mice (Fox, 1938) features Loretta Young, Marjorie Weaver
and Pauline Moore as sisters seeking their destiny in California. They have
a small inheritance and, upon their arrival on the West Coast, use their money
to register in a fancy hotel.
Loretta poses as a rich socialite, while the other two pretend to be her
staff. They meet Joel McCrea, whom they think is rich (he is not), David
Niven, who has some money, and bartender Stuart Erwin, who is actually a
millionaire. After several screwball misunderstandings, the girls find out that
McCrea is not wealthy, but by now, Loretta realizes that he is the one she
loves. Niven doesn’t know it, but his true love is Weaver, while Moore and
Erwin round out the sextet. The film was enjoyed by audiences during those
hectic years before the outbreak of war and served as a blueprint for other
productions to come.
Two remakes, both musicals, were filmed at Fox, one in 1941 and the
other in 1946. First came Moon Over Miami starring Betty Grable, Carole
Landis and Charlotte Greenwood as the plotters, while Don Ameche, Robert
Cummings and Jack Haley play the men in their lives. The film was a hit
during the war years when Grable was the pin-up darling of the armed forces.
 SEVEN. SCREWBALL CINDERELLAS AND CINDERFELLAS 61

The later film, Three Little Girls in Blue, is set in Atlantic City in the
early 1900s and stars June Haver, Vivian Blaine and Vera-Ellen. Enticed by
them are George Montgomery, Frank Lattimore and Charles Smith.
And then there is Adolphe Menjou, who becomes a “bachelor father”
in the 1948 United Artists production The Bachelor’s Daughters. The plot
again involves Cinderellas in search for rich husbands, but this one has an
interesting twist. Menjou plays Mr. Moody, a distinguished-looking depart-
ment store floorwalker who, with his assistant Molly (Billie Burke), is per-
suaded to become the “parents” of four beautiful young salesclerks on the
lookout for suitable husbands. Playing the ladies are Claire Trevor, Jane
Wyatt, Ann Dvorak and Gail Russell. The quartet rent a nice home on Long
Island and pretend to be rich heiresses. Three of the girls get married, as do
Menjou and Burke.
 Chapter Eight

Show Business Screwballs

Several screwball comedies use the world of show business as a backdrop.

From the time of the Barrymores (Lionel, Ethel and John), Mary Pickford
and Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and the Gish Sisters (Lillian and
Dorothy) up to the present, the public has been interested in the glamour
surrounding the entertainment industry.
Unlike the electronic age in which we get to see and hear all the news
and chit-chat fit (or not so fit) for our eyes and ears, 1930s audiences usually
got their gossip laundered to fit each image. Hedda (Hopper), Louella (Par-
sons), Walter Winchell and others covered the celebs in newspapers and on
the radio.
Since the public was so fascinated with the comings and goings of their
favorites, the petted and pampered “haves” of the era, the lifestyles of these
rich and famous icons became cannon fodder for the ever-grinding cameras
and also ripe for satire. Enter the screwball comedies to be discussed in this
chapter. Each contains the basic elements of the genre: the battle of the sexes,
broad satire and some bits of purely physical comedy.
One of the funnier battles of the sexes is to be found in the theatrically
oriented It’s Love I’m After. Take two tempestuous performers with colossal
egos who, underneath all the bombast, love each other, but have postponed
their nuptials several times for one reason or another. Mix lightly with a young
heiress who imagines herself in love with the male half of the team and let
it come to a boil when the actress decides to take matters into her own hands.
Voila—we have the premise of a screwball classic.
Bette Davis and Leslie Howard star as the petulant performers who, as
the film opens, are snarling and hissing at each other during a scene from
Romeo and Juliet (he accuses her of over-playing while she says he’s showing
off to a pretty girl at every performance they give). Their grievances, of course,
are more imaginary than real. The fun begins when one of the pretty faces
(Olivia de Havilland) becomes a fly in the ointment by feeding Howard’s vanity

62
 EIGHT. SHOW BUSINESS SCREWBALLS 63

It’s Love I’m After (1937) with Bette Davis and Leslie Howard: Temperament vs.
love, Broadway style. Which will win out?

and professing her love for him. Her fiancé (Patric Knowles) asks the actor
to disillusion her and Howard agrees. As a house guest of Olivia’s family,
Howard is boorish and nasty, but not until Davis shows up portraying the
wronged wife, complete with children, does the impressionable Olivia go
back to where she belongs—into the arms of Knowles, while Howard is back
where he belongs—with Bette. Also in the cast are Spring Byington, Eric
Blore and Bonita Granville.
The acting couple of It’s Love I’m After are, in a sense, aristocratic, albeit
of the theater. In Fools for Scandal (Warner Brothers, 1938), French actor
Fernand Gravet, a now forgotten personality whom Hollywood tried and
failed to make a major star, portrays Rene Viladel, an impoverished nobleman
who meets Hollywood film star Kay Winters (Carole Lombard) on a street
in Paris. She is unaware of his social status and is intrigued by him, but is
engaged to stolid insurance salesman Philip Chester (Ralph Bellamy, so fans
of screwball will know how this scenario ends). A scene ensues wherein Gravet
is to meet Lombard, but he must first get his suit from the pawn shop. It
comes late and he dashes to her dressed in two rugs which are grabbed off
64 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

him by two passing women. She goes to London, still unaware of his title,
and he follows.
At a party, his friends make Gravet cook a dinner and, as a joke, Lom-
bard says she’ll hire him. To her chagrin, he turns up next morning in
her bedroom serving her breakfast, breaking into a song bearing the film’s
title. There are many more screwball scenes before the marquis reveals his
true identity and he and the movie star wind up together. Also in the cast
are Allen Jenkins as Gravet’s American sidekick and Marie Wilson as Lom-
bard’s maid. The musical team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart was
hired to provide this film’s songs but most of them were cut from the final
print.
Many movie stars yearn for all the publicity they can get on their way
to the big time. Once there, they talk about preserving their privacy, but are
somewhat miffed when they are not recognized. A true dichotomy, Holly-
wood style.
Ginger Rogers certainly knew the feeling in real life and in 1935, RKO
assigned her to a project titled In Person. The storyline revolves around an
exhausted actress who tries to escape her adoring public by assuming out-
landish disguises and hiding out in the country. While in hiding, she meets
George Brent who at first doesn’t know that she is a star. When he finds out,
he says he couldn’t care less. This, of course, piques her interest and she
wants to get to know him better. By the final fadeout, they have fallen in
love.
An actor who was considered by most film critics to be a second-tier
star, George Brent made a career out of being leading man to many female
leads, including two actress wives, Ruth Chatterton and Ann Sheridan.
In the decade of the 1930s, Lucille Ball was a rising young player in “B”
films at RKO. By 1938, she had status enough to star in several minor films
for that studio, among them two in which she plays a daffy actress who has
a big problem on her hands, an off-the-wall press agent ( Jack Oakie). Both
she and her agent have one goal in mind: stardom for her. He devises several
hare-brained schemes for getting her name in the papers and, reluctantly,
she goes along with them. In The Affairs of Annabel, she hires out as a maid,
falls into the hands of a pair of wanted criminals and lands in jail. In the
supporting cast are Ruth Donnelly, Fritz Feld and Thurston Hall. Before
the year had ended, the follow-up Annabel Takes a Tour had been released.
In this film, the ditsy one makes a round of public appearances organized by
her zany press agent to revitalize her flagging career. In her travels, the actress
meets a nobleman (Ralph Forbes) who is an author of romantic novels. She
falls for him, dreaming of retirement, and finds out that not only is there a
wife, there are also children. Her castle in the air has evaporated and all she
can do is look forward to more wheeling and dealing from her agent. The
 EIGHT. SHOW BUSINESS SCREWBALLS 65

Annabel films had been envisioned as a “B” series but after the release of the
second film, the project was discontinued.
As an RKO contract player, Lucy did appear in some “A” pictures, one
of which stars Irene Dunne. Joy of Living tells the tale of an overworked and
repressed Broadway musical comedy star whose acquisitive family is taking
advantage of her earning power and living it up. Among the members of this
grasping family are Alice Brady, Guy Kibbee, Frank Milan and the peri-
patetic Miss Ball as Dunne’s younger sister.
Enter shipping tycoon–playboy Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who teaches the
young woman all about doing zany things and the “joy of living” plus the
equal bliss of getting her shiftless family off her back. Though the 1938
release contains some melodies by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields and has
good performances from such screwball stalwarts as Eric Blore, Franklin
Pangborn and Billy Gilbert, it did not fare as well at the box office as some
other Dunne films and can be considered one of her few screwball misses.
Where were Cary Grant or Melvyn Douglas?
When musical movies of the 1930s are mentioned, the name of teenage
Deanna Durbin is fondly remembered. In 1940 at the age of eighteen, she
ventured into screwball comedy with It’s a Date from Universal. Pamela
Drake (Durbin) is a precocious teenager blessed with a beautiful voice. Geor-
gia, her mother (Kay Francis), is a famous stage star. The latter is given a
part she is dying to play and goes to Hawaii to rehearse.
Little does she know that after she’s left, the writer of the play, Carl
Ober (S.Z. Sakall), has given the part to Pamela. The latter now sails to
Hawaii to work on her lines. On board, she meets John Arlen (Walter Pid-
geon), an attractive, wealthy businessman who comes to the wrong conclu-
sion: He thinks she’s an unhappy girl who may be trying to end it all. They
fall overboard in a true screwball scene. He spends a lot of time with her
and she imagines herself in love with him.
While docking, Arlen meets Georgia and they are attracted to each
other, he not knowing that she is Pamela’s mother. They meet again at a
dinner planned by the youngster. In another screwball scene, he arranges
with a waiter to get him out of his “predicament,” but seeing Georgia, he
doesn’t need any excuses to leave, to the befuddlement of the waiter.
The end of the tale has Pamela telling Mama she wants to marry John.
They go to the Governor’s Ball and the governor (Eugene Pallette, in a small
but very funny bit) helps Arlen by announcing that Pamela will sing so that
Arlen can make his case with Georgia. Not to be believed is the inane way
he finally proposes to her. (As we have seen, anything can happen in screw-
ball.) She accepts, which leaves the way clear for her daughter to get her big
break. Of course, in between laughs, Durbin sings four songs.
It’s a Date was remade by MGM in 1950. Nancy Goes to Rio stars Jane
66 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Powell in the Durbin role with Ann Sothern and Barry Sullivan taking over
the adult roles. Supporting the trio are Louis Calhern and Hans Conried.
The film is almost as good as the original with the advantage of Technicolor
and Powell’s singing.
Because of Him (Universal, 1946) shows a grown-up Deanna as a stage-
struck waitress intent upon a career in the theater. By singing an old Irish
melody, she persuades an aging actor (Charles Laughton) to give her a job,
much to the chagrin of the show’s playwright. Seen in this role is Franchot
Tone. It’s another battle of the sexes, Broadway style.
All is resolved when the fledgling actress triumphs and the playwright
realizes that he is smitten. In the cast are veteran screwballers Helen Brod-
erick and Donald Meek. It’s a likable film, mainly for fans of its singing star.
The Moon’s Our Home (Paramount, 1936) is just as notable for its star
team as for its delightful screwball screenplay.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda
had been members of the Princeton Players, an East Coast repertory theater
group which was not only the jumping-off point for their careers, but
spawned that of a tall lanky actor named Jimmy Stewart. By the time filming
started on The Moon’s Our Home, Fonda and Sullavan had been married and
divorced. A bit of dialogue in the film is very apropos in light of this:
HE: Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?
SHE: Possibly—I’m the girl you married once.
HE: I knew it! I never forget a face.

The two stars played off each other rather nicely in the film and for a
while, rumors persisted that they would remarry. Nothing of the sort
occurred, but the resultant reams of publicity boded well for the story of an
impulsive romance between a movie star and a famous travel writer, each of
whom has never heard of the other.
Sullavan is Cherry Chester, a temperamental movie star, born Sara
Brown into a wealthy family. Fonda is Anthony Amberton, real name John
Smith. They are on a train bound for New York and when he hears that
Cherry Chester is on the train, he wonders aloud whether a Cherry Chester
is a new kind of soft drink. She, on her part, is reading his latest travel guide:
“‘Mr. Amberton and his camel,’ ” she reads. “Oh, I see. He’s the one with
the hat on.” But they are soon reluctantly attracted to each other.
They land up in New England, and Cherry falls into a snow bank.
Amberton pulls her out and they make a bet: She will marry him only if she
fails to stand up with a pair of skis on. She falls and they marry, but separate
soon after.
They are miserable apart and Amberton tries to make up to no avail
until the madcap final scene, which takes place at an airport. He has Cherry
 EIGHT. SHOW BUSINESS SCREWBALLS 67

put into a straitjacket and kisses her until she gives in to him. Does Screwball
have to make sense?
The film, adapted from a Cosmopolitan magazine serial by Faith Bald-
win, contains several bits of witty dialogue contributed by Dorothy Parker
and her husband, Alan Campbell, and has an excellent supporting cast
including Walter Brennan, Beulah Bondi and Margaret Hamilton.
In No Time for Comedy (Warner Brothers, 1940), the aforementioned
Jimmy Stewart is playwright Gaylord Esterbrook, husband of actress Linda
Paige (Rosalind Russell). He is known for his comedies, but yearns to write
an important serious drama. What now flows from his pen is really awful.
Linda knows how bad the work is and tries to let him down easy, but
a flirty patroness of the arts (Genevieve Tobin, in real life the wife of the
film’s director William Keighley) encourages his endeavor. Her husband
(Charles Ruggles) loves her and indulges her in every way possible. He
doesn’t think much of the play, but goes along with his wife.
Esterbrook and Paige almost split up over this but all works out well
when he finally realizes that his flair for making people laugh is a gift given
to a select few and is to be cherished. Moviegoers of 1940, anxiously following
the course of the war in Europe, got the message and the film did well at
the box office.
Another Broadway playwright figures prominently in Bedtime Story
(Columbia, 1941). This fellow (Fredric March) has written several successful
plays for his wife, played by Loretta Young. They are the toast of Broadway,
but after seven years of “The Business,” she decides to leave the stage for the
domestic life on a farm in Connecticut. “Nay, nay to that,” says March. This
battle of the sexes leads to irreconcilable differences and she leaves him. She
then meets a banker (played by Allyn Joslyn), the direct opposite of her hus-
band.
March tries every which way to get her back to where he thinks she
belongs. After several screwball mishaps, including a funny car chase, he
accomplishes his goal. The finale finds Miss Loretta taking bows. Adding
to the festivities are such genre veterans as Robert Benchley and Eve Arden.
In 1938 a team of real Broadway writers, Bella and Sam Spewack, sold
the rights to their stage hit to Warner Brothers. What emerged was the satir-
ical Boy Meets Girl. James Cagney and Pat O’Brien star as two wacky writers
who love to play practical jokes. Just for the fun of it, they dream up a Western
for the studio’s egotistical cowboy star (played by Dick Foran) in which he
will be playing second fiddle to an infant. Cagney and O’Brien are very ably
supported by a cast which includes Ralph Bellamy, Frank McHugh, Marie
Wilson and an up-and-coming young actor named Ronald Reagan. With
rapid fire dialogue and terrific performances from its stars, Boy Meets Girl
bounces from one absurdity to another with the resilience of a rubber ball.
68 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Originally, the film was to star the popular team of Olsen and Johnson,
plus Marion Davies in the role eventually played by Marie Wilson, but the
casting went awry, so the second string was called in. No matter—the film
did a brisk business at the box office.
The action of Stand-In (United Artists, 1937) takes place at a mythical
film studio in Hollywood. Leslie Howard is top-cast in this spoof of studio
politics and Joan Blondell is seen in the title role. Howard plays Atterbury
Dodd, a stuffy accountant who has been sent to Hollywood by his New York
office to balance the books of an almost bankrupt Colossal Studios. He meets
all sorts of personalities on the lot including perky stand-in Lester Plum
(Blondell), who teaches him about life and love and helps him save the studio
from almost certain disaster.
Humphrey Bogart is third-billed as Doug Quintain, an eccentric, cyn-
ical but basically honest director who gives his basic philosophy to Howard
in one concise sentence: “In Hollywood, when you turn the other cheek,
they kick it.” Others in the cast include Alan Mowbray as an unscrupulous
director, Jack Carson as a shady public relations man and Marla Shelton as
the studio vamp, once married to Bogart’s character.
Sylvia Sidney plays a stand-in of a vastly different sort in Thirty Day
Princess (Paramount, 1934). An aspiring actress looking for work, she is hired
to impersonate a princess who has suddenly taken ill. In the fulfillment of
her “royal” duties, Sylvia is sent on a good-will tour of the United States.
Her comings and going are duly reported in newspapers; one reporter
assigned to her is the good-looking Cary Grant. The bogus princess falls for
this member of the Fourth Estate and when all is revealed she ends up in
his arms. Veteran character actor Edward Arnold is featured in this fairly
early example of the screwball comedy. With a script by Preston Sturges and
Grant as the leading man, this gentle satire on theatrical royalty was a hit.
MGM starred Jean Harlow in two early screwballs with show business
backgrounds, Blonde Bombshell (1933) and The Girl from Missouri (1934). By
1937, the studio’s platinum blonde sensation was dead. At the age of 26, she
had much to live for: money, a fabulous career and the love of her life, actor
William Powell. She was considered one of the biggest and brightest stars
in Hollywood; one can only guess as to what she might have accomplished
had she lived.
Blonde Bombshell is a devastating satire on the inner workings of Hol-
lywood and the fabled studio system. Harlow is seen as a hard-working actress
who goes from picture to picture without any time off. She is also under the
thumb of a studio publicity agent (played by Lee Tracy) and put upon by
her screwball family who are grasping and unfeeling. Tired of being exploited
by those around her, she skips out and meets a man she thinks she’s in love
with, but finds out he’s been hired by Tracy to lure her back to Hollywood.
 EIGHT. SHOW BUSINESS SCREWBALLS 69

She does go back and chases the agent around the studio lot, but is a little
wiser than before. The two stars are ably supported by Franchot Tone as the
unscrupulous suitor, Frank Morgan, Pat O’Brien, Isabel Jewell and Louise
Beavers.
In The Girl from Missouri, Jean is a chorus girl with principles. Still and
all, she is on the make for a rich husband. She will not, however, sacrifice
her principles and integrity to attain her goal. She doesn’t have to: She meets
handsome, wealthy Franchot Tone. (Type casting in this role: Tone, in real
life, had a wealthy East Coast background.) In support of the two stars are
Patsy Kelly, who supplies most of the laughs, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone
and Alan Mowbray.
This chapter would not be complete without two show business screw-
balls that take place on a train. The first is one of the greatest comedies of
all time, the second a highly amusing but not very well-known film.
Twentieth Century (Columbia, 1934), an inspired bit of lunacy, stars a
scenery-chewing John Barrymore as egomaniacal Broadway producer-
director Oscar Jaffe. Oscar saw a small time actress with the improbable name
of Mildred Plotka and recognized talent. Under his tutelage, she became
Lily Garland and is soon the toast of Broadway. The role is played by Carole
Lombard, who matches her co-star in every way, line for line, shout for shout,
quip for quip.
When Lily appeared in Oscar’s play before her climb to fame, she enacted
the role of a Southern belle. When the scene called for a scream, Oscar was
not satisfied with the way she projected, so he stuck a pin into her rear. The
film’s director, Howard Hawks, then cuts to Lily accepting flowers from her
adoring fans.
Two tempestuous, headstrong personalities are bound to go toe to toe
on more than one occasion; Lily and Jaffe are no exceptions. She feels he has
a stranglehold on her career and he thinks she should be grateful to him for
the rest of her life. The two bicker and snarl at each other with such intensity
that she decides to declare her independence from his manipulations and
goes to Hollywood. When Oscar hears of her departure, he wails, “She’s left
me.” His partner, Oliver Webb (screwball veteran Walter Connolly), aware
that he is being theatrical, retorts, “Say the word and I’ll kill myself.”
Lily-less now, Oscar’s next artistic endeavors come to naught. Down and
out in Chicago, being pursued by creditors, he sneaks out of town and boards
the Twentieth Century Limited, bound for New York. And who is coming
East on that same train? Why, none other than Lily Garland with a boyfriend
(played by Ralph Forbes) in tow. The latter is not around for long.
It is inevitable that these two bombastic “lovebirds” wind up with each
other. In the film’s final scenes, they are doing a play together. He patronizes
and she screams.
70 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Twentieth Century (1934) with Ralph Forbes, Carole Lombard and John Barry-
more. A Broadway producer makes an actress a star, loses her and gets her back.
Barrymore is at his outrageous best, goading Lombard. This film made Carole
a major star.

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, who had co-authored the successful
stage hit, also collaborated on the screen version. It is interesting to note
that the play begins on the train, whereas the film goes back in time to show
how Jaffe has transformed Mildred into Lily Garland. Both writers felt that
opening up the narrative would give more scope to the film. They were cor-
rect.
United Artists–Hal Roach Productions released their train screwball in
1941. Broadway Limited stars Leonid Kinskey as a zany Hollywood director
on a cross-country publicity tour with the star of his latest production. The
latter is played by Marjorie Woodworth. Kinskey insists that she pretend she
is a mother to make her seem less frivolous in the eyes of her fans. She has
found a baby who they think is the kidnapped child of a wealthy family.
Woodworth and Kinskey keep the baby hidden and then announce that he
is the child everybody’s been looking for.
Aiding and abetting the two are Dennis O’Keefe as a doctor who falls
for the star, Victor McLaglen as the train engineer, Patsy Kelly as Kinskey’s
 EIGHT. SHOW BUSINESS SCREWBALLS 71

put-upon secretary and ZaSu Pitts as a truly peculiar passenger. Though a

minor production, there are many screwball incidents including McLaglen
reading “The Three Bears” to the baby, the antics involved in hiding the
child from the police and anything in which Pitts is involved.
The last scene shows that the baby is not the kidnapped child and
Kinskey tearing his hair out—he has lost his star to matrimony while secretary
Kelly goes off with McLaglan.
 Chapter Nine

The Screwball Literati:

Anything for a Story

Before the advent of television, even before radio was a part of the
American scene, newspapers gave us all the news that was fit to print. People
devoured their morning papers along with their breakfast coffee, and the
evening edition was what Dad curled up with while Mom put the finishing
touches on dinner.
That the Fourth Estate was an integral part of American life and had
a powerful influence upon an avid reading public is a given. The newspaper
industry was ripe for satirizing, and that’s just what Hollywood did. Some
of the finest films of all time were the result.
Newspaper editor Walter Burns is trying to stop his star reporter, Hildy
Johnson, from getting married and quitting the profession. The conniving,
sneaky Burns will do anything to lure Hildy away from his prospective bride,
so when an anarchist is sentenced to be executed, the editor assigns the story
to the groom-to-be, telling him that this could be the scoop of his career,
hoping the bird dog in the reporter will make him forget about wedded bliss
and stick to what he knows best. Such is the premise of The Front Page
(United Artists, 1931).
The film is based upon the 1928 Broadway hit by the aforementioned
team of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. It is a satire on political cor-
ruption, which runs rampant even today, and journalistic ethics, which have
often been somewhat questionable.
Before becoming playwrights, both men had been reporters in Chicago,
and the characters of Burns and Johnson had their basis in real life. Reporters
would do anything for a scoop, from misquoting to stretching the truth and
changing the facts in a story.
The film stars Adolphe Menjou as Burns and Pat O’Brien as Hildy, and
they parlayed the rapid-fire, wisecracking script into a box office hit. Its action

72
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 73

takes place in the press room of a courthouse with different characters wan-
dering in and out of the setting. They include George E. Stone as Earl
Williams, the condemned man (he has been convicted of killing a policeman
and is scheduled to be hanged) and Mae Clarke, famous for having half a
grapefruit pushed in her face by James Cagney in The Public Enemy, as Molly
Malloy, a prostitute friend of the prisoner; also Edward Everett Horton,
Frank McHugh and Slim Summerville as news hounds in search of “the
story of a lifetime.” The film, director Lewis Milestone and Menjou picked
up Oscar nominations, but there were no winners among them.
Although The Front Page, like some other films mentioned in this book,
predates the “official” beginnings of screwball comedy by a couple of years,
it must be included here, not only because it is screwball in every sense of
the word but also because of its relationship to one of the most celebrated
films of the genre, His Girl Friday (Columbia, 1940). The latter production
is unique in that, as a remake, it has surpassed the original in both critical
and popular acclaim and is still fondly remembered many decades later by
older moviegoers. Younger generations can watch and enjoy it on television
stations replaying the “Golden Oldies” or on a DVD.
The genesis of His Girl Friday lies in the genius of Howard Hawks.
The veteran filmmaker, wearing two hats as both producer and director,
saw the project as a kind of love story and made Hildy a woman. With this
new development a fait accompli, the storyline had to be altered: It now
becomes a newspaper story plus a battle of the sexes with the right players
assembled.
The casting of Cary Grant as the scheming editor was easy but getting
an actress for the role of Hildy was not. According to legend, the list of
female stars who turned down the role includes Katharine Hepburn, Irene
Dunne, Jean Arthur, Margaret Sullavan, Carole Lombard and Claudette
Colbert. But Connecticut-born Rosalind Russell jumped at the opportunity.
She and her co-star, responding to Hawks’ fast pace and frenetic direction,
including overlapping dialogue, turn in inspired performances.
As the film opens, Burns, once married to his star reporter, wants her
back, but Hildy is engaged to stodgy insurance agent Bruce Baldwin (Ralph
Bellamy—who else?). Hoping to change her mind, Burns assigns her to a
major story, the same one as in the earlier film (Earl Williams, the condemned
man, is played in this film by John Qualen). Burns practically salivates over
the story, which will be a coup for him and the paper—a story so hot that
it could help to bring down a corrupt city administration. He also thinks
that the newsprint that runs in Hildy’s veins will not allow her to become a
hausfrau in Albany (living with her mother-in-law, no less).
And it doesn’t. After several very funny mishaps, Bruce and Mama go
back to Albany. Hildy and Walter will try to make a go of it again. As they
74 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

His Girl Friday (1940) with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, a remake of The
Front Page. This is one remake that turned out better than the original.

make plans for a honeymoon at Niagara Falls, there is a breaking story coming
out of Albany. Walter is gleeful. Albany is on the way to the Falls.
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are Hildy and Walter in the 1974
Universal production of The Front Page. An ever more up-to-date version
titled Switching Channels was released in 1988, by Rank/Ransohoff Produc-
tions. It stars Burt Reynolds, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve. Like
His Girl Friday, the reporter is a lady; however, the action takes place in a
television studio. The two films were somewhat popular in their day, but
who could touch the Grant-Russell combo?
In between The Front Page and His Girl Friday RKO put out a film with
a similar plot: There Goes My Girl (1937) stars Ann Sothern with her frequent
leading man, Gene Raymond. Character actor Richard Lane is the Walter
Burns–like editor who tries to sabotage reporter Sothern’s wedding to Ray-
mond, her opposite on a rival paper. (Their battle of the sexes has always been
who can get the scoop first.) Ever the schemer, Lane even invents a murder
and in a very funny scene, Ann, true to her calling, abandons Raymond at
the altar in pursuit of the hot story.
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 75

Another 1937 newspaper plot is featured in Universal’s A Girl with Ideas.

Wendy Barrie stars as a young woman who inherits a newspaper which had
once printed unfavorable things about her. She is successful, much to the
chagrin of its former owner (Walter Pidgeon). He tries to even the score by
faking the kidnapping of her father and giving the story to a rival paper.
This battle of the sexes continues until both realize that they can work in
tandem, professionally and romantically. Aiding the stars are Dorothea Kent,
Samuel S. Hinds and George Barbier.
Anything for a story? How about Loretta Young as June Cameron in
The Doctor Takes a Wife, a 1940 film from Columbia. She plays an unattached
author and feminist to boot. Marriage is the last thing on her mind.
After a chance meeting with medical instructor Dr. Timothy Sterling
(Ray Milland, who already has a fiancée), the two are mistaken for husband
and wife. The lady, sensing a best seller in the offing, and the man, wanting
a full professorship which he can only get if he’s married, agree to the decep-
tion. The bickering starts, but after a screwball scene involving the fiancée,
doctor and author realize that they are in love; the phony marriage will
become a reality. Also in the cast are Reginald Gardiner, Gail Patrick and
Edmund Gwenn.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”:
These words of William Shakespeare describe in essence the plotline of
Nothing Sacred, Ben Hecht’s 1937 satire on the press and its credulous readers.
The opening words of the film reveal what Hecht thinks of his chosen pro-
fession: “New York, skyscraper champion of the world, where the slicker and
know-it-alls peddle gold bricks to each other, and truth, crushed to earth,
rises more phony than a glass eye.”
Fredric March and Carole Lombard were at the top of their careers
when making this film. Hazel Flagg, deliciously portrayed by Lombard, is
a small town girl mistakenly diagnosed as having radium poisoning by her
alcoholic doctor (screwball veteran Charles Winninger). A reporter named
Wally Cook (March) has been assigned to the obituary page after having
pulled a fast one on the public as well as on his newspaper: He had hired a
Harlem man to portray “The Sultan of Mazipan” at a lavish banquet. The
man’s wife (Hattie McDaniel) appeared at the hall with several children,
yelling, “That’s my husband.” Cook’s editor Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly)
was incensed—therefore the obit page assignment.
Cook sees the Flagg story and persuades Stone to let him cover it. Stone
agrees and Wally is off to Warsaw, Vermont. He meets Hazel and is quite
sympathetic when she expresses a last wish, to go to New York City. Seeing
what a great human interest story this will make, he tells the girl that the
paper will grant her wish.
She subsequently finds out that she is not going to die, but delays telling
76 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Wally and Stone. She allows herself to be given the royal treatment. When
the reporter and editor find out that they have been taken, there is a battle
and Cook takes a sock at Hazel. Then he asks Stone where his sense of
chivalry is. How could he allow him (Wally) to hit a defenseless woman?
Stone replies to this by saying, “My sense of chivalry? You hit her.” To which
an exasperated Wally replies, “That’s entirely different. I love her.” The feel-
ing is mutual. In spite of the “fisticuffs,” the film ends with the radium poi-
soning story petering out and Hazel and Wally on their way to getting
married.
The original screenplay by Ben Hecht was so corrosive that producer
David Selznick ordered a rewrite and handed the job over to a group of writ-
ers headed by Dorothy Parker. The film, an early example of the Technicolor
process, premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and ran there for
four successful weeks. There was a 1954 remake of this classic with Dean
Martin and Jerry Lewis, Living It Up. This version has Lewis in the Lombard
role, Martin as the doctor and Janet Leigh as the reporter. Why mess around
with a great film? Answer: The popularity of Dean and Jerry.
Fredric March, as Bill Spencer, is again a reporter in There Goes My
Heart (United Artists, 1938). He is assigned to track down runaway heiress
Joan Butterfield (Virginia Bruce). The latter is befriended by Peggy O’Brien
(Patsy Kelly) who doesn’t know who Joan is. Peggy gets her new friend a job
in Butterfield’s department store. There Spencer finds and recognizes Joan.
Though he initially seeks to expose her in print, he finds himself falling for
her and by the final fade-out, they are on an island he uses as a getaway. The
original story was written by newspaper columnist-television host Ed Sul-
livan.
Others in the supporting cast include Marjorie Main as a shopper
harassing the department store clerks, Eugene Pallette as March’s editor and
Arthur Lake (later typecast as Dagwood Bumstead) as a bumbling photog-
rapher.
Several scenes stand out: Patsy Kelly demonstrating a vibrato to anyone
who will listen, her rapport with her boyfriend who for years has been study-
ing to be a chiropractor by mail, and Bruce trying to sell a “fireless cooker”
to the stubborn Marjorie Main.
Virginia Bruce in There Goes My Heart can do without publicity. So can
Rosalind Russell in Design for Scandal (MGM, 1941). She is Cornelia Potter,
a judge who sculpts as a hobby. She has ruled against newspaper tycoon Jud-
son Blair in a costly divorce case. The latter is irate and assigns Jeff Sherman,
his top reporter, to humiliate her and get her disbarred. Of course, a battle
of the sexes goes on until newsman and judge find mutual agreement and
the tycoon is forced to pay the full settlement, a not inconsiderable amount
for that era. Walter Pidgeon and Edward Arnold co-star as reporter and boss
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 77

while the supporting cast includes Lee Bowman, Guy Kibbee, Jean Rogers
and Mary Beth Hughes.
Wedding Present (Paramount, 1936) stars Cary Grant and Joan Bennett
as rival reporters who are either in love or out of love. When he becomes an
editor, she is somewhat angry and decides to marry someone else. Grant dis-
turbs her wedding with police cars and fire engines and, in the confusion,
kidnaps her. All turns out for the best and the couple are together in the end.
This was a minor film in the careers of both Bennett and Grant.
Another film involving a male-female reporter combo stars Bette Davis
and her frequent co-star of the era, George Brent. In Front Page Woman
(Warner Brothers, 1935), Davis and Brent are rival newshounds determined
to scoop each other. The fact that they are romantically involved leads to the
familiar battle of the sexes. They are both assigned to the same case which
causes comic complications. Featured in the cast are Roscoe Karns and J.
Carrol Naish. Front Page Woman is a minor venture in the illustrious career
of Bette Davis.
A strikingly handsome actor was Tyrone Power, who by 1937 had
become a major star. One of his few forays into screwball comedy is Love Is
News. Supported by a cast including old friend and frequent co-star Don
Ameche, Power plays reporter Steve Layton, who continually prints scathing
remarks about heiress Tony Gateson (Loretta Young). Annoyed and angered
by what he has been doing, she turns the tables on him and announces their
engagement. It is now his turn to be annoyed and angered. The two pick at
each other until they realize that their theme song should be “You Were
Meant for Me.”
The same script, tailored to fit the talents of Betty Grable, emerged in
1943 as Sweet Rosie O’Grady with Robert Young as the reporter, and in its
original form as That Wonderful Urge (1948). Both remakes were released by
Fox. Eleven years after his first stint as the breezy newsman, Power is at it
again, this time with the lovely Gene Tierney as the subject of his barbs.
The year 1935 saw the emergence of Fred MacMurray as a major star.
His debut vehicle was Paramount’s The Gilded Lily in which his “quarry” was
Claudette Colbert. MacMurray is Peter Dawes, a popcorn-eating, bench-
sitting reporter who in a series of articles makes fellow bench-sitter Lillian
David (Colbert), a typist, into a celebrity. She meets Charles Gray (Ray
Milland), an unemployed Englishman, and offers to help him. She soon finds
out that he is really a wealthy nobleman named Charles Granville, becomes
romantically involved with him and follows him to England.
There she is exploited and, because of her celebrity, is offered a singing
job—but she is no singer. She is humiliated and returns to America and her
popcorn-munching reporter. For this film, MacMurray was brought to Hol-
lywood from New York where he had appeared in the Broadway hit Roberta.
78 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

English actress Madeleine Carroll plays a bored socialite in Cafe Society.

Her heiress is in the same boat as Tony Gateson in Love Is News. In the first
of four films made with the lovely blonde star, Fred MacMurray is a reporter
who constantly heckles Madeleine and her crowd for their dilettante ways.
On a bet, the young woman weds her “tormenter,” intending to be an embar-
rassment to him. Instead, in true screwball style, this battle of the sexes
becomes a love match and she is brought down from the glitz of her life to
the reality of his.
After her 1940 hit on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story, Katharine
Hepburn could write her own ticket at MGM. Which she proceeded to do.
Woman of the Year was the result. Hepburn asked for and got Spencer Tracy
as her co-star. Their legendary meeting has since been recorded for poster-
ity:
She, upon meeting him for the first time said, “I fear, Mr. Tracy, that I’m a bit
tall for you.” For years it was presumed that Tracy retorted, “Don’t worry, Miss
Hepburn, I’ll cut you down to size.”

It is now thought that writer-producer-director Joseph Mankiewicz was the

author of that famous putdown.
Take a sportswriter named Sam Craig, match him up with political
columnist Tess Harding and you have the plotline of Woman of the Year.
Their courtship (he takes her to a ballgame and watches her in fascination
as she proceeds to ask one inane question after another) and subsequent mar-
riage are strained by opposing ideas and temperaments and he walks out.
After she is given a talking-to by her wise aunt (Fay Bainter), Tess (who
knows nothing about a kitchen) tries to make breakfast for Sam. Both realize
that they belong together and that there is compromise in a marriage and
that radical changes are not necessary for happiness together.
The film, produced by Mankiewicz and directed by George Stevens
(the latter by order of Hepburn in a communiqué to MGM studio head
Louis B. Mayer), was a resounding hit and paved the way for more of that
special Tracy-Hepburn magic. The husband-and-wife team of Renee Taylor
and Joseph Bologna starred in a 1976 TV-movie remake. There is no magic
in it.
Designing Woman (MGM, 1957) is somewhat similar to Woman of the
Year in that a sports reporter (Gregory Peck) marries a woman (Lauren
Bacall) who is not a part of the world he knows (she is a well-paid fashion
designer). They try to compromise and therein lies the screwball aspects of
the film. The couple goes to a sports event in which she is out of her element.
Other screwball scenes have Peck and his cronies involved in a poker game
while Bacall is entertaining her friends in another room; Peck in his former
girlfriend’s apartment, hiding when Bacall comes marching in; and Peck
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 79

being confronted by screwball gangsters. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, the

cast features Dolores Gray as the ex-girlfriend and Chuck Connors as a shady
character gunning for Peck.
The screwball comedy great Sheridan Whiteside is the central figure in
The Man Who Came to Dinner (Warner Brothers, 1942), the film version of
the Broadway hit co-authored by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. As
played by Monty Woolley, who had created the role in the play, Whiteside
is irascible, cantankerous, overbearing, self-absorbed and hilariously funny.
Based upon an actual personality (Alexander Woollcott, acerbic wit, critic
and charter member of the famous New York Algonquin Hotel Round Table),
Whiteside speaks before a literary club meeting in a small Ohio town at Christ-
mas time, breaks his hip and must remain at the home of his hostess, Mrs.
Stanley. On what he considers his best behavior, he proceeds to take over the
household and the lives of the Stanley family, wreaking havoc all around him.
The screen rights to the play were purchased by Warner Brothers at the
request of Bette Davis, who envisioned it as a vehicle for herself as White-
side’s secretary with John Barrymore playing the title role. When the latter
proved incapable of remembering his lines, the juicy role went to the bearded
Woolley, who almost walked away with the picture.
Besides parodying Woollcott, the script has fun with several other nota-
bles of the era. Weaving in and out of the scenario are Ann Sheridan as Lor-
raine Sheldon, Jimmy Durante as Banjo and Reginald Gardiner as Beverly
Carlton, doing devastating take-offs on Gertrude Lawrence, Harpo Marx
and Noël Coward, respectively. Davis as Maggie Cutler and Richard Travis
as small town newsman Bert Jefferson inject a bit of romance into the pro-
ceedings. This turn of events does not make Whiteside happy. He tries to
meddle, but is cut off at the pass. Hilarious scenes include Whiteside getting
a present of penguins, Lorraine being locked in a mummy case and Banjo
making his entrance into the scenario.
Heading the supporting cast are such veterans as Billie Burke and Grant
Mitchell as the Stanleys, Whiteside’s host and hostess, and Mary Wickes
as Miss Preen, the much put-upon nurse. Her dialogue as she leaves the
Stanley home is a classic:
I am not only walking out on this case, Mr. Whiteside. I am leaving the nursing
profession. I became a nurse because all my life, ever since I was a little girl, I
was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with
you, Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory.
... If Florence Nightingale had ever nursed you, Mr. Whiteside, she would have
married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross.
June Bride (Warners, 1948) has enough of the screwball element to war-
rant inclusion in this chapter. Bette Davis’ leading man is Robert Montgom-
ery. They are a typical screwball couple—sophisticated, adversarial and in
80 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) with Ann Sheridan, Richard Travis, Bette
Davis and Monty Woolley. A devastating satire. What mischief is the bearded
one up to?

love, though they fight it. The film lampoons the magazine industry, playing
up the “anything for a story” angle until things begin to unravel.
Davis plays a high-powered magazine editor and Montgomery a writer
and her former lover who jilted her for the life of a roving correspondent.
The only job he can find when he returns to America is on her magazine.
He would like to resume their relationship, but she is adamant in her refusal:
“I had measles once. Now I’m immune,” she tells him.
Their first assignment as a team is to cover a small town wedding in
Indiana. The only catch is that the bride and the groom are in love, but not
with each other. The bride’s kid sister (played by Betty Lynn) loves the
intended groom and, with Bette’s help, snares him, while her older sister goes
off with the one she really loves. There is a June Bride for the magazine to
cover, not the original one, but no matter, it’s all in the family. Bette, with
stars in her eyes, agrees to follow Montgomery around the globe if that’s where
he chooses to go. Funny scenes include the bride’s mother getting a massage
and Montgomery getting drunk on apple cider (spiked, of course). In the
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 81

cast as the older sister is Barbara Bates while her parents are played by Tom
Tully and Fay Bainter.
Ten years before, Montgomery made a screwball comedy for MGM
titled Three Loves Has Nancy, co-starring Janet Gaynor and Franchot Tone.
Gaynor, as Nancy, is a jilted bride who comes to New York in search of her
fiancé. She meets a famous author (Montgomery) on the train and, after a
series of funny incidents, winds up in his apartment during a party. His girl-
friend is not too thrilled with this and departs saying, “I’ve had a lovely eve-
ning, but this wasn’t it.”
Third-billed Tone plays Montgomery’s publisher who falls in love with
Nancy and wants to marry her. Finally realizing that he loves Nancy galva-
nizes the author into action and the last scene finds him racing to catch the
honeymoon ship.
Another writer in Honeymoon for Three, a Warner Brothers 1941 pro-
duction, has troubles of his own. George Brent is Kenneth Bixby, a famous
novelist, and Ann Sheridan (who in real life was Brent’s wife at the time)
plays Anne Rogers, his long-suffering secretary. Julie Wilson (Osa Massen),
an old flame of Kenneth’s who thinks she’s been the inspiration for his latest
book, tries to rekindle a romance with him though she is married to a man
named Harvey (hilariously played by veteran screwballer Charles Ruggles).
Anne is not thrilled by this turn of events and with the help of Julie’s
cousin ( Jane Wyman) tries her best to throw a monkey wrench into Julie’s
plans. Because of this ever-loyal secretary, the novelist avoids a nasty legal
situation and winds up with her—she has always loved him.
Warren William as the novelist, Joan Blondell as the secretary and
Genevieve Tobin as the flirtatious wife, appear in an earlier version of this
film in 1933. Its title is Goodbye Again, also from Warner Brothers.
Jealousy rears its ugly head in The Feminine Touch (MGM, 1941) when pro-
fessor John Hathaway (Don Ameche) writes a book on that very subject and
takes his wife Julie (Rosalind Russell) to New York on a public relations trip.
Julie soon suspects him of having an affair with another woman, played by the
glamorous and sophisticated Kay Francis. Van Heflin plays John’s publisher who
casts amorous glances at Roz. Her husband insists he is not jealous. But then
the triangle becomes a quadrangle when Roz uses the publisher to make Ameche
jealous. The finale has the men engaged in a fistfight with Roz backing Ameche
and Kay helping Heflin, with whom she has always been in love.
A triangle of a sort is the premise of the 1941 MGM film Married Bach-
elor. It can be readily seen from the title that this is a screwball comedy.
Robert Young stars as Randolph Haven, who goes into partnership with a
bookie and, in order to cover a bet, submits a manuscript on how to stay sin-
gle. The book is successful. However, there is a catch: Randy is happily mar-
ried, so for publicity purposes he has to pose as a bachelor.
82 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

When his wife Norma (Ruth Hussey) announces that they will be wel-
coming a blessed event, they need to get a substitute husband (book sales are
at their height). Enter the unsuspecting Eric Santley (Lee Bowman), Randy’s
publisher, who does not know that Randy is married. Of course, this is all
ironed out in the end, but getting there is entertaining.
There is a mixture of art and literature of a kind in both Theodora Goes
Wild (Columbia, 1936) and Third Finger, Left Hand (MGM, 1940). In the
former, Theodora Lynn, a prim New Englander delightfully played by Irene
Dunne, has written a scandalous (by 1936 standards) best seller titled The
Sinner under the pseudonym of Carolyn Adams. Only her publisher Arthur
Stevenson (Thurston Hall) knows her secret. The editor (Thomas Mitchell)
of her hometown paper The Lynnefield Bugle has serialized the book and the
town literary society, of which Theodora is a member, condemns it. Charter
members of this society are
Theodora’s maiden aunts
(played by Elisabeth Risdon
and Mary McWade) who have
raised her from childhood.
Upon traveling to New
York to see Stevenson, she
meets her book’s worldly illus-
trator, Michael Grant (Melvyn
Douglas). She takes an imme-
diate dislike to him and when
she and the publisher dine at
a restaurant, the artist comes
in uninvited and makes a nui-
sance of himself. Michael con-
vinces Theodora to have a
drink, one of many, and they
wind up in his apartment. She
is uncomfortable and rushes
out.
Michael, curious about
Theodora’s double existence,
follows her back to Lynnefield.
His unconventional manner
and thoughts about life make
her fall in love with him, but
Theodora Goes Wild (1936): What happens
when a staid New Englander (Irene Dunne) she gets a shock upon discov-
falls for an unconventional artist (Melvyn ering that he is married, albeit
Douglas) who already has a wife? unhappily. His politician father
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 83

demands that there be no divorce in the family until his term of office as
lieutenant-governor is over. Theodora goes into action, moves into Michael’s
place and confesses that she is the author of The Sinner. She is named co-
respondent in a divorce suit initiated by Michael’s wife.
The town gossip, Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington), is ready to pounce
on Theodora until the latter shows up carrying a baby, which she reveals is
the grandchild of Mrs. Perry. The good lady faints, but Michael and
Theodora are happily together. He is free from an unhappy marriage, she
from the restraints of a narrow-minded town. Irene Dunne was Oscar-
nominated for her performance, but lost the coveted award to Luise Rainer
of The Great Ziegfeld.
In Third Finger, Left Hand, Melvyn Douglas is again an artist. This
time the object of his affections is fashion editor Myrna Loy. The lady, think-
ing she’s too busy for love and romance, fends off all suitors by telling them
that she is already married. She is in shock when commercial artist Douglas
turns up, claiming to be her husband. She marries him to avoid embarrass-
ment and humiliation. Then, in a true “screwballian” twist, Myrna becomes
engaged to Lee Bowman. In time, as in all films of this kind, she realizes
that she loves her husband. In the expert hands of its stars, plus a supporting
cast which includes Donald Meek, Bonita Granville, Sidney Blackmer, Felix
Bressart and Raymond Walburn, the film plays out much better than it
sounds.
Warner Brothers assembled a four-star cast for the aptly titled Four’s a
Crowd, a 1938 screwball comedy. Rosalind Russell, two years before her tri-
umph in His Girl Friday, plays ace reporter Jean Christy, working for pub-
lisher Patterson Buckley (Patric Knowles). The latter is engaged to Lori
Dillingwell (Olivia de Havilland), a zany heiress whose father (Walter Con-
nolly) glories in being hated by everyone who knows him. When Robert
Lansford (Errol Flynn) is fired as the editor of Knowles’ paper, he opens a
public relations firm. And who is his most difficult client? Through Olivia,
he gets Connolly.
To soften the crusty tycoon’s image, Flynn romances Olivia, though he
is in love with Roz. There are several complications, plus a true screwball
ending.
Harry Cohn, Columbia Studio’s head, upon hearing the plot line of It
Happened One Night, is reported to have made a remark which has come down
through the years in Hollywood lore: “Who wants to see a picture about a
bus?”
Based upon a Cosmopolitan magazine short story titled “Night Bus” by
Samuel Hopkins Adams, the project was the brainchild of director Frank
Capra and his head writer Robert Riskin. Much of Hollywood agreed with
Cohn’s assessment but Capra was the darling of the studio. Casting, however,
84 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

presented a problem. The male lead was turned down by Robert Montgom-
ery, while Constance Bennett, Myrna Loy, Miriam Hopkins and Margaret
Sullavan “passed” on playing the female lead.
To “punish” Clark Gable for some recalcitrance on his part, MGM
mogul Louis B. Mayer loaned him out to Cohn’s “Poverty Row” studio.
Claudette Colbert undertook the feminine lead only after her demands were
met: Columbia had to pay her asking price, which was double what she was
getting at Paramount per picture, and also had to guarantee her no more
than four weeks work.
To paraphrase Cohn, much of the action in It Happened One Night does
take place on a bus (a Greyhound to be exact, which thrilled that company).
Reporter Peter Warne (Gable) meets Ellie Andrews (Colbert) traveling
incognito. Ellie is the rich, spoiled daughter of millionaire Alexander
Andrews (Walter Connolly).
Because Daddy disapproves
of her quickie marriage to
notorious playboy King
Westley ( Jameson Thomas),
she has fled. Peter soon rec-
ognizes the runaway heiress
and sees her as “the biggest
scoop of the year” and his
ticket to fame and fortune.
At first they are adversarial,
constantly trading barbs, but
soon each feels an attraction
toward the other. He sees
her as someone who needs
looking after, while she
regards him as the one man
she cannot wind around her
little finger.
When Ellie mistakenly
thinks that Peter has aban-
doned her, amid much pub-
licity, she decides to marry
Westley in an official and
elaborate wedding, but con-
fesses to her father that she
Four’s a Crowd (1938) with Patric Knowles,
Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell and Errol still loves Peter. The latter,
Flynn. The finale finds the four married but thinking that Ellie has run
there is a mix-up. Who winds up with whom? away from him on a whim,
 NINE. THE SCREWBALL LITERATI: ANYTHING FOR A STORY 85

It Happened One Night (1934) with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. The
film won all five major Academy Awards.

goes to her home on the day of the wedding and hands her father an itemized
bill for $39.60. Mr. Andrews knows that Peter is right for Ellie and tells her
to go to him, which she does.
Several scenes stand out: Gable teaching Colbert how to properly dunk
a doughnut; she showing him her hitchhiking technique; Gable removing
his shirt and revealing a bare chest (to the delight of the ladies in the audi-
ence, but the consternation of the underwear industry whose sales took a
sharp drop); and the “Walls of Jericho” scene in a motel. (At the beginning
of the film, they had spent the night there when the bus had to make an
unscheduled stop. “The Walls of Jericho” was a blanket put up in between
their beds. In the final scene, a trumpet is blown and you know what has come
tumbling down.)
The film opened to mixed reviews in New York City, but in the vast
hinterlands it was a tremendous hit. The 1934 release won the five major
Academy Awards and Capra again could write his own ticket.
From the same studio that had given us that classic came You Can’t Run
Away from It (1956), a musical remake. Directed by Dick Powell, it stars his
second wife June Allyson, Jack Lemmon and Charles Bickford. Same names,
same plot, but there the similarities end. The musical numbers are inane and
86 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

the stars, though adequate, cannot compare to the originals. Robert Riskin,
who had written the original screenplay in 1934, collaborated with Claude
Binyon on the updated version.
In a variation on It Happened One Night, Love on the Run (MGM, 1936),
Gable is again a reporter hot on the trail of a runaway heiress about to be
married. This time the lady is his frequent co-star Joan Crawford. Two is
company, three is a crowd, the third party being Franchot Tone (at that time
married to Crawford in real life) as Gable’s pal, a rival reporter. It is Tone
who, showing a flair for comedy, supplies the screwball touches when he is
constantly being outwitted by his so-called “pal.”
The trio becomes involved with a trio of international spies when Gable
and Crawford steal their plane. When the plane, containing a valuable map,
crashes, they find themselves in France and stay for a night at the Palace of
Fontainbleau where they meet, in another screwball touch, an eccentric care-
taker (delightfully played by Donald Meek). The spies are foiled and Gable
and Crawford will marry.
Although Cross-Country Romance (RKO, 1940) does not involve writing
per se, I have placed it here because of its theme: the spoiled runaway heiress
finding true love. The film features Gene Raymond as Larry Smith, a bac-
teriologist who becomes involved with a runaway rich girl named Diane North
(Wendy Barrie) when she stows away in his trailer while he’s on a trip from
New York to San Francisco on his way to China. There he will work under
an eminent scientist with an eye toward possibly publishing their findings.
Stopping off to deliver a plaque to her mother, he interrupts Diane’s
arranged marriage. She doesn’t want to marry her stuffy fiancé so she stows
away, clad in only a slip. Larry finds her and doesn’t believe her story so she
concocts a phony one and the fun begins. In the usual screwball ending, the
two wind up together. The supporting players include Hedda Hopper and
Billy Gilbert.
 Chapter Ten

Love on the Rocks:

Marital Mix-Ups, Screwball Style

There are several emotions to be felt besides love and hate during the
course of a marriage. Joy, sorrow, pride and jealousy are only a few of them.
Conflict is something else that arises between two people who share bed and
breakfast and when it does, said couple experiences a state of wedded blitz
instead of the much sought-after wedded bliss.
An appreciation of this fact of life is apparent in the screwball comedies
that are devoted to marital mayhem. Exaggerated though the emotions and
conflicts in the film may be, they are the ones that we ourselves know to be
true. When we laugh at the couples on the screen, we may well be laughing
at ourselves and if that can be done, it is a healthy sign.
Mistrust and jealousy all too often rear their ugly heads. In many cases,
there is no basis for these feelings; they are, however, two of the essential
elements in screwball comedies.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, two of screwball’s most accomplished
practitioners, star in The Awful Truth (1937). (It had already been a play in
1922, a silent in 1925 and an early talkie in 1929.) It’s the story of two people
who, in their ongoing battle of the sexes, mistrust each other to the nth
degree, but have such strong feelings towards one another that even a divorce
cannot stop them from eventually coming together again.
Lucy and Jerry Warriner divorce on grounds of (presumed) marital
infidelity. He says he’s been in Florida with a group of buddies (who are
will ing to swear to it) but gives her a gift orange clearly stamped California.
Lucy, on the other hand, is not there when he gets home—she comes breezing
in, all dressed up, with her music teacher in tow, explaining that she is late
because his car broke down. Neither believes the other and they wind up in
divorce court. By a ruse, Lucy gets custody of their pooch Mr. Smith (Asta)
and Jerry gets visitation rights. The divorce will be granted in 60 days.

87
88 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

The Awful Truth (1937): Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are divorcing. Both want
custody of the pooch (Asta).

She meets Daniel Leeson (Ralph Bellamy), a wealthy oil man from Okla-
homa, and Jerry becomes involved with both nightclub singer Dixie Belle
Lee ( Joyce Compton) and debutante Barbara Vance (Marguerite Churchill).
Jerry and Lucy get in each other’s way, a development reflected in some
standout scenes: Grant and Asta staging an impromptu concert, with Cary
on piano and canine on vocal; Cary breaking up Dunne when she is in the
midst of a recital; and she barging into the home of his socialite girlfriend
saying that she is his sister and doing a devastating take-off on Dixie Belle.
By film’s end, they are in her aunt’s country home. At twelve o’clock
midnight, their divorce is to become final. In this last scene, two mechanical
figures march out of their separate stations on the clock to begin the chiming.
Then, instead of returning the way they came, the boy is seen chasing the
girl. The audience is wise to what will happen next.
Academy Award nominations went to the picture itself, director Leo
McCarey, Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy. Only McCarey took home a
statuette. A remake with music, Let’s Do It Again, starring Jane Wyman, Ray
Milland and Aldo Ray, was released by Columbia in 1953.
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 89

In 1940, Cary and Irene combined for another popular screwball comedy.
In My Favorite Wife (RKO), she plays Ellen Arden (a take-off on the Enoch
Arden tale of bigamy by Alfred Lord Tennyson) who has been shipwrecked
on a deserted island for seven years but returns home on the day that her
husband Nick (Grant) has had her declared legally dead. He has, also on
this day, taken unto himself a brand new bride, Bianca (Gail Patrick). Ellen
is shocked upon hearing this bit of news.
All bodes well for the newlyweds until Nick bumps into wife number
one at the resort to which he has taken wife number two. He is all set to tell
Bianca about the return of Ellen, but mistrust enters the picture: Ellen wasn’t
alone on that deserted island! He-man Stephen Burkett (Randolph Scott)
kept her company for that long stretch of time. If that’s not enough, Ellen
calls him Adam and he has given her the nickname of Eve. He remarks that
they have nothing to be remorseful over. But is this the unvarnished truth?
By the end of the film, Nick and wife number one are together again,
but not before several screwball incidents have entertained the audience,
among them a scene at the Yosemite National Park Hotel where a manic
Grant dashes from one wife to another; one in which Randolph Scott is
entertaining a bevy of bathing beauties poolside much to Cary’s disgust and
chagrin; and another wherein Ellen, knowing that Nick’s wedding to Bianca
has already been annulled, tells him that he has to wait until the full 60 days
has elapsed before they can resume being man and wife. She says that they
will get together around Christmas. A few minutes later, he comes through
the door dressed as Santa Claus.
The remake Move Over, Darling was released by Fox in 1963. It was
originally penciled in as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe just before her death
in 1962; the role was taken over by Doris Day, James Garner, Polly Bergen
and Chuck Connors co-star.
The Enoch Arden saga is also the theme of Too Many Husbands, a 1940
Columbia film which was adapted from a Somerset Maugham play. When
Bill Cardew (Fred MacMurray) is reported a victim of drowning, his widow
Vickie ( Jean Arthur) marries Henry Lowndes (third-billed Melvyn Doug-
las). A year later, Bill, who like Ellen Arden in My Favorite Wife has been
living on a deserted island, returns.
Vickie is now on the horns of a dilemma—Bill or Henry? Which hus-
band should she choose? She cannot make up her mind and plays one against
the other, enjoying every moment with the two men vying for her until an
exasperated judge sends her back to hubby number one.
The trio of Arthur, MacMurray and Douglas carry off the film in grand
style with the aid of a stellar supporting cast which includes Harry Davenport
as Arthur’s father, Melville Cooper and Edgar Buchanan.
Betty Grable starred in a musical remake of Too Many Husbands: In
90 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Three for the Show (Columbia, 1955), Jack Lemmon and Gower Champion
play the men in Betty’s complicated life. Of course, Lemmon is the guy who
gets her in the fadeout. Also featured in the cast is Marge Champion, then
married to Gower. Grable and Lemmon fans will enjoy the film, which does
not compare with the original. Very often it is the casting which can make
a movie and in this case, the Grable-Lemmon-Champion trio cannot com-
pare to the Arthur-MacMurray-Douglas threesome.
Complications of a somewhat similar sort confound Dennis Morgan in
Kisses for Breakfast, a 1941 Warner Brothers release. Morgan plays Rupert,
who has just married his Juliet (Shirley Ross). About to go on his honeymoon,
he is accosted by an old flame who threatens to blackmail him about their
past together. They get into his car and, when he refuses to pay, he is hit over
the head and the car goes into a river. Rupert manages to escape and the
blackmailer is never seen again. He now has a classic case of amnesia. In his
pocket, he finds a name and address. He doesn’t know that it belongs to Laura
( Jane Wyatt), Juliet’s cousin, who was unable to attend the wedding. He
meets her, falls for her and in time Happy (Rupert has chosen this name
from a billboard) and Laura are married and go to visit her cousin who faints
when she sees him. A hypnotist restores his memory but since his first mar-
riage has not been consummated, he tricks Laura into hitting him and he is
“Happy” again.
Melvyn Douglas is the star of And So They Were Married (Columbia,
1936), whose plot concerns a widower (Douglas) who meets a widow (Mary
Astor) at a winter holiday resort. After initially taking a dislike to each other,
they fall in love and marry. It takes a while for “They Lived Happily Ever
After” to come about as their respective offspring (Edith Fellows and Jackie
Moran) are not thrilled with the marriage. The kids do anything and every-
thing to keep the newlyweds apart. When they finally realize the error of
their ways, they stage a fake kidnapping to bring the couple together.
Douglas, who really got around some in the screwball genre, is top-cast
in Our Wife (Columbia, 1941). He’s a composer who loves Ruth Hussey and
wants to marry her, and she feels the same way about him. Her love has
inspired him to complete his finest work. There is a fly in the ointment: Ex-
wife Ellen Drew is very jealous of the success her former husband has
achieved and schemes to get him back. In a series of comical incidents,
Hussey catches the opportunistic ex at her skullduggery and shows her up
for what she is. Charles Coburn, as Hussey’s father, gives a delightful per-
formance as usual, but it is Douglas’ film all the way. For many, the debonair
actor runs a close second to Cary Grant in the screwball genre.
The same year as they made The Lady Eve, 1941, Henry Fonda and Bar-
bara Stanwyck reunited for Columbia’s You Belong to Me. Fonda plays Peter
Kirk, a dilettante socialite who has married Dr. Helen Hunt (Stanwyck).
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 91

He has nothing to do all day but annoy his wife, being insanely jealous of
the attention she gives her patients, many of whom are male. This premise
gives the stars plenty of comic situations to work on, like Peter’s showing up
at Helen’s office at inopportune times or his asking inane questions about
her patients. Helen finally tells her husband that his idleness and behavior
are ruining their marriage, that her work is important to her. He gets a job
in a department store. In a funny scene, the owners of the store find out that
he is rich and he is fired.
Because she really loves her husband, the doctor suddenly does an about
face and quits her practice, but money saves the day. Peter invests in a hospital
which is about to go under and makes his wife chief of staff. This is the per-
fect solution. She gets on with her career and he is also doing something
worthwhile.
The supporting cast consists of Ruth Donnelly as Stanwyck’s chatty
nurse, Melville Cooper as Fonda’s butler and Edgar Buchanan as a philo-
sophical gardener. This trio gives the film some highly funny moments. You
Belong to Me became Emergency Wedding in 1950. A Columbia release, this
remake stars Larry Parks and Barbara Hale. “Lackluster” is a good word to
describe it.
Like Barbara Stanwyck and Barbara Hale in the afore-mentioned films,
Margaret Sullavan is an M.D. in Appointment for Love (Universal, 1941).
Charles Boyer co-stars as a playwright. The two marry, but she thinks that
he is having affairs with other women. He’s not, but is equally mistrustful
of her. They bicker and complain—they even get separate apartments, but
as in all screwballs, the battle of the sexes is resolved and doctor and play-
wright kiss and make up. The supporting cast includes Eugene Pallette, Rita
Johnson, and Reginald Denny, who move the screenplay along at a fairly
brisk pace. The two stars so enjoyed working together that they co-starred
again, this time in Back Street, a remake of the old Fannie Hurst drama of
an illicit love. This film came out shortly after the release of Appointment for
Love.
Suspicion and mistrust in a marriage is the theme of many other screw-
ball comedies. Linda Darnell is leery of Tyrone Power in Daytime Wife (Fox,
1939); feeling neglected, she thinks that her hubby is having a little fling
with his secretary (Wendy Barrie). When Power forgets their second wedding
anniversary and doesn’t show up for the surprise party she’s arranged, she
goes to his office—and he is not there. When he comes home, he tells her
that he was working late. Now she’s sure something is going on.
Her friend (Binnie Barnes) suggests that she find the answer to the age-
old question of why a man’s secretary can hold such charm for him. She gets
a job as a Girl Friday to an architect (Warren William) who is susceptible
to a pretty face. He tells his new employee to think of him as “an ineligible
92 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

eligible bachelor.” It is clear that he’s got more than shorthand on his mind.
When she reminds him that he is married, he tells her, “After a while, a wife
gets to be a sort of a solved crossword puzzle. A man likes to be intrigued,
likes to fence with someone, someone who might say yes.” Darnell takes all
of this in.
The film’s climax shows the four in a “business conference” at a nightclub
which winds up in William’s penthouse. There the wife “confesses” her true
identity. The last scene has Power calling Barrie “an old watermelon.” The
latter exits in a huff, with the straying husband coming meekly back into the
fold.
Loretta Young, originally scheduled to star in the film, turned the role
down, not wanting to take second billing to Power. The part went to the
19-year-old Darnell, who subsequently married Peverell Marley, who did
the photography on the film.
Like the wife in Daytime Wife, in The Bride Walks Out Barbara Stanwyck
secretly takes on a job after her marriage. She wants more material goods
than her struggling engineer husband (Gene Raymond) can give her on his
$35-a-week salary. She becomes a successful model and is quite happy, but
when her husband finds out the truth, he is incensed and leaves her to the
tender ministrations of wealthy department store owner Robert Young.
When Raymond accepts a job in South America, Stanwyck admits that
she still loves him and uses a rueful Young to help her keep Raymond from
leaving the country. Love has triumphed over luxury.
The three principals are immeasurably aided by Ned Sparks and Helen
Broderick, who have the best lines as a constantly bickering screwball cou-
ple.
As is to be seen in Daytime Wife, philandering husbands play a large
part in the screwball genre, making up a goodly portion of the battle of the
sexes so entertainingly entered into by consenting males and females.
Another case in point is Affectionately Yours (Warner Brothers, 1941): Ace
overseas roving reporter Richard Mayberry (Dennis Morgan) has a roving
eye while on assignment. When playing around with several lovelies, includ-
ing Irene Malcolm (Rita Hayworth), his stock phrase is, “I’d marry you in
a minute, but I have a wife.”
Returning home after a long absence, he is chagrined to find out that
his wife Susan (Merle Oberon) has divorced him and will soon marry Owen
Wright (Ralph Bellamy). He feels threatened by this turn of events and
promises to quit his job.
The film ends with Morgan escaping from a plot hatched by his editor
to see that Oberon marries Bellamy so as to keep his ace reporter on the job.
(From the minute “poor” Ralph is seen on the screen, we know that marriage
to him ain’t gonna happen.) Morgan invents an injury and finds a room in
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 93

Two-Faced Woman (1941): How does a woman (Greta Garbo) keep her straying
husband (Melvyn Douglas)? This film was Greta’s “swan song” to Hollywood.

the hospital. Oberon rushes to him, sees through the hoax, but realizes that
she still loves him, and they end up in a clinch. Other cast members include
such well-known personalities as George Tobias as Morgan’s sidekick, James
Gleason as Morgan’s crafty editor, Jerome Cowan as a fellow reporter and
Hattie McDaniel as the sassy Mayberry maid.
Two-Faced Woman (MGM, 1941) refers to Greta Garbo in a pseudo-
double role, the enigmatic star using a secret weapon to bring her straying
husband back into the fold. In this, her last film, she is Karin, a ski instructor
who meets and impulsively marries sophisticated man about town Larry Blake
(Melvyn Douglas). She wants to stay on her beloved slopes; he says he will
join her after winding up some business affairs.
Time goes by, but he does not appear. He is having too much fun with
old flame Griselda Vaughn (third-billed Constance Bennett). In screwball
comedy, it is left to the imagination of the audience as to how “innocent”
the fun has been.
To hold on to her man, Karin resorts to subterfuge: She pretends to be
her more scintillating (but imaginary) twin sister who flirts unashamedly with
94 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

and grabs the attention of her husband. Initially, the implication is that the
husband willingly succumbed to his “sister-in-law’s” charms, but the Catholic
Church intervened and an added scene discloses that Douglas has seen through
the ruse.
Although Two-Faced Woman is often cited as the reason for Garbo’s
retirement from the screen, it does have its charm. With antics involving a
wild rhumba, a bathing suit scene and a chase finale, the film (like Jack Benny’s
The Horn Blows at Midnight [Warner Brothers, 1945]) is not the “turkey” its
reputation has made it out to be. Garbo retired, fame and beauty intact and
with lots of MGM money in safe investments.
Are Husbands Necessary? (Paramount, 1942) stars Betty Field and Ray
Milland as a happily married couple. Hubby’s past catches up to him with
the reappearance of ex-girlfriend Patricia Morison. Milland must and does
prove that the sultry Morison is a fling of the past. In support of the trio are
such screwball stalwarts as Eugene Pallette, Cecil Kellaway, Charles Dingle
and Richard Haydn. This plot had been done the year before with much
better results in Love Crazy with William Powell and Myrna Loy as the mar-
ried couple and Gail Patrick as the femme fatale. This film will be discussed
in our next chapter.
Money problems are another source of conflict in a marriage and
Claudette Colbert takes this to a higher level in The Palm Beach Story. She
is Gerry Jeffers, a restless wife who spends money faster than her inventor
husband Tom ( Joel McCrea) can make it. They are so far behind in their rent
that their apartment is to be rented out to other tenants. One such prospect
is the self-proclaimed “Wienie King” who gives Gerry $700. She obtains a
divorce and sets out for Palm Beach, Florida, hoping to bag herself a mil-
lionaire.
Aboard a train bound for the Sunshine State, Gerry meets a group of
zanies who, in a wild adventure, induct her into “The Ale and Quail Club.”
She also meets a stuffy millionaire named J.D. Hackensaker (Rudy Vallee)
when, getting into her upper berth, she steps on his face. When she apolo-
gizes, he tells her, “It’s quite all right, I rather enjoyed it.”
Before they arrive in Palm Beach, he has taken quite a shine to his new
acquaintance. He buys her a complete wardrobe and wants her to come to
his mansion and meet his man-crazy, much-married sister Maude (Mary
Astor). Tom comes to Florida and Gerry introduces him as her brother. But
then jealousy rears its ugly head when she sees Maude making a play for her
ex.
Moviegoers can always expect something different when Preston Sturges
is directing and The Palm Beach Story does not disappoint. In the hilarious
ending, Gerry and Tom reveals that they are both twins. We then witness a
triple wedding scene wherein Tom remarries Gerry, J.D. weds Gerry’s twin
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 95

The Palm Beach Story (1942) with Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert, Rudy Vallee,
Colbert (again), McCrea (again), Mary Astor and Sig Arno. Only Preston
Sturges could get away with this ending.

and Maude walks down the aisle with Tom’s twin. Cut to a sign which reads,
“And they all lived happily ever—Or did they?”
Screwball veterans Colbert, McCrea and Astor all give delightful per-
formances, but the surprise hit of this 1942 Paramount release is singer Rudy
Vallee, the Vagabond Lover of the 1920s and 1930s. As the musical part of
his career waned, he became a successful character actor, plying his trade
both on stage and on the silver screen for several years.
In Second Honeymoon, a recently remarried Loretta Young is bored with
her stuffy businessman husband (Lyle Talbot) and yearns for the crazy times
she shared with her wealthy playboy first husband (Tyrone Power). While
on vacation in Florida, she sees him again and the old feeling is still there—
so—exit Talbot, hello, Ty. A typical screwball comedy of the Depression era
when people needed a good laugh and satirizing the wealthy was fashionable,
this 1937 Fox release was a box office winner. In support of the popular star
team are Stuart Erwin and the vastly underrated Claire Trevor.
Two years later, Loretta starred in Eternally Yours (United Artists). At
first engaged to Broderick Crawford, she’s swept off her feet by a dashing
magician–escape artist (David Niven). After a few exciting years on the road,
96 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

he in the limelight and she willingly in his shadow, Loretta is ready for a
more domestic way of life—house, garden, dogs and kids—but Niven is not.
“I don’t want to be chained to four walls,” is the way he puts it. She divorces
him and marries the solid Crawford.
Soon after, she realizes her mistake, but is too stubborn to admit it.
Her ex tries to woo her back, but only when he leaps handcuffed from a
plane at the New York World’s Fair (an actual attraction in 1939) does she
give in to her emotions. Young and Niven are aided in their efforts by a
strong supporting cast which includes a zany Hugh Herbert as Niven’s valet,
C. Aubrey Smith as Loretta’s grandfather, who is a bishop, Billie Burke as
her aunt and Eve Arden as a receptionist.
Merle Oberon stars in That Uncertain Feeling (United Artists, 1941) as
Jill Baker, who feels that she is being neglected by her husband Larry (Melvyn
Douglas), a successful insurance executive. She feels that he is insensitive to
her needs (like Loretta Young in the film just discussed).
Known to one and all as “The Happy Bakers,” they have plenty of
money and a Park Avenue apartment. There is one problem, however: Jill is
suffering from boredom and a bad case of hiccups. Her psychiatrist Dr. Ven-
gard (Alan Mowbray) zeros in on her marriage as the cause of these hiccups.
She denies this and tells him there isn’t a happier couple to be found on Park
Avenue. As the doctor prods, she launches into a whole list of complaints
about Larry and begins to hiccup.
When Larry yells “keeks” and pokes her in the stomach once too often,
her reaction to this is a session of violent hiccups. Back to the shrink she
goes, where she meets a zany (possibly certifiable) musician named Sebastien
(Burgess Meredith in an over-the-top performance) who claims to be the
greatest pianist in the world. She thinks she’s in love with him because her
hiccups have stopped.
The three go to a lawyer to get a divorce, but Larry cannot go through
with it. The final riotous scene takes place in the couple’s bedroom. Larry
has banished his rival from the apartment and all bodes well for “The Happy
Bakers.” Larry has learned never to neglect his wife again.
Loretta Young in Eternally Yours is married to a magician and yearns
for the quiet life. In a turnabout, she is a bored spouse in Wife, Husband and
Friend (Fox, 1939). Her husband (Warner Baxter) is busy at the office. To
occupy her time, she takes singing lessons and has delusions about her voice,
egged on by her teacher (Cesar Romero), who sees dollar signs in the form
of extra lessons. She appears in public and flops. Meanwhile, hubby is encour-
aged to sing by a flirtatious professional singer (Binnie Barnes) and has a bit
of success. Trying his hand at opera, however, he makes a fool of himself.
He says that he will leave singing to the pros, and his wife agrees. A familiar
face in the supporting cast is Eugene Pallette.
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 97

Ten years later, the film resurfaced as Everybody Does It (Fox) with Paul
Douglas, Celeste Holm (who in real life had a musical comedy background)
and Linda Darnell in the Baxter-Young-Barnes roles.
The couple in an odd screwball comedy titled Turnabout (United Artists,
1940) have an argument about their respective jobs. They each wish they
could change places. An Oriental idol on their mantel suddenly comes to
life and grants them this wish.
The next day, he wakes up speaking like a woman and she like a man.
“He” goes to the office. Of course, this creates havoc there and at home. They
revert back to their God-given roles. Starred are Carole Landis and John
Hubbard as Sally and Tim Willows. Looking on in perplexity are several
familiar screwball players: Adolph Menjou, William Gargan, Mary Astor,
Donald Meek, Franklin Pangborn, Marjorie Main and Polly Ann Young,
the latter the real life sister of Loretta Young.
Screwball wives are not always bored or neglected; sometimes they are
the “perfect” little helpmates who come upon the screen with a mission, that
of furthering the interests of their husbands in every way possible. Rosalind
Russell is a long-suffering secretary who marries Brian Aherne for business
purposes. She is his Hired Wife. She goes for him in a big way, but he only
has eyes for model Virginia Bruce.
When John Carroll enters the picture, Roz sees her chance and encour-
ages the handsome young man to make a play for her “rival.” The latter falls
for him, which leaves the field clear for the wife to turn her marriage of con-
venience into the real thing.
Humorist Robert Benchley heads the supporting cast as Aherne’s lawyer.
While not on a par with His Girl Friday, Russell and the 1940 Universal
release did well at the box office. It is interesting to note that in many of her
movies, this actress played career women. In an interview she once stated:
I played—I think it was 23 career women. I’ve been every kind of executive and
I’ve owned everything—factories and advertising agencies and pharmaceutical
houses. Except for a different leading man and a switch in title and pompadour,
they were all stamped out of the same Alice in Careerland. The script always
called for a leading lady somewhere in her 30s, tall, brittle, not too sexy. My
wardrobe had a set pattern: a tan suit, a gray suit, a beige suit and then a negligee
for the seventh reel in the end, when I would admit to my best friend on the tele-
phone that what I really wanted was to become a dear little housewife.

The plot of Hired Wife concerns a marriage of convenience. Claudette

Colbert finds herself in almost the same position as Russell in She Married
Her Boss (Columbia, 1936). With a twist, however. Colbert plays Julia Scott,
a secretary who has managed the business affairs of her boss Richard Barclay
(Melvyn Douglas) so well that he thinks she will do the same for his domestic
life. The fun begins when newlywed Claudette finds herself saddled with her
98 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

husband’s disagreeable sister Gertrude (Katherine Alexander) who doesn’t

think that her newly acquired relative is good enough to bear the family
name; his daughter Annabel (Edith Fellows, who is so convincingly nasty
for the better part of the picture that one critic called her “the perfect antidote
to Shirley Temple”); and his tipsy butler Franklin (Raymond Walburn).
Our lovely heroine becomes increasingly unhappy as she feels her hus-
band is neglecting her and is oblivious to her feelings. Only when she decides
to end the union, leaves the house, kicks up her heels a bit making the
tabloids and decides to take a trip abroad, does he realize how much he really
cares for her and that she is the best thing that has happened to him in a
long time. In a classically screwball finale, he virtually kidnaps her to tell
her so.
Colbert and Douglas would continue to be major screwball practitioners
for many years. As did another of Colbert’s co-stars, Fred MacMurray.
The year 1937 marked the end of Carole Lombard’s contract with Para-
mount Studios. Under the direction of Wesley Ruggles and with MacMurray
as co-star, she made True Confession. By this time, the actress had lifted her
comedic style into an art form. In this gem, she plays Helen Bartlett, a con-
genital liar. Her husband Kenneth (MacMurray) is a struggling young lawyer.
To further his career along, she confesses to the killing of her boss, a murder
she has not committed. The audience knows that she is not involved in the
matter. Kenneth, however, is unaware of the truth and gets her off on a plea
of self-defense amid much publicity and fanfare.
John Barrymore is third-billed as a zany criminologist which uses broad
satire in the courtroom sequences. Helen promises to be more truthful. Sup-
porting the three principals is a cast which includes Una Merkel, Lynne
Overman, Hattie McDaniel, Porter Hall, Edgar Kennedy and Fritz Feld.
Paramount remade True Confession in 1946. Cross My Heart stars Betty
Hutton in the Lombard role with Sonny Tufts and Michael Chekhov doing
weak imitations of MacMurray and Barrymore.
Between the release of Twentieth Century and True Confession, Lom-
bard’s career had far eclipsed that of Barrymore. It is ironic that both stars
died in 1942, she in her prime, he an alcoholic has-been.
Gary Cooper is a much-married bon vivant in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife,
director Ernst Lubitsch’s last Paramount film. Michael Brandon may be suc-
cessful in business but he is a failure in his personal life. He meets his match
in Claudette Colbert’s Nicole de Loiselle, daughter of an impoverished
nobleman. The opening gambit in their game of love (read: battle of the
sexes) finds the two in a Paris department store. He is trying to buy a pajama
top. He refuses to buy the bottom and both he and the sales clerk are becom-
ing increasingly frustrated.
Nicole steps in and offers to buy the bottoms, and the delighted clerk
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 99

remarks, “Voila! A lady in love.” Michael sourly retorts, “You Frenchmen

think the worst.”
He, however, is intrigued and thinks she will be an interesting addition
to his string of women. She, seeing that he is attracted to her, sets her cap
for him, marries him and is determined to be the last Mrs. Brandon. She
launches into her campaign, using handsome Albert de Regnier (third-billed
David Niven) to make Brandon jealous. Her machinations cause him to have
a nervous breakdown and he is committed to an institution.
The final scene sees Cooper in a straitjacket (a la Margaret Sullavan in
The Moon’s Our Home) and Colbert in the room with him. They begin to
fight on the asylum floor until she kisses him. Suddenly he frees himself from
the restraints and embraces her. Nicole will get her wish: She will be the last
Mrs. Michael Brandon.
An early Warner Brothers screwball titled Easy to Love (1934) stars
Adolphe Menjou and Genevieve Tobin as John and Carol Townsend, a
wealthy society couple. Carol doesn’t know it, but John is having an affair
with her best friend, played by Mary Astor.
Carol, beginning to think that her husband is spending too much time
away from home and hearth, hires a detective (played by the always hilarious
Hugh Herbert) and discovers the truth. She then pretends to have an affair
with John’s best friend (Edward Everett Horton). The Townsend daughter,
hearing about her father’s fling, then announces that she and her fiancé will
live together without the benefit of clergy. This “shocker” brings John to his
senses and the elder Townsends get back together again.
In Remember? (MGM, 1939), Robert Taylor is an advertising exec and
his best pal Lew Ayres is a scientist who meets socialite Greer Garson while
on vacation. Taylor lures Garson away from Ayres and marries her.
After a while, bliss becomes blitz and the couple contemplates divorce.
Altruistic Ayres, who realizes that the two really love each other, gives each
a potion which results in both forgetting everything about their meeting and
marriage. In this condition, Taylor and Garson fall in love again and, not
knowing they are already married, decide to go through the ceremony. A
bemused judge (Henry Travers), who has already married them, has to do
it again.
Though old pros Billie Burke, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers and Sig
Ruman are well cast and the film has a couple of amusing sequences, it was
not well received and did nothing for the stars or for the studio. The
lady-like Garson, three years away from her Oscar-winning role as Mrs.
Miniver, was no Lombard or Colbert. And Taylor, though likable, was no
Cary Grant.
In 1941, after a seven-year absence from moviemaking, silent screen star
Gloria Swanson appeared in RKO’s Father Takes a Wife. Co-star Adolphe
100 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Menjou had been a bit player at Paramount when La Swanson reigned

supreme at that studio.
Menjou is top-billed as Frederic Osborne, a middle-aged businessman
who falls for and marries tempestuous actress Leslie Collier (Swanson). His
first problem is to break the news to his stuffy son Frederic Jr. ( John Howard)
and the latter’s wife Enid (Florence Rice). Arguments break out before and
after the wedding, but are smoothed out on a honeymoon cruise. An even
bigger crisis arises when Osborne and Leslie take on singer Carlos Bardez
(Desi Arnaz), a stowaway they meet on the cruise, as their house guest and
protégé. Soon Osborne feels that Leslie is more attentive to the younger
man than she is to him, but matters are resolved when Junior and Senior
arrange a long tour for the singer. A surprise ending which only a screwball
could have has the wives of both Junior and Senior announcing their impend-
ing motherhood.
The venture was ill-advised for the aging Swanson and it lost money at
the box office. Not until 1950 and Sunset Blvd. would her star shine brightly
again.
Dick Foran, an actor in many “B” films, plays a banker married to
Claudette Colbert in Guest Wife (United Artists, 1945). When his good
friend, foreign correspondent Don Ameche, must produce a wife in order to
keep his job, well, what the heck, what are friends for? Foran loans his wife
to Ameche. In the screwball situations which follow, Claudette is accused
of living with a married man (in reality her own husband) and Foran becomes
increasingly annoyed when he thinks that his erstwhile pal is taking advan-
tage of the situation.
The release of Guest Wife coincided with the end of World War II.
Because the Golden Age of the genre was more or less over, the film is not
as well-known as its predecessors. Genre expert Colbert, however, is com-
fortable with frequent co-star Ameche, the action is well-paced and the dia-
logue is witty, insuring an enjoyable 90 minutes for the viewer.
This Thing Called Love (Columbia, 1940) stars Rosalind Russell and
Melvyn Douglas as a couple, wed three months, who have not yet consum-
mated their marriage (Russell feels that they should start out as good friends).
When she is finally ready to give in to her natural instincts and her love-
starved mate, the latter contracts poison oak. The coupling of seasoned pros
Russell and Douglas make this lightweight film work. They are immeasurably
aided by Binnie Barnes, Allyn Joslyn, Lee J. Cobb and Gloria Dickson.
Laughable by today’s standards, this film, considered risqué at the time,
was banned by the Legion of Decency. The Legion could not have been too
thrilled to see a Mexican fertility statue with a frown on its face throughout
the film and then having it break into a smile as the film ends. In spite of
the condemnation, or maybe because of it, the film did well at the box office.
 TEN. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: MARITAL MIX-UPS, SCREWBALL STYLE 101

In our next two films, horses are the main focus in each story. Barbara
Stanwyck and Robert Cummings in The Bride Wore Boots (Paramount, 1946)
are not the happy couple they’d started out to be. He feels that she is spending
too much time on her horses. He loves her, but detests horses. They separate
but come together when he wins her back by entering the horse racing scene.
Also in the cast are Diana Lynn, Peggy Wood, Robert Benchley, Patric
Knowles and seven-year-old Natalie Wood. It was a weak entry in the genre,
in spite of the efforts of a good cast.
In a reversal of this situation, He Married His Wife (Fox, 1940) stars Joel
McCrea as a racehorse owner who is paying more attention to the nag than
he is to wife Nancy Kelly. Though he is still in love with her, his overriding
concerns about his horse results in a divorce. His alimony payments are so
steep that he and his lawyer scheme to have her marry again. When she
plans to marry a man whom McCrea thinks would be an unfit husband, he
remarries her. Also in the cast are Cesar Romero as the “unfit” suitor, Roland
Young as McCrea’s lawyer plus Lyle Talbot and Elisha Cook Jr.
After Alfred Hitchcock’s initial success in America with the very dra-
matic Rebecca, RKO, at the request of Carole Lombard, signed the rotund
moviemaker to direct a project titled Mr. and Mrs. Smith—his only foray into
the land of the screwball. The signing had to go through David O. Selznick,
who had an exclusive contract with Hitchcock.
The Norman Krasna script contains several screwball elements: Ann
and David Smith (Lombard and Robert Montgomery) are forever fighting.
During one of their quieter moments, she asks him if would he marry her
if he had it to do over again. He answers in the negative and the fur begins
to fly.
They are beginning divorce proceedings when they learn that due to a
shifting state line boundary, their marriage is not legal. She goes back to
being Ann Krausheimer (shades of Twentieth Century’s Mildred Plotka!) and
begins dating Jeff Custer (Gene Raymond), who turns out to be David’s law
partner. She even becomes engaged to him, but when the three wind up in
a ski lodge, she knows that her heart will always belong to David.
The comedy is well-paced and aided by its three stars, especially the
radiant Carole. She is a sheer delight to watch as she shaves David in one
scene and in another as she meets Jeff ’s parents (Lucile Watson and Philip
Merivale) and tries to explain her former husband to them.
Lombard’s real-life ex-husband William Powell may not have found
happiness with her, but he did find the perfect on-screen mate in Myrna
Loy. The two share a distinct place in any discussion of the screwball comedy,
or for that matter, in any perspective on the film industry. In our next chapter,
we will meet this delightful duo and discover the reasons behind their impact
on the genre and their unparalleled success on film in general.
 Chapter Eleven

William and Myrna:

Nick and Nora et al.

William Powell and Myrna Loy were already screen veterans by the
time they met professionally in the early 1930s.
Born eight years before the turn of the century, Powell had studied at the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After several years in repertory and on
Broadway, he came to Hollywood under contract to Paramount Studios, begin-
ning a long and successful career in motion pictures. His debut film, a 1922
silent titled Sherlock Holmes, was the first of many detective stories in which
he would appear, a portent of things to come. His other silent films include
Beau Geste (1926), The Great Gatsby (1927) and The Last Command (1928).
For most of the silent era, Powell was mainly seen as a heavy, but as
movies began to talk, his distinctive voice, mannerisms and increasing pop-
ularity allowed him to show his versatility via a potpourri of roles, heroic,
villainous and comedic. He starred in Paramount’s first talkie, Interference
(1929), and went on to star in several other early ones including four films
in which he played S.S. Van Dyne’s elegant sleuth Philo Vance. By 1934, he
had signed on at MGM; the result was a string of hits, some of the most
fondly remembered in the history of film.
Myrna Loy also paid her dues during the silent era. A native of Helena,
Montana, the lovely actress, 13 years Powell’s junior, was discovered by silent
screen star Rudolph Valentino and began making films in 1925. Relegated
to playing Orientals and vamps, her earliest appearances include Don Juan
(Warner Brothers, 1926), Ben-Hur (MGM, 1925), and The Jazz Singer (Warner
Brothers, 1927). The young actress did not have to worry about being a
victim of the talkie revolution as did so many Hollywood performers of the
era; her unique voice served to enhance her career, leading the former Myrna
Williams to get work at many of the major studios while on the road to
bigger and better roles.

102
 ELEVEN. WILLIAM AND MYRNA: NICK AND NORA ET AL. 103

Among the first talkies she made were The Desert Song (Warner Broth-
ers, 1929), A Connecticut Yankee (Fox, 1931) and Love Me Tonight (Paramount,
1932). More important roles began to come her way and she was soon getting
the female lead in “A” films. The halcyon period of her career began when
she was signed by MGM.
In 1934, Powell and Loy were two-thirds of the starring team in a pro-
duction titled Manhattan Melodrama. Top-billed was the other part of the
triangle, Clark Gable. This film gained a place in American folklore as being
the last one seen by famed gangster John Dillinger just before he was shot
to death by agents of the F.B.I. MGM had successfully teamed Gable and
Loy before, but this was the first vehicle for Myrna and Powell. Studio exec-
utives, thrilled by the way the two worked together, paired them in several
films. Most of them are considered screwball classics. Six are part of the
Thin Man series.
In September 1936, a British columnist wrote that most of the money-
making stars in Hollywood were working at MGM. There was not much
exaggeration in this statement: William Powell and Myrna Loy were at the
top of the list.
That year brought moviegoers Libeled Lady. A wacky, fast-paced screw-
ball farce, the film also stars two other top MGM personalities in their
prime, Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. The opening credits show the four
walking towards the audience. With these potent performers, the story of
an heiress who slaps a lawsuit on a newspaper was bound to be a box-office
sensation.
Heiress Connie Allenbury (Loy) is out for blood: A newspaper has
printed libelous things about her. Her lawyers inform the paper’s editor,
Warren Haggerty (Tracy), that she is seeking five million dollars in damages.
To give Haggerty another headache, his fiancée Gladys Benton (Harlow)
comes into the press room in a wedding gown (the nuptials have been post-
poned many times). He puts poor Gladys off for the time being, saying that
they will tie the knot after the catastrophe has been averted.
He then seeks the help of reporter Bill Chandler (Powell). His scheme
is to have Bill marry Gladys and then pursue Connie and make the charges
of man-stealing that the paper has made against Connie ring true.
The scheme backfires because the reporter and the heiress find themselves
falling in love. But before this happens, there are some very funny moments:
Powell taking fishing lessons from an instructor (E.E. Clive) in a hotel room
to impress Mr. Allenbury, Connie’s father (Walter Connolly), and later, trying
his luck as an angler with a different kind of angle on his mind.
The film ends with Bill and Connie married and Bill punching Haggerty
in the nose and Gladys doing the same to Bill. The unanswered question after
all this is whether Haggerty and Gladys will ever get married.
104 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Libeled Lady (1936): In this film, Spencer Tracy (left) is Jean Harlow’s (right)
guy. In real life, it was William Powell (center) who held the key to Jean’s heart.

Though Powell and Loy were romantically linked throughout the film,
it was Jean Harlow to whom the actor’s heart belonged off-screen. Their love
affair lasted until the screen’s favorite platinum blonde’s untimely death in
1937.
MGM remade this classic film in 1946 and titled it Easy to Wed with
Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball in the Loy,
Powell, Tracy and Harlow roles, with Cecil Kellaway as Esther’s father. A
musical update, it also features June Lockhart, Ben Blue, Latin singer Carlos
Ramirez and organist Ethel Smith. It is a remake which boasts Technicolor
and four popular performers, but it cannot compare with the magic of the
original.
Completed in 1937, before the Harlow tragedy, was Double Wedding. As
in Libeled Lady, Powell and Loy start the proceedings as adversaries, throwing
insults and quips across the silver screen with abandon, but wind up in a
clinch. Myrna plays Margit Agnew, a successful businesswoman who has no
time for anything frivolous, like romance and love. Powell is Charlie Lodge,
 ELEVEN. WILLIAM AND MYRNA: NICK AND NORA ET AL. 105

an avant garde artist with whom Loy’s sister Irene (Florence Rice) imagines
herself in love; she wants to marry him although there is a perfectly nice
young man named Waldo Beaver ( John Beal) who adores her.
No-nonsense Loy is infuriated at this turn of events and tries to buy
Charlie off. He has never been in love with Irene, but when he meets big
sister Margit, he is definitely intrigued and pretends to go along with any-
thing she says. In the end there is a double wedding—Powell and Loy, Rice
and Beal—and the sisters each go off with the right man. Powell and Loy,
old friends by now, were in command of their art and the film was a real
crowd-pleaser.
By 1940, the duo was known around Metro, and probably all of Hol-
lywood, as the team that never failed. They proved it again in I Love You
Again with Powell as amnesiac Larry Wilson, a bit of a fuddy-duddy, with
a pretty wife named Kay (Loy) and a good business—in other words, the
epitome of a model citizen. A blow on the head makes him revert back to
his former self, George Carey, a smooth-talking con man. He sends for his
henchman, Doc Ryan (Frank McHugh, in a sparkling performance) and
together they plan to bilk the town. One problem, however: George has now
fallen in love with the “wife” he married while in a state of amnesia. He
decides to go straight, but an old “colleague” (Edmund Lowe) wants in on
the scheme George has abandoned. With the help of Doc, George outwits
his nemesis, is hit over the head for the second time and becomes Larry.
In Love Crazy (1941), Powell is caught in a situation compromising his
marriage and he goes through all sorts of wacky schemes to have things
become “normal” again. Stephen Ireland (Powell) and his wife Susan (Loy)
have been married four years when all sorts of trouble begins. She wants to
celebrate their anniversary by doing the same things they did on their wed-
ding day. But complications ensue: Stephen hurts his foot, Susan’s matriarchal
mother (Florence Bates) arrives to his consternation, and Stephen encounters
Isobel (Gail Patrick), a sexy former flame who has taken an apartment on
the floor below. In a very funny scene, the elevator gets stuck and when Stephen
tries to get out, the doors close on his head. The elevator suddenly begins
to move and his head is bashed against the top of the doorway.
He then tells Susan about Isobel, mentioning that she has a husband.
Susan retorts, “Oh yeah? Whose husband has she got?”
We now know that jealousy has reared its ugly head. Stephen is totally
innocent, but Susan will not believe him and wants a divorce. He does not
and, under the presumption that a divorce cannot be granted if one of the
parties is insane, proceeds to feign madness. He crashes a party, says he is
Abraham Lincoln, “frees” the black butler, throws some men’s hats into a
pond and for good measure pushes his mother-in-law into the same water.
Susan knows he is sane but, when he is examined by a group of psychi-
106 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

atrists, he is found mad and is to be institutionalized. Towards the end of the

film, Powell shows up in drag as his own younger sister. He gets away with
it until his “breasts,” made up of two skeins of yarn, begin to unravel when
they are caught on a record player’s revolving spindle. Susan realizes all her
husband has gone through and knows that she loves him, so the divorce will
never take place. Jack Carson plays Susan’s potential suitor, while Vladimir
Sokoloff and Sig Ruman play the psychiatrists.
The four films noted above were quite popular in their time, but may
not have been box-office giants. For playing two other lovable screwball char-
acters, William Powell and Myrna Loy were, are and probably will be best-
remembered.
The top brass at MGM saw something special in Manhattan Melodrama,
the first teaming of the duo, and so did director W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke.
When he was assigned to do a comedy mystery titled The Thin Man, he felt
that the cinematic rapport established by Powell and Loy would serve his
new project rather well. How well, no one at the time could foresee.
Based on a Dashiell Hammett yarn, the film was shot on the MGM lot
in 18 days. Van Dyke was famous for working quickly and earned the nick-
name “One-Take Woody.” No one suspected that this “little film” would
become a monster hit and spawn sequels and imitations.
The leading characters Nick and Nora Charles, as played by Powell and
Loy, were a sophisticated pair, attractive, wealthy and irreverent in outlook,
but obviously very much in love with each other and also the best of friends.
Before he met Nora, Nick had been a private detective and a mighty
good one too, but as the film opens, he explains that he has “retired” from
his profession in order to manage his wife’s money. This does not mean that
he cannot dabble in crime and when he does, it is with a drink in his hand,
a glint in his eye and a quip on his lips.
Nora, the personification of the “perfect wife,” is right behind her hus-
band every step of the way, egging him on, cheering him along and making
sure that his ego is not inflated even after he has brilliantly solved the crime.
(Loy said that she based her characterization on writer Lillian Hellman,
Hammett’s mistress.)
The third regular in the series is the beloved pooch Asta. The frisky wire-
haired fox terrier not only holds his own in the comedy department, he even
sniffs out an important clue every once in a while.
The Thin Man movies are a happy blend of sophisticated dialogue,
screwball comedy and crackling good mystery. Each story is set in a different
locale and has a different set of characters from which Nick must ferret out
the culprit.
The first of the popular films set the pace and the mood of the series.
It concerns the disappearance of inventor Claude Wynant, a former client.
 ELEVEN. WILLIAM AND MYRNA: NICK AND NORA ET AL. 107

The Thin Man (1934): William Powell, Myrna Loy and Asta.

(This character, played by Edward Ellis, gave the book and series their
names.) Wynant’s daughter Dorothy (Maureen O’Sullivan) recognizes Nick
at a night club and asks for his help. Nora enters and sees Nick and Dorothy.
After the latter leaves, this bit of screwball dialogue takes place:
NORA: Who is she?
NICK: Oh, darling. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to answer that.
NORA: Go on.
NICK: Well, Dorothy is really my daughter. You see, it was spring in Venice, and
I was so young I didn’t know what I was doing. We’re all like that on my father’s
side.
NORA: By the way, how is your father’s side?
NICK: Oh, it’s much better, thanks.
NORA: Say, how many drinks have you had?
NICK: This will make six martinis.
NORA: All right, will you bring me five more martinis, Leo? Line them right up
here.

A bit of nonsense, but it sets the proper tone for the film.
Nick is reluctant to take on the case and explains his reluctance as fol-
lows: “I’m much too busy making sure you don’t waste the money I married
you for.”
108 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

But he does go to work, prodded to do so by Nora. Before the case is

solved, three murders have been committed, among them Wynant’s, but in
the end Nick gets his murderer by hosting a dinner party. Among the reluc-
tant guests, besides O’Sullivan, are Cesar Romero, Nat Pendleton, Edward
Brophy, Porter Hall and Minna Gombell.
The on-screen chemistry between Nick and Nora was such that some
moviegoers, upon seeing the film, wrote fan letters to their portrayers,
addressing them as “Mr. and Mrs. William Powell.”
The Thin Man was the sleeper of the year. It received an Oscar nomi-
nation for Best Picture and Powell became a candidate for Best Actor honors.
Neither won; 1934 was the year of It Happened One Night.
Two years later, acceding to public demand, Van Dyke, Powell and Loy
combined forces on After the Thin Man. In between the two MGM releases,
Powell starred in two comedy-mysteries for RKO: Star of Midnight with
Ginger Rogers as his leading lady and The Ex-Mrs. Bradford with Jean Arthur
in the title role. Both productions are similar in form to the Nick and Nora
films and will be discussed in the next chapter.
In After the Thin Man, set in San Francisco, a tired Nick and Nora come
home to an unwanted surprise party welcoming them back. Also welcomed
home is Asta by Mrs. Asta and his progeny.
Nora and Nick are then “commanded” by Nora’s imperious aunt ( Jessie
Ralph) to attend a family gathering. Nora’s cousin Selma (Elissa Landi) is
in trouble, suspected of killing her unfaithful husband Robert (Alan Mar-
shal). Nick is called upon to clear the young woman.
With the blessing of the Golden Gate Police Department, represented
by a baffled and confused Lieutenant Abrams (Sam Levene), Nick, Nora
and Asta hunt for clues, with the canine hiding something important from
the humans in a screwball scene. The duo “grill” several suspects, among them
Dorothy McNulty (a.k.a. Penny Singleton), Joseph Calleia, George Zucco
and a 28-year-old named James Stewart. As David Graham, in a role not at
all characteristic of the later Stewart image, it is Jimmy who turns out to be
the villain. The character is calm, collected and helpful, but when he is found
out, all of a sudden he is snarling and vengeful in a somewhat over-the-top
performance.
In a typical Charles scene, Nora is taken into police custody. She tells
the officers that she’s Mrs. Nick Charles. They telephone Nick to verify this
and he says, “Throw her in the fish-tank ’til I get there.”
They are playing games, and Nora will get even somehow.
A new fact of life in the Charles household is introduced in Another
Thin Man (1939): Nick Charles, Jr. Parenthood, however, does not stand in
the way of Nick and Nora having fun or delving into deduction. (In Shadow
of the Thin Man, Nora tells the housekeeper that Junior takes after his father.
 ELEVEN. WILLIAM AND MYRNA: NICK AND NORA ET AL. 109

Another Thin Man (1939): C. Aubrey Smith, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Tom
Neal and Virginia Grey.

The housekeeper answers, “Yes’m, he sure does. This morning he was playing
with a corkscrew.”)
In this third entry of the series, they are visiting an old family friend,
Long Islander Colonel MacFay, the former partner of Nora’s father. When
murder ensues, the dynamic duo plus pooch do what comes naturally. Veteran
character actor C. Aubrey Smith is one unfortunate victim. Other familiar
faces in supporting roles include raucous-voiced Marjorie Main in a funny
bit as a wacky landlady, Ruth Hussey, Tom Neal, Otto Kruger, Nat Pendle-
ton, Horace MacMahon and Virginia Grey, who plays C. Aubrey’s step-
daughter.
The film marked Powell’s reappearance on the screen after an absence
of two years due to illness and the shock of Jean Harlow’s sudden death.
Nick, Nora and Asta were welcomed warmly by audiences and the film was
a box-office winner.
The setting for Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) is the world of horse rac-
ing and the characters who are part and parcel of the sport of kings: jockeys,
touts, bookies and gambling syndicates. Upon reaching the track for a day’s
outing, Nick and Nora discover that a murder has been committed. The
detective in charge says, “You know that jockey Golez? The one that was
110 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

caught throwing the fourth race? He was shot.” Nora remarks, “My, but
they’re strict at this track.”
The duo is on the trail of a murderer who has killed more than once.
Not until the last few minutes of the film does (Nick) or we know the identity
of the arch criminal.
Barry Nelson makes his debut in the film as a reporter out to get the
scoop of his career while Donna Reed, relegated to second leads at the time,
plays his girlfriend. Sam Levene is the detective who enlists Nick’s help with
the line-up of suspects which includes Henry O’Neill, Alan Baxter and, from
the New York stage, Stella Adler.
Myrna took time out from her film career to aid in the war effort, but
she interrupted her patriotic duties in 1944 to appear in The Thin Man Goes
Home. Richard Thorpe directed (“Woody” Van Dyke, the man who had
guided the first four films, died in 1943). Though some of the series’ initial
charm had somewhat diminished, the public welcomed Nick, Nora and Asta
with delight and responded to the film like a canine to a bone.
In this film, Nick, Nora and Asta leave Nick Jr. at his school and get
aboard a train bound for Nick’s hometown. As you might expect, the humans
spend much of the trip in the animal car with the third member of their trio.
We get to meet Nick’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Charles (played by Harry
Davenport and Lucile Watson). They have always looked askance at their
son’s profession, but when he solves a hometown crime which involves murder
and art forgery, they take pride in him. The doctor even bursts a button on
his shirt, he is so thrilled. The original story was written by Robert Riskin
(on “leave” from Frank Capra) and Harry Kurnitz. Riskin also had a hand
in the screenplay.
Powell and Loy made their sixth and last appearance as Nick and Nora
in the 1947 release Song of the Thin Man. Against a background of pulsating
jazz and smoke-filled night clubs, the two hunt for the vicious killer of a
musician. The supporting cast (i.e., list of suspects) includes Keenan Wynn,
Leon Ames, Patricia Morison (who would later score brilliantly on Broadway
in Kiss Me Kate), Philip Reed, Gloria Grahame and Don Taylor. Nick Jr. is
played by Dean Stockwell and Asta Jr. takes on the role made famous by the
beloved original.
Not only was Song of the Thin Man the last time that Powell and Loy
played Nick and Nora, the film marked the last time that the popular twosome
appeared together on screen. Both, however, made several other films through-
out their illustrious careers and always maintained the standard of craftsman-
ship that they had shown in earlier years. Powell’s last appearance on screen
was in Mister Roberts (Warner Brothers, 1955). Loy’s last film was Just Tell Me
What You Want (1980). In the early 1990s, she was a recipient of the Kennedy
Center Life Achievement Award for her contribution to the arts.
 ELEVEN. WILLIAM AND MYRNA: NICK AND NORA ET AL. 111

William Powell and Myrna Loy are no longer with us, but their names
evoke some wonderful memories of a bygone era among movie buffs and
serious students of film. In spite of all the other films they made, together
and apart, they will always be Nick and Nora, “The Thin Man” and “The
Perfect Wife.”
 Chapter Twelve

Mixing Murder and Mayhem:

Screwball Comedy-Mysteries

What do a lady poet, a spoiled heiress, a novelist, a mild-mannered clerk,

a doctor, his ex-wife and two Greenwich Village couples have in common?
Nothing much, except an affinity for cinematic crime. These are only some
of the characters in the screwball comedy mysteries.
The screwball movie mysteries boasted some of the most popular and
attractive stars in Hollywood, plus clever plot twists and enough zaniness to
allow the armchair detectives in the audience the enjoyment of matching
wits with the on-screen super-sleuths to see who would be the first to unmask
the culprits.
Screwball sleuths are in the main well-dressed, well-spoken and, above
all, well-heeled. Several dabble in detection just for the thrill of it and others
because they or their friends, for one reason or another, have a vested interest
in the skullduggery at hand.
The second raison d’être applies to William Powell in the two films he
made while on loan-out from MGM to RKO in 1935 and 1936. In the first
production, Star of Midnight (1935), he is a debonair lawyer who becomes
involved with a missing actress and murder. Being the accused, he sets about
trying to prove his innocence and, aided by girlfriend Ginger Rogers, he solves
both the murder and the disappearance. Ginger, no stranger to the wisecrack
or to screwball antics, acquits herself well, as does the able supporting cast
which includes Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart and Ralph Morgan.
Star of Midnight is an imitation of The Thin Man, as is The Ex-Mrs.
Bradford (1936), in which Powell is a well-known surgeon who becomes
entangled in a series of racetrack murders. Suspected by the police, he decides
that the only way to clear himself is to play sleuth and catch the killer him-
self.
His ex-wife Paula, a mystery writer, is engagingly played by Jean Arthur.

112
 T WELVE. MURDER AND MAYHEM: SCREWBALL COMEDY-MYSTERIES 113

Her obsession with real murders has led to a divorce. She is going to help
her ex whether he likes it or not. As they combine their efforts, she is at times
more of a hindrance than a help: She serves him a dinner in which every
dish contains gelatin because that substance has been found on a dead jockey’s
body and she wants to see if it is what killed the man. It isn’t, but it makes
for good screwball logic.
In spite of her, the killer is found and by the end of the film, the audience
knows that there is a re-marriage on the horizon. The strong supporting cast
includes Eric Blore, a comic delight as Powell’s butler Stokes, Robert Arm-
strong, Lila Lee, Ralph Morgan and James Gleason as a police inspector
who is willing to accept any help he can get. These productions were more
than reminiscent of the Thin Man series and contained nothing new, but
Powell’s sophisticated verbal sparring with Rogers and Arthur left both audi-
ences and the RKO accounting department quite happy.
Nineteen thirty-six was a good year for Jean Arthur, and also a happy
one. Besides Mrs. Bradford, the blonde actress starred in Mr. Deeds Goes to
Town, More Than a Secretary and the film which concerns us here, Columbia’s
Adventure in Manhattan. She stars as an actress who meets up with a crime
reporter-cum-criminologist ( Joel McCrea). McCrea has been hired by a
newspaper editor (Thomas Mitchell) to help catch a master burglar with
caviar tastes: He steals art treasures and gemstones and has been outwitting
the law for many years. The dapper criminal is portrayed by popular character
actor Reginald Owen.
There is a twist: The reporter and the thief seem to display similar atti-
tudes and tastes and the former is able to predict the latter’s every move.
With the help of Arthur, with whom McCrea has fallen in love, the miscreant
is apprehended and the reporter gets the scoop and the girl.
The year before, Ms. Arthur had gone to work for John Ford. The latter,
not noted for comedy, turned his not inconsiderable talents to screwball with
The Whole Town’s Talking for Columbia. The iconic director cast Edward G.
Robinson, also not noted for comedy, in the role of Arthur Jones, a mild-
mannered white collar clerk who just happens to bear an amazing resem-
blance to “Killer” Mannion, a notorious gangster (also played by Robinson)
who has escaped from jail. The gangster finds it convenient at times to take
on his lookalike’s demeanor, with comical results. Jones is arrested, but the
proper identification soon frees him. The resulting publicity incites Mannion,
who sets out to murder his innocent double, but is thwarted by the latter’s
newfound courage.
Jean Arthur is the object of Jones’ unrequited love and is the catalyst in
his transformation from timidity to heroism. Others in the cast include
Edward Brophy as Mannion’s cohort and Etienne Girardot as Robinson’s
office manager, plus Donald Meek and Wallace Ford.
114 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

A film that precedes the “official” start of the screwball genre, yet
deserves to be part of it, is the charming and sophisticated 1932 comedy
thriller Trouble in Paradise, satirizing the gullibility of the rich.
The Paramount release, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, stars Herbert Mar-
shall and Miriam Hopkins as Gaston Monescue and Lily Vautier, a jewel
thief and a lady pickpocket. These two unconventional eccentrics meet and
engage in witty dialogue as they practice “the tricks of their trade” upon
each other. The two find a mark in Mariette Colet (Kay Francis), a wealthy
widow who finds them so ingratiating that she hires them, Gaston as her
private secretary and Lily as a typist. The trouble starts when Gaston falls
in love with Mariette. Lily finds this maddening, but in the end their true
nature defeats any decent emotion (Gaston sends Mariette flowers and
charges them to her account) and the two sharpies take off with some “sou-
venirs” (among them a gorgeous necklace that Lily covets) from their former
employer’s home. The excitement of a life of crime is too much of a lure for
them to give it up.
In the supporting cast are Edward Everett Horton and Charles Ruggles,
who play bumbling rivals for Mariette’s affections. They supply the screwball
aspects of the film. To paraphrase The New York Times, it was an engaging
and imaginative piece of work. Other critiques of the time were just as glow-
ing.
Though Clark Gable had starred in and won an Oscar for his perform-
ance in It Happened One Night, the most famous screwball comedy of the
decade, he is not considered a superstar of the genre. He did, however, make
a few films in this vein. In the comedy-mystery After Office Hours (MGM,
1935), he is a newspaper editor (a step up from the previous year when he
was merely a reporter) investigating a juicy crime story. Along for the ride
is his “now you’re hired, now you’re fired” girlfriend, society reporter Con-
stance Bennett, with whom he is always at odds. Their battle of the sexes is
sparked by a literate and witty script and their own sharp performances.
Seen in the supporting cast are Harvey Stephens as the murderer, the ever-
present Billie Burke, Stuart Erwin and Henry Travers.
Joan Bennett did not make as many comedies as her sister Constance,
but she did make her share of comedy-mysteries. Joan stars with Cary Grant
in Big Brown Eyes (Paramount, 1936). Manicurist Bennett helps boyfriend
detective Grant trap a gang of jewel thieves headed by Walter Pidgeon. With
a bit of Nick and Nora thrown in, bolstered by a trio of big names and snappy
dialogue, the film did well at the box office. Also in the cast are Lloyd Nolan
and Alan Baxter.
Two years later, Bennett was at United Artists for Trade Winds, a film
combining romance, comedy and mystery. It was produced by Walter Wanger,
who later married his star. She plays the suspect in the murder of a man whose
 T WELVE. MURDER AND MAYHEM: SCREWBALL COMEDY-MYSTERIES 115

apartment she had visited. Co-star Fredric March, is a San Francisco Police
Department detective assigned to the case.
“Aiding” him in the search for the missing girl are Ann Sothern as his
ditzy Girl Friday and Ralph Bellamy as his bumbling detective sidekick.
Sothern and Bellamy supply the screwball antics, she mangling messages,
he mixing up clues and getting to the right place at the wrong time.
Finally March finds his quarry and falls in love with her. She has mur-
dered no one; a jealous wife committed the crime. Bennett had wanted to
get her sister out of the clutches of the man. The reader can guess at the
finale. For this film, Bennett, in the early part of her career a blonde, became
a brunette and, for the rest of her days in Hollywood, remained one.
The actress also starred in a comedy-mystery involving reporters, edi-
tors, gangsters and the law. In The Housekeeper’s Daughter, a 1939 United
Artists release, Bennett’s tough-talking lady visits her housekeeper mother
(Peggy Wood), falls for the son of the household ( John Hubbard) and is
instrumental in cracking a case involving the murder of a showgirl with the
help of a womanizing, hard-drinking reporter (Adolphe Menjou).
Also in the cast are William Gargan as a photographer, Donald Meek
as their apoplectic city editor, Marc Lawrence as a racketeer, George E.
Stone as a weirdo murderer who kills by lacing his victim’s coffee with poison
and up-and-coming star Victor Mature as a gangster. Menjou, Gargan and
Meek make this minor screwball enjoyable to watch.
For Barbara Stanwyck, Brooklyn-born chorus girl, Broadway actress
turned movie star, playing an heiress in The Mad Miss Manton may have
been a stretch, but as one of the more versatile performers of her era, she threw
herself into the role with her characteristic professionalism and verve. She,
co-star Henry Fonda and the 1938 RKO release garnered rave reviews from
critics and fans alike.
Melsa Manton is a charming but slightly zany socialite who, while walk-
ing her dogs late at night, sees a man running from a building. Brimming
over with curiosity, she runs into the building, investigates and finds a corpse.
She tries to get out, but her cape is caught in the door.
She is not unknown to the law. According to the cops, she’s “one of a
bunch who once held a treasure hunt and stole a traffic light.” She is a hand-
ful, as they ruefully note. One of the men in blue, motioning with his gun,
asks, “Why can’t I use this just once?”
The pack leader of a group of equally daffy friends, Melsa decides that
they will catch the killer. Before the gals can accomplish this, Melsa meets
reporter Peter Ames (Fonda). The two take an instant dislike to each other,
an important element in screwball comedy, but this changes as he falls in
love with her and she unwillingly falls for him.
Melsa’s friends walk in on her as she is in danger of being killed by the
116 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

murderer. One of the dizzy debs says, “If you kill her, you’ll have to kill all
of us.” To which another retorts, “Oh, you’re always talking communism.”
Melsa is rescued, the villain arrested and it is made abundantly clear that
Peter will get used to his true love’s nutty ways and all of her lovely money.
In the capable supporting cast are Sam Levene, again playing a harassed
cop and Hattie McDaniel as Melsa’s sassy maid. In one scene Hattie throws
a pitcher of water in Fonda’s face. She does so, saying, “It was orders, but I
used distilled water.” One of Melsa’s debutante friends is played by Vicki
Lester, an actress who took her name from the character portrayed by Janet
Gaynor in the 1937 film A Star Is Born. Lester, an RKO contract player, faded
from view in the early 1940s.
The foregoing was concerned with a group of zany socialites who think
that catching a murderer is a lark. Remember Last Night? (Universal, 1935)
has a somewhat similar storyline. After a night of carousing and heavy drink-
ing, a free-wheeling couple (Robert Young and Constance Cummings) and
a group of their zany society friends find themselves mixed up in murder
and suicide. Edward Arnold plays the detective who solves the crime.
Supporting the stars are Reginald Denny, Robert Armstrong, Sally Eil-
ers and Gustav von Seyffertitz as a hypnotist who seems to know the identity
of the criminal, but is killed before he reveals it. Special mention should be
made of Arthur Treacher, who in his perennial role as butler steals every
scene in which he is seen. Though the scenario sounds like a horror story,
there are enough comedy situations to give this minor film a place in the screw-
ball mystery genre.
A product of the Broadway stage, Joan Blondell came to Hollywood
along with James Cagney in 1930. For several years, she toiled in the Warner
Brothers vineyards as a member of their now-famous stock company which
included the likes of Cagney, her then-husband Dick Powell, Bette Davis
and Pat O’Brien, among others.
By 1938, she had left Warners and was at Columbia. Within the next
three years, the blonde star made a trio of comedies with Melvyn Douglas.
Two of them, There’s Always a Woman (1938) and The Amazing Mr. Williams
(1939), fall in the category of the screwball mystery. (The third film, Good
Girls Go to Paris, was discussed in Chapter Six.)
There’s Always a Woman pairs Douglas and Blondell as Bill and Sally
Reardon. He is a struggling gumshoe, she’s his meddlesome wife. Mary Astor
gets things going when she walks into Bill’s office and offers him $300 to
investigate a case that starts routinely enough, but winds up as a double
homicide. Prominently involved in the goings-on are Jerome Cowan, Robert
Paige and Thurston Hall. Up-and-coming star Rita Hayworth had a featured
role in the film, but her scenes were cut out when Columbia thought they
would have a series on their hands.
 T WELVE. MURDER AND MAYHEM: SCREWBALL COMEDY-MYSTERIES 117

There’s Always a Woman is another of the 1930s films which tried to

emulate the success of The Thin Man series. It couldn’t quite do it, but watch-
ing the sassy Blondell and the urbane Douglas being put through their paces
is enjoyment enough.
In 1939, Columbia released the other film in which the Reardons were
featured, There’s That Woman Again. Douglas is back as Bill Reardon but
gone is Blondell; Virginia Bruce plays Sally.
The new caper involves some stolen jewels with a couple of murders
thrown in to complicate matters. Margaret Lindsay and Stanley Ridges are
up to their eyeballs in the skullduggery while Gordon Oliver, Tom Dugan
and Jonathan Hale wander in and out of the scenario to keep the action from
lagging. Though an engaging film, There’s That Woman Again did not fare
as well at the box office as its predecessor.
The next year, Blondell and Douglas were a pair once more for Columbia
in The Amazing Mr. Williams. Kenny Williams (Douglas) is a detective so
hot on a case that his wedding to Maxine Carroll ( Joan) has been postponed.
He’s out to get the Phantom Slugger, a violent masher. In one screwball
scene, he puts on woman’s clothes to capture this villain.
Aiding and abetting the two principals in this 1940 Columbia release
are Ruth Donnelly as Effie, Joan’s roommate, and John Wray as a parolee
suspected of the crime.
There’s Always a Woman and The Amazing Mr. Williams deserve to be
mentioned in any look at the screwball comedy genre, not only for their sto-
rylines but because of the star quality of Blondell and Douglas. The two
were always a joy to watch, separately as well as together. The longevity of
their careers is ample proof of that.
An actress receives a box containing a dead body and two rival reporters
are on the scene to solve the mystery of who sent it. Set in a Hollywood
locale, this is the premise of The Corpse Came C.O.D. (Columbia, 1947). As
the scenario develops, more murders are discovered. With a chase at the cli-
max, the newshounds sniff out the nefarious one. This time, the zesty
Blondell is teamed with George Brent and a cast including Grant Withers,
Una O’Connor and Jim Bannon.
In the 1930s, MGM was busily engaged in making screwball mysteries.
Case in point is the “Fast” trilogy consisted of Fast Company (1938), Fast
and Loose and Fast and Furious (both 1939). The most interesting aspect to
this threesome is that each film stars a different twosome portraying the
same characters.
Fast Company stars Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice as Joel and Gerda
Sloane, rare book dealers not averse to some amateur sleuthing, especially
when another dealer is murdered and a friend is the chief suspect. Also in
the cast are well-known performers Claire Dodd, Louis Calhern, Douglass
118 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Dumbrille, Horace MacMahon, Thurston Hall, Minor Watson and George

Zucco.
The second film in the trilogy, Fast and Loose stars Robert Montgomery
and Rosalind Russell as the Sloanes. This time around they solve the case
of a stolen Shakespeare manuscript which leads to a double murder. Among
the usual suspects are Ralph Morgan, Reginald Owen, and Alan Dinehart.
Last in the series is Fast and Furious which stars Ann Sothern and Fran-
chot Tone. The Sloanes’ last go-round involves murder during a seaside
beauty contest. Among the beauties are Ruth Hussey and Mary Beth Hughes.
This last film was directed by Busby Berkeley, famous for his choreography
of the Warner Brother musicals of the 1930s.
Though the three may be considered “B” films by critics, they are well-
paced, well written and well acted by each group of performers and contain
many aspects of the screwball.
In the MGM production It’s a Wonderful World, James Stewart is detec-
tive Guy Johnson, whose client Ernest Truex has been framed for murder,
found guilty and sentenced to be executed. Johnson is on the lam, having
been convicted of harboring Truex, who has offered him a lot of money if
he ( Johnson) can catch the real criminal. Johnson gets mixed up with poetess
Edwina (Claudette Colbert) and several screwball scenes follow, including
one in which a troop of Boy Scouts hunt for clues and another in which the
two “adversaries” are in an orchard and she, climbing on his shoulders, drops
apples down on his head one by one.
Edwina’s efforts to “help” are not appreciated by Guy, but she does con-
tribute and he, his partner Cap Streeter (Guy Kibbee) and their client are
proven to be innocent. Guy gets the money and a bride. He celebrates with
a poem of his own—he does not like Edwina’s:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I get a hundred grand for this
But I want you.

The two stars are surrounded by a cast of talented performers including

Edgar Kennedy and Nat Pendleton as the not-too-bright minions of the law
chasing Jimmy. The film was a great success with both critics and fans alike.
How could it go wrong with Ben Hecht writing the script, “Woody” Van
Dyke directing and the team of Claudette Colbert and James Stewart star-
ring?
Like Clark Gable, Warner Brothers star Errol Flynn was not noted for
his comedic prowess, but in 1941, after appearing in seven costume dramas
in a row, he starred in the screwball comedy thriller Footsteps in the Dark. In
the film, he is a successful investment counselor whose dream is to be an
 T WELVE. MURDER AND MAYHEM: SCREWBALL COMEDY-MYSTERIES 119

equally successful writer of mystery stories. He puts his theories to work

when he is confronted with a real murder. Brenda Marshall (who that year
married up-and-coming actor William Holden) co-stars as his wife.
The finale has Flynn answering a phone call from the police about an
odd new case. He tells his wife he has some business to attend to, races to
the front door—and finds his wife waiting for him. From now on, they will
detect together.
A phony princess contending with a handsome bandleader and a case
of murder on a trans–Atlantic voyage adds up to The Princess Comes Across,
a delightful whodunit teaming a very successful pair of stars. In this 1936
Paramount production, Carole Lombard plays Wanda Nash, a Brooklyn
showgirl who went to Europe third class and is returning via first class to
the U.S. posing as Olga, a Swedish princess, hoping to be discovered by a
Hollywood talent scout and becoming the next Garbo. Fred MacMurray is
King Mantell, the music-maker who falls for her. (Fred, who began his
lengthy show business career as a singing saxophonist and appeared on the
New York stage, gets to sing in the film.) Before he knows the truth about
her identity, he invites her to have cocktails with him and then asks her if
she enjoyed the drinks. Says Wanda, “Oh, the first couple. After that I was
bored.”
The two become involved in the murder of a blackmailer and, in tandem,
bumble their way to a solution of the crime. In support of the two stars are
Douglass Dumbrille, William Frawley, Alison Skipworth and Porter Hall.
On a ship, in a plane, on the ground—murder is murder. It is also a
staple in the lives of Pamela and Gerald North.
During the 1930s and the 1940s, the husband-and-wife team of Richard
and Frances Lockridge delighted mystery fans with a series of novels in which
the main characters are Mr. and Mrs. North, a publisher and his charmingly
off beat wife who live in Greenwich Village and have a habit of getting them-
selves involved in murder. The adventures of Pam and Jerry became a weekly
series on radio during that medium’s “Golden Age” and it was only a matter
of time before the Norths made it to the silver screen.
In 1941, MGM released Mr. and Mrs. North with Gracie Allen as Pamela
and William Post, Jr., as Jerry. When Pam opens their liquor closet, a corpse
tumbles out. The Norths decide to help police lieutenant Bill Weigand (Paul
Kelly) solve the case and Pam, in her convoluted way, comes up with the
killer. The competent supporting cast is comprised of Tom Conway, Porter
Hall, Felix Bressart, Keye Luke and Jerome Cowan.
The film made a poor showing at the box office: Gracie without her
husband and show business partner, George Burns, was evidently not what
the fans wanted to see. If a series on the Norths was in the planning stage,
the idea was quickly dropped.
120 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Two years before, Gracie had been at Paramount for The Gracie Allen
Murder Case, also with a New York locale. S.S. Van Dyne, a popular author
at the time, had written a series of mysteries starring his fictional detective
Philo Vance. The debonaire sleuth was portrayed in the movies by many
actors, among them William Powell, Basil Rathbone, Paul Lukas, Edmund
Lowe and Warren William.
William, as Vance, plays second banana to Gracie in the film, as he
tries to solve the murder of an ex-convict, “aided” by the ditzy comedienne.
The detective even answers to the name Fido. It was a “B” film with an
interesting premise, but again, without Burns. Fans did not come out in
droves.
Greenwich Village of the 1940s was the locale of A Night to Remember
(1942). Brian Aherne is a mystery writer whose wife (Loretta Young) wants
him to write the Great American Novel. This charmingly screwball lady
thinks that the arty atmosphere of the Village will awaken and inspire the
muse in her husband.
Upon moving into their new digs, they find a dead body in the backyard.
The two investigate amid shadows and creaking doors until the killer is
unmasked. Seen in support are such worthies as Sidney Toler playing a police
inspector, Miss Jeff Donnell as a young neighbor and Blanche Yurka as a
nutty cleaning lady.
New York City is also the setting for Lady on a Train, a 1945 Universal
release starring Deanna Durbin as a young lady who, while on her way to
the city, witnesses a murder from her train window.
Trying to get the police to believe her is hard as she had been reading
a mystery by her favorite author. The determined lady hunts down the writer
(David Bruce) and persuades him to help her. They solve the mystery while
becoming involved with the victim’s nutty family, members of which include
Ralph Bellamy and Dan Duryea. Also involved in the scenario is a case of
mistaken identity: Duryea thinks Durbin is the murdered man’s nightclub
singer sweetheart, which gives her a chance to warble a couple of numbers
and gives him a chance to chase her. It’s a delightful film, one of the singer’s
best as an adult.
Jimmy the Gent, a 1934 Warner Brothers film, has a fascinating premise
and features the always intriguing duo of star performers, James Cagney and
Bette Davis. The feisty Cagney is seen as a cagey con man who sets out to
find missing heirs to large unclaimed estates. If these heirs don’t exist, Jimmy’s
character invents them.
The mystery lies in how he has gotten away with these capers. When
he meets Bette, however, he falls for her. She is his Waterloo and he will,
albeit reluctantly, go straight. The Runyonesque script contains showy roles
for Allen Jenkins, Alice White and the interesting Mayo Methot.
 T WELVE. MURDER AND MAYHEM: SCREWBALL COMEDY-MYSTERIES 121

A Warner Brothers contract player, Mayo was more famous in her off-
screen role as the third Mrs. Humphrey Bogart. During their stormy mar-
riage, the two were known as “The Battling Bogarts.” While filming To
Have and Have Not in 1944, Bogart met Lauren Bacall, divorced Mayo and
married his young co-star.
 Chapter Thirteen

Screwball Families:
The Mamas, the Papas, the Kids

Grandpa Vanderhof quit his job 35 years ago and has never looked back.
He has not paid taxes and spends his time doing whatever grabs him at the
moment.
His daughter, Penny Sycamore, is a writer only because a typewriter
was delivered to the house by mistake. Her husband Paul, a fireworks enthu-
siast, spends much of his time in the basement along with a man named De
Pinna who had come to the house years before to deliver ice. Between the
two, it’s a wonder that the house is still intact.
Their daughter Essie is a mediocre ballerina taking lessons from
Kolenkhov, a wacky Russian émigré who thinks more about his stomach
than he does of his pupil’s feet. Ed, Essie’s husband, is a xylophone player.
Another of Grandpa’s friends invents toys and party masks. Essie’s sister
Alice, the only “normal” one in the household, has a job and is being courted
by Tony, the son of her boss, a wealthy industrialist.
But wait a moment. Is Alice the only normal one in the family? And
how do we define the word “normal”? These are the questions explored in
Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You. The film was the director’s sixth hit
in a row.
Columbia mogul Harry Cohn paid $200,000 for the screen rights to
the George S. Kaufman–Moss Hart Pulitzer Prize–winning play. This was
a record amount for the notoriously cheap studio, but whatever Capra wanted
in those days Capra got, and the feisty Frank justified this expenditure in
every way.
Are Grandpa and the Sycamores screwy or are they a group of people
living in harmony, beloved by friends and neighbors, who find peace and
contentment as they pursue their own individuality? Are they considered
off beat because of their non-conformity to what is supposedly the norm?

122
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 123

You Can’t Take It with You (1938) with James Stewart and Jean Arthur. This film
about an endearingly eccentric family won an Academy Award, as did its director
Frank Capra, his third in five years.

Tony, Alice’s boyfriend, asks her to marry him. Grandpa Vanderhof is

then pitted against Alice’s boss and future father-in-law, Anthony Kirby, an
already wealthy man who is obsessed with making even more money.
When a crisis involves the family’s home, Alice runs away. Tony goes
after her and Grandpa meets the industrialist, charms him and all turns out
well for the family and the two lovers.
Moviegoers watching this example of “Capra-corn” cheered Grandpa
on, probably envying him as he played his harmonica and let the rest of the
world go by. Critics raved and the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences honored both film and director. (Capra’s Oscar for direction was his
third in five years.)
The success of the film was immeasurably helped by an ensemble cast,
a who’s who of Hollywood and screwball royalty: Lionel Barrymore as
Grandpa Vanderhof, Spring Byington as Penny, James Stewart and Jean Arthur
as young lovers Tony and Alice, Edward Arnold as Tony’s father, Mischa
Auer as the zany Russian Kolenkhov, Samuel S. Hinds as Penny’s husband
and Ann Miller as Essie.
124 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

There may be some question as to whether the Vanderhof-Sycamore

clan is a true screwball family but there is absolutely no doubt that the Bul-
locks of My Man Godfrey (Universal, 1936) pass the test with flying colors.
Its premise has Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) picking up a tramp named
Godfrey (William Powell) in order to win a society scavenger hunt. It is
interesting to see the usually suave Powell playing against type. As Godfrey,
he’s a derelict with a difference—something about him intrigues Irene and
she hires him as a butler. (Reel life had followed real life: Lombard and Pow-
ell were married from 1931 until 1933.)
There is an air of good breeding and erudition about Godfrey and no
wonder: he had once been a prominent socialite himself but left that world
because of an unsuccessful love affair. We find this out when he meets Tommy
Gray (Alan Mowbray), an old friend, whom Godfrey swears to secrecy.
Godfrey sees only chaos in the Bullock home: Irene’s mother is a self-
centered, addle-brained woman, her harried father is only the nominal head
of the household and her sister (Gail Patrick) is a scheming vixen of a girl.
There is also a starving “artist” living off the Bullock clan, a “protégé” of
Mrs. Bullock. The elder Bullocks are played by Alice Brady and Eugene Pal-
lette, the freeloader by Mischa Auer (the character is similar to the one he
played in You Can’t Take It with You).
Before Godfrey leaves the Bullock household, he has given the inhab-
itants a lesson in humility and taught them that money isn’t everything. By
this time, Irene has fallen in love with him, he has thwarted Cornelia’s
attempt to portray him as a jewel thief, and he has helped Mr. Bullock out
financially. He has also found a cause for himself: He builds a nightclub on
the site of a dump. “The Dump” will provide jobs for the needy friends he
has made and Irene will be at his side, whether he likes it or not.
The film is a devastating satire on the Depression, big business and the
idle rich. Powell at the dump sarcastically remarks, “Prosperity is just around
the corner.” The scene cuts to the society types milling about the dump.
Lombard, Powell, Auer, director Gregory La Cava and the film were
nominated at Oscar time. They went zero for five, but it has lost not one
whit of its charm and, seen via television stations playing films of the Golden
Era or on DVDs, it remains as fresh as ever.
It’s a far cry from the 1957 remake starring June Allyson, David Niven,
Robert Keith and Martha Hyer. My Man Godfrey is a film of the 1930s, the
era of the Great Depression; bringing it into the era of the 1950s is a dis-
service to the original. In the remake, Niven plays an illegal alien hired as
a butler. He and Allyson are good performers but lack the madcap qualities
of the Powell-Lombard combination.
In the same vein as the previously discussed film is Merrily We Live (Hal
Roach, 1938) with Constance Bennett as Jerry, the high-spirited daughter
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 125

My Man Godfrey (1936) with Carole Lombard and William Powell. Reel life fol-
lowed real life: the two were married from 1931 to 1933.

of a screwball family, the Kilbournes. Her daffy mom (Billie Burke) hires
Wade Rawlins (Brian Aherne), a man who seems to be a tramp, as the family
chauffeur. Wade is actually a famous novelist, working incognito on a new
project.
Animosity between author and heiress develops into love. Also, in true
screwball fashion, the family indulges in childish whims and defies conven-
tions, then learns a lesson in better living. Towards the end of the film,
Aherne’s character, presumed dead, turns up very much alive, prompting
screwball reaction from the family and the household staff.
Billie Burke was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her per-
formance as the fluttery matriarch (she lost to Fay Bainter in Jezebel). The
cast of characters also includes Alan Mowbray as Grosvenor the butler, Patsy
Kelly as the cook, Clarence Kolb as head of the Kilbourne tribe and Bonita
Granville as Marion, Bennett’s younger sister.
Godfrey and Rawlins are not really servants in any sense of the word,
but Marmaduke Ruggles (Charles Laughton) is in Ruggles of Red Gap (Para-
mount, 1935). He plays a proper butler who is lost in a poker game by his
English employer (Roland Young) to a nouveau riche American couple, Effie
126 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

and Egbert Floud (Mary Boland and Charles Ruggles), who are bewildered
by their new status in life.
Ruggles is then transported to the western town of Red Gap. Laughs
come fast and furious as he tries to teach the “niceties” of life to the Flouds.
While engaged in this, he is affected by their somewhat crude but endearing
behavior and settles down with their friend, played by ZaSu Pitts.
The film had a new incarnation in 1950: Fancy Pants stars Bob Hope
as Humphrey, a poverty-stricken English actor who is brought to a small
town in America by rich Aggie Floud (Lucille Ball) to serve as the family
butler. Bob and Lucy clown around—the horse scenes are hilarious, but the
film is not up to the standards of the original. There is too much of the slap-
stick, which we expect from Bob and Lucy, but not much of the gentility
of Laughton’s character.
Like Bob Hope’s Humphrey, Ginger Rogers’ Mary Gray is broke in the
opening scenes of Fifth Avenue Girl (RKO, 1939). She is a down-to-earth
working-class girl who believes that “rich people are just poor people with
money.” She meets rich but miserable Mr. Borden (Walter Connolly) in New
York’s Central Park and spends a night on the town with him during which
he celebrates his birthday (his family has forgotten it and him). For the first
time in a long while, he has really enjoyed himself, and invites the jobless
girl to live in his mansion as a member of his family.
Mrs. Borden (Verree Teasdale), son Tim (Tim Holt) and daughter
Katherine (Kathryn Adams) are shocked and very much upset at this turn
of events. Mrs. Borden thinks the worst about her husband and this much
younger “interloper.” For years, however, she has been somewhat indifferent
towards her marriage and the children have virtually ignored their father
while freely spending his money. Ginger’s perky presence changes all that
and also the family’s attitude on life in general.
By the final reel, it is evident that Ginger will live happily ever after
with Borden’s son. The two young people had taken an instant dislike to
each other, a different kind of battle of the sexes, he thinking she is after his
father’s money, she of the opinion that he is spoiled and selfish, a typical rich
man’s son. But in a Central Park setting, each sees the other in a different
light and they begin to have feelings for each other. Feelings are also rekin-
dled in the older Bordens when they reminisce about the days when they
had little money and she did all the household chores.
The heroine of Fifth Avenue Girl begins by being broke. This is not
the case of Claudette Colbert and her family in Paramount’s Three Cornered
Moon.
This early example of the screwball concerns a family, once wealthy,
needing to go out and get jobs after the Wall Street collapse. Though not
so funny today, the trials and tribulations of this family made for many laughs
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 127

in 1933, giving some respite to Depression-weary audiences. Starring with

Colbert are Richard Arlen and, as the matriarch of the clan, Mary Boland.
Money problems of another sort are faced by Walter Connolly’s family
in She Couldn’t Take It (Columbia, 1935). Connolly goes to prison on a charge
of income tax evasion. He considers it a sort of vacation from the screwy
antics of his impossible family. While in the slammer, he meets ex-bootlegger
George Raft, who is aiming for the straight and narrow upon his release.
The two become friends, whereupon Connolly makes Raft the executor of
his last will and testament. The older man soon dies and Raft, now out of
jail, is confronted with this family of loonies, Connolly’s ditzy wife (Billie
Burke) and his spoiled and selfish children. Seen in these roles are Joan Ben-
nett and Lloyd Nolan. After the prerequisite battle of the sexes between Raft
and Bennett, he marries into the family and helps its members to turn over
a new leaf.
Speaking about turning over a new leaf brings us to the zanies in Mor-
timer Brewster’s family in Arsenic and Old Lace (Warner Brothers, 1944).
Cary Grant, in an over-the-top performance, is Mortimer, a theater critic.
The only sane one in his family, he is saddled with eccentric aunts Abby and
Martha Brewster (played by Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) who take borders
into their home, proceed to poison them with elderberry wine and then bury
the bodies in their basement. Unless committed, the old ladies will never
turn over a new leaf. This is a screwball plot, if there ever was one.
Raymond Massey plays Jonathan, Mortimer’s brother, a dangerously
insane escapee from a mental home. As Mortimer puts it, “Insanity doesn’t
run in our family. It practically gallops.” Before the ladies are sent to a “rest
home” and Massey is captured, Mortimer learns that he is not a Brewster
(he was adopted) to his immense relief and that of his fiancée Elaine (Priscilla
Lane).
There are several very funny scenes, one of which has Grant tied up
and a cop thinking that it is part of a play. Peter Lorre is hilarious as Massey’s
equally nutty sidekick. A well-known supporting cast includes Jack Carson,
Edward Everett Horton and James Gleason.
Aided by the publicity garnered by the success of the stage play upon
which it was based, plus the direction of Frank Capra and the casting of Cary
Grant, the film was an instant hit.
Publicity is definitely not what the Lord family is seeking as MGM’s
The Philadelphia Story (MGM, 1940), a romantic comedy of unconventional
people and humorous incidents, opens. Daughter Tracy is about to embark
upon marriage number two and Spy magazine is on the premises to provide
its readers with a first-hand view of the society wedding of the year.
Why are the Spy reporter and photographer at the mansion? A very
good question. It seems that Father Lord has been indiscreet with a fan
128 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

dancer, and the magazine will forgo covering that story in return for a wed-
ding scoop. The real “scoop” turns out to be that Tracy goes back to husband
number one, Dad returns to the bosom of his family and Spy is left at the
starting gate.
The 1940 film, based on the play by Philip Barry, was a milestone in
the career of Katharine Hepburn. She attained movie stardom in 1932, was
an Oscar winner the next year and was labeled “box office poison” in 1938
by a group of film exhibitors—surely a roller-coaster effect on any young
performer.
Undaunted, Hepburn went back to New York, appeared in The Philadel-
phia Story on Broadway to rave reviews, secured the screen rights to the hit
play and returned to Tinsel Town in triumph.
MGM’s deal with the canny Kate stipulated that she play leading char-
acter Tracy on screen. The studio added Cary Grant as the first husband
C.K. Dexter Haven, James Stewart as reporter Macaulay “Mike” Connor
and Ruth Hussey as photographer Liz Imbrie. (These roles were played on
Broadway by Joseph Cotten, Van Heflin and Shirley Booth.) Also in the
cast are John Halliday and Mary Nash as the elder Lords, John Howard as
George Kitteridge (Tracy’s intended) and, stealing every scene in which they
appear, Virginia Weidler as Dinah, Tracy’s younger sister, and Roland Young
as the lecherous Uncle Willie, a glint in his eye and a hand ready to pinch.
From the opening scene, when Tracy throws Dexter’s golf clubs at him
and he responds by pushing her in the face, causing her to fall backward, to
the end, when she is happy to return to him, the picture is a joy to watch.
The critics agreed and so did the Academy. Hepburn, Hussey, Stewart, direc-
tor George Cukor, the film and its screenplay were Oscar nominated. Only
Stewart and the screenplay won.
An incident at that Oscar ceremony has gone down in Hollywood lore.
Winning the coveted statuette for his Philadelphia Story screenplay, Donald
Ogden Stewart jocularly announced to all gathered: “I am happy to say that
I am entirely—and solely—responsible for the success of The Philadelphia
Story.” Not true, but it did get a big laugh and in these days with the “I need
to thank” speeches going on ad infinitum, perhaps taking a lesson in brevity
from Donald Ogden Stewart might be a good thing.
In 1956, the film was remade as the musical High Society. In the cast
are a future princess (Grace Kelly in her last feature film) and two crooners
by the names of Crosby and Sinatra. One of the few really good remakes, it
benefits from a Cole Porter score and the appearance of the immortal Louis
Armstrong.
Screwball families are not always as rich as the Lords. They can also
be poor and on the make, like the Carltons in The Young in Heart (United
Artists, 1938).
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 129

The Philadelphia Story (1940): Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and James Stew-
art. The trials and tribulations of the upper-crust Lord family.

The patriarch of the family is Colonel Anthony Carlton (Roland Young),

a self-described member of India’s Bengal Lancers. However, all is not what
it seems, for not only has the “Colonel” never been to India, he’s never been
in the army. His scatterbrained wife Marmy (Billie Burke) and his two greedy,
gold-digging children Georgie-Ann and Richard ( Janet Gaynor and Douglas
Fairbanks Jr.) round out the family.
The plot thickens when the family, traveling by train, meets sweet and
very rich Ellen Fortune (Minnie Dupree). When the train is derailed, the
con artists “save” the old lady and she invites them to live with her. The
foursome moves in and take over the household. The fluttery Burke in charge
of a bunch of servants is a highlight. The family’s intent is to get their bene-
factress to leave them her fortune. While with the old lady, however, each
has a change of heart.
The film, somewhat in the style of the Frank Capra films, features
Paulette Goddard and Richard Carlson as the love interests of Fairbanks
and Gaynor. It is a charming addition to the screwball genre and did well
at the box office in 1938.
130 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Speaking of fleecing the rich, we come to Gene Tierney in Rings on Her

Fingers (Fox, 1942). The lovely lady is recruited by a pair of swindlers for
the purpose of charming a millionaire out of his money. The “nefarious” duo,
played by sweet-faced Spring Byington and Laird Cregar, are to pose as her
mother and uncle.
As soon as Henry Fonda puts in an appearance with his talk of yachts,
the “family” sets its sights on him. But things do not work out that way.
Tierney falls for Fonda, who turns out to be penniless, himself out to snare
a rich wife. This revelation fails to bother the smitten Gene, but “Mother”
and “Uncle” are less than happy to be left to their own devices.
As in The Lady Eve, Fonda begins Rings on Her Fingers as a lamb being
led to slaughter, but in true screwball fashion, he does not do too badly for
himself in the end.
Joan Marsh, as Carolyn Page, is about to marry money (Reginald
Denny) in We’re Rich Again (RKO, 1934). This will help her once-wealthy
family: her polo-playing grandmother (hilariously played by Edna May
Oliver), her screwy, pampered mother (Billie Burke), her younger sister (Glo-
ria Shea) and her put-upon father (Grant Mitchell).
Enter Marian Nixon as Cousin Arabella (“Ah’m from West Texas”) with
her down-home ways which hide a razor-sharp mind. She schemes to get
millionaire Denny for herself and eventually does. She is not the villain of
the piece, however: Carolyn is not in love with her intended bridegroom.
Cousin Arabella redeems herself by giving her uncle a good stock tip.
She also encourages a marriage between Carolyn’s sister and the man she
loves (Olympic star Larry “Buster” Crabbe, doing some swimming in the
film), who turns out to be quite a wealthy young man.
Into this merry mix comes a process server who tries to gain entrance
into the house and is thwarted by the family. Even the butler has a turn at
this “game.” But the movie belongs to Oliver and Burke, who have been given
the best lines, as witness the following exchange:
BURKE: You shouldn’t play polo on an empty stomach.
OLIVER: What you need is a lesson in anatomy.

As in We’re Rich Again, the family in There Goes the Groom (RKO, 1937)
is trying to reverse their financial difficulties. Mama Russell would love to
snare rich husbands for her daughters. She is overjoyed when Dick (Burgess
Meredith), the boyfriend of the older girl, comes back to town after striking
it rich in Alaska. The young man has come to claim Janet, the girl who
promised to marry him if he’s made something of himself. She’s engaged to
a doctor, but breaks it off when she finds out that Dick is rich. The younger
daughter (top-billed Ann Sothern) does not share her family’s motives; she
has been in love with Meredith all along and gets him in the end.
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 131

Featured in this all-too-familiar story are Mary Boland as the grasping

Mama, Onslow Stevens as the doctor and Louise Henry as the selfish older
sister. In the film’s funniest sequence, Meredith, pretending amnesia, is manic
as he takes part in a football game his skeptical doctor has staged to “restore”
his memory. The film gives the often serious actor another chance to show
off his flair for comedy, which has been made evident by a couple of films
discussed in this book.
Boland and Sothern again are mother and daughter in a minor venture
titled Danger, Love at Work (Fox, 1937). Ann plays a much engaged girl who
falls for a lawyer ( Jack Haley) who wants her zany but wealthy folks (Boland
and Etienne Girardot) to sign an important legal document. They do, once
Ann has set her cap for the lawyer. Also featured in the cast are John Car-
radine as a screwy artist, Bonnie Bartlett as Ann’s little sister, Edward Everett
Horton, Alan Dinehart and Walter Catlett.
Two sisters from Ohio, Ruth, an aspiring writer, and Eileen, a wannabe
actress, come to New York in search of fame and fortune in My Sister Eileen
(Columbia, 1942).
First introduced in the pages of the magazine The New Yorker, the stories
by Ruth McKinney formed the basis of a Broadway show. Seeing its potential
as a film, Harry Cohn bought the screen rights and cast Rosalind Russell as
Ruth and Janet Blair as Eileen. (The play had starred Shirley Booth as Ruth.)
The plot hinges on the lives of the sisters in their Greenwich Village
basement apartment where they have a “foot-level view” of the world above
and where they encounter some of the colorful characters who inhabit this
part of the big city. The girls become part of what I would call a family,
engaging in screwball antics, but lovingly protective of each other.
Roz meets editor Brian Aherne who buys her stories and, in the process,
falls in love with her. While thus engaged with her writing and love life, she
is also trying to rescue her younger sister from the vicissitudes of life in the
Big Apple and also from the clutches of the two-footed wolves who come
howling at the door.
The principals, especially Russell (who, in a hilarious scene, leads a
Conga line of non–English-speaking Greek sailors), deliver their lines with
skill and zest, the real flavor of the film comes from the girls’ extended “fam-
ily,” the zany characters floating in and out of the scenario: George Tobias,
their Greek landlord, Frank Sully, the janitor, Allyn Joslyn, a reporter, Don-
ald MacBride, a pugnacious minion of the law, Richard Quine, a soda jerk
with a crush on Eileen, Gordon Jones, a professional football player nicknamed
“The Wreck,” and Jeff Donnell, his adoring girlfriend. Also seen, very briefly,
are the Three Stooges as workmen digging up the street to make way for a
new subway.
A musical version of the McKinney story appeared on Broadway in 1951.
132 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

With music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty
Comden, this version starred Rosalind Russell. The film’s remake was
released by Columbia in 1955. It stars Betty Garrett as Ruth, Janet Leigh
as Eileen and Jack Lemmon in the role previously played by Brian Aherne.
Although Garrett is a fine singer-comedienne, she is no Rosalind Russell,
who made the role of Ruth her own on both stage and screen. Also, the
characters in the remake are not as well defined as they are in the original
and much of the comedy has been sacrificed to the musical numbers.
In getting involved with their village neighbors, Ruth and Eileen are
part of an extended family. Also getting involved with their neighbors are
Joan Bennett and George Brent. In Twin Beds (United Artists, 1942), the
two star as newlyweds who would like to have some time alone. However,
they are constantly being “visited” or annoyed by their extended “family” led
by zany Russian Mischa Auer and his wife (Una Merkel) and also by Ben-
nett’s former boyfriend and his wife (Ernest Truex and Glenda Farrell).
Things come to a head when the three couples decide to move away from
each other, but in true screwball fashion, they find that they have moved to
the same street. The “family” is intact once more.
Moving is the subject of our next film, but the Fullers are not newly-
weds.
With the exception of To Be or Not to Be, Jack Benny always denigrated
his films, but in reviewing many of them, they turn out to be not bad at all.
A case in point: George Washington Slept Here (Warner Brothers, 1942), based
on a play co-written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Benny plays
the much put-upon husband of Ann Sheridan. The latter has bought a dilap-
idated Pennsylvania farmhouse for the family which includes her impres-
sionable younger sister and a mischievous nephew. This house is rumored to
have been one of the places in which General Washington slept during the
Revolutionary War.
“Dilapidated” is hardly the word for the house: rotten floors, no water
and poor roofing, among other things. Renovations begin and the Fullers
learn that it was Benedict Arnold, and not our first president, who slept in
their house. Benny and spouse go through several screwball moments involv-
ing Percy Kilbride’s Mr. Kimber, a local handyman always finding things
that will cost money, including digging for water in various places, Charles
Coburn, the uncle who is thought to be rich but is not, and Charles Dingle
as the local curmudgeon with an eye to getting the house, cheap of course,
after the renovations have nearly bankrupted the Fullers. The end of the film
has Kimber finding an old boot which contains a letter from General Wash-
ington. A threatened foreclosure is now an issue of the past.
In four of the five productions we will next look at, the action is dom-
inated by ghosts and trick photography. Topper, Thorne Smith’s whimsical
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 133

novel about a henpecked husband and a ghostly pair who appoint themselves
his guardian angel, had been on best-seller lists for several years before being
filmed by MGM in 1937. Two superstars of the era and one of its most
beloved character actors were assigned the principal roles: Cary Grant and
Constance Bennett are the irascible “now you see them, now you don’t”
George and Marion Kerby and Roland Young is the meek Cosmo Topper.
George is the largest stockholder in a bank. He and his blonde wife
Marion sail through life defying convention, with nary a care and with cock-
tail at hand. They are wealthy and they are irresponsible, but very happy and
very much in love. Until ...
The Kerbys are killed in an automobile accident while under the influ-
ence. They find out that they can be accepted in Heaven, but first must per-
form a good deed. The daffy duo decide to win their halos by teaching their
friend, staid bank president Cosmo Topper, how to live life to its fullest,
Kerby style, defying convention and enjoying life. Unbeknownst to Mrs.
Topper, they are now part of her family.
What follows is a wildly high-spirited hour and a half of fun, with Ben-
nett and Grant in fine fettle, “toppered” only by Oscar-nominated Roland
Young. The trio of laugh-getters are surrounded by a powerhouse cast of
screwball veterans, among them Billie Burke as the befuddled Mrs. Topper,
Alan Mowbray as the Toppers’ long-suffering butler Wilkens, Eugene Pal-
lette as a hotel detective and Arthur Lake in the role of an elevator operator,
dazed by the sight of Topper laughing and talking to people who “ain’t even
there.” As an added attraction, singer-composer Hoagy Carmichael makes
a cameo appearance in a nightclub scene.
Two years later, with much of the world in chaos, United Artists released
a second Topper film, again with Roland Young and Billie Burke as the Top-
pers. In Topper Takes a Trip, which takes place before the start of World War
II, Mrs. T., bewildered by her husband’s behavior, is contemplating a divorce
and decides go to the French Riviera to think things over. Cosmo follows
her in an attempt to save his marriage. And who decides to come to his aid
but the invisible member of the Topper family, good old Marion Kerby, once
more played by Constance Bennett. Cary Grant makes a brief appearance
in a flashback from the first Topper, but as his price per film had soared in
the two years between productions and Bennett needed a comic accomplice,
the handsome actor was “replaced” by another handsome “gentleman,” the
top dog star of the decade, Asta, in the role of Mr. Atlas. Connie and the
canine help “Toppy” salvage his marriage and get Clara Topper out of the
clutches of a suave European fortune hunter, Baron de Rossi (Alexander
D’Arcy).
Alan Mowbray, again playing the Toppers’ faithful butler, Verree Teas-
dale and Franklin Pangborn helped to make this sequel a box office winner.
134 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Topper Returns (1941): The lady ( Joan Blondell) has been murdered. Why is
Topper (Roland Young) always involved with ghosts?

The third and final Topper film, Topper Returns, was released by United Artists
in 1941. This production would ordinarily have been part of the section on
screwball mysteries, but I have placed it in this chapter because it completes
the trio. Topper Returns is an entertaining spoof of an old-fashioned murder
mystery, replete with old house, sliding wall panels, hidden passages and
disappearing bodies. For the third time, the Toppers are portrayed by Billie
Burke and Roland Young. Also featured is Joan Blondell as Gail Richards,
who accompanies her friend Ann Carrington (Carole Landis) to the latter’s
family home. The girl has not seen her father since she was a child. Gail is
murdered shortly thereafter. Why has she been killed? That is the riddle the
newly deceased young lady, now a comely ghost, is “dying” to solve. To whom
does she turn? Why, none other than Cosmo Topper, whom she met on the
road to her friend’s home. In the end, they get their man: Carole’s father who
turns out to be the dastardly evil-doer. But we find out that the man is not
Carole’s father but the father’s business partner, out to steal her fortune.
Seen in support are Dennis O’Keefe as a cab driver who has fallen in love
with Carole, H.B. Warner as the villain, Donald MacBride as a put-upon
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 135

policeman and an unlikely comic duo, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and

Patsy Kelly, as Eddie and Emily, the Toppers’ chauffeur and maid. Watching
this duo is sheer delight.
The film was well received, but did not do as well as the previous two
at the box office. Producer Hal Roach felt the series had run out of steam and
no more Topper films were made.
Thorne Smith’s Topper characters came to television in the early 1950s
with Leo G. Carroll in the title role and, as the ghostly couple, the real-life
husband-and-wife team of Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling.
A ghostly screwball family of two is the subject of I Married a Witch
(Paramount 1942), taken from a novel by the aforementioned Thorne Smith.
Veronica Lake portrays Jennifer, a 17th century witch who is transported to
modern times by a bolt of lightning. Her aim is to bring chaos into the life of
ambitious politician Wallace Wooley (Fredric March), a descendant of the
Puritans who burned her at the stake in 1690. Her curse upon the descendants
of the man who denounced her is that all of the future males in the family
have unhappy marriages. Thereby begins a most unusual battle of the sexes.
Jennifer and Wooley “meet” when she materializes as a modern woman
whom he rescues from a burning building (she’s caused the fire); she follows
him home. Cecil Kellaway is Daniel, her tipsy father. Father and daughter
try all sorts of tricks, but the bewitching witch becomes mortal because she
has fallen in love with Wooley and he with her. The two marry in spite of
Daniel’s efforts to revert her to her former self. Susan Hayward and Robert
Benchley are also featured in this delightful fantasy.
Acting honors also go to Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck as we
come to the last film in this section, Ball of Fire (1941) from Samuel Goldwyn.
Cooper plays Professor Bertram Potts, who lives in a Manhattan brownstone
with his “family”—seven other academicians compiling an encyclopedia. Potts
is doing an entry on slang. A garbage collector comes into the house on a
“quizzola,” a hunt for some answers to a quiz he wants to enter. Never having
heard the term before, Potts realizes that he is out of touch with his topic
and he decides to obtain some information straight from the horse’s mouth.
He visits a nightclub where drummer Gene Krupa’s band is playing and finds
a perfect filly in the person of Stanwyck, playing a stripper with one of the
greatest names in screwball, Sugarpuss O’Shea.
At first reluctant, she tells Potts to “Scrow, scram, scraw.” The professor
is jubilant. “The complete conjugation,” he marvels.
When Sugarpuss finds out that she is wanted for questioning regarding
the whereabouts of her racketeer boyfriend Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), she
tells Potts that she will help him, but only if she can stay at his home. She
reasons that the last place the cops would look for her would be in a house
full of professors. She is also somewhat curious about this “square” and his
136 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Ball of Fire (1941): Sugarpuss (Barbara Stanwyck) and the professor (Gary
Cooper). And just what is “yum yum”?

quest for information. “This is the first time anybody has moved in on my
brain,” she tells him.
Once ensconced in the house, she charms the older professors and then
proceeds to give “Pottsie” an unforgettable lesson in slang and also in the art
of kissing. Her “yum yum” treatment is like a double whammy for the naive
prof. He is in love—and Sugarpuss is quite surprised to find out that she is
also smitten.
In a rollicking climax, some gangsters (one of them played by Dan
Duryea) literally kidnap Sugarpuss as the professors look on helplessly. The
plan is for her to marry her former boyfriend so that she will be unable to
testify against him. After the gangsters leave with Sugarpuss, the angry pro-
fessors regroup and go after them. At the end of the film, the “family” sees
Sugarpuss and their “Pottsie” in a “yum yum” clinch.
The film, considered a delightful romp by both critics and fans, was
directed by Howard Hawks. Barbara Stanwyck was Oscar-nominated for Best
Actress and Billy Wilder for his original story. Neither won, Stanwyck losing
to Joan Fontaine of Suspicion and Wilder to Harry Segall for Here Comes Mr.
 THIRTEEN. SCREWBALL FAMILIES: THE MAMAS, PAPAS, KIDS 137

Ball of Fire with Henry Travers, Oscar Homolka, Gary Cooper, Leonid Kinskey,
Aubrey Mather, S.Z. Sakall, Richard Haydn, Tully Marshall and Barbara Stan-
wyck: a grown-up version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Jordan. Cooper, not nominated for Ball of Fire, did win 1941’s Best Actor
award for his portrayal of the World War I hero in Sergeant York.
Ball of Fire is a grown-up version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
In a reversal of roles, Sugarpuss is Prince Charming and Potts is Snow White,
while his fellow professors are the Dwarfs benevolently beaming down at him.
The cherubic Cupids are played by Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z.
Sakall, Richard Haydn, Leonid Kinskey, Aubrey Mather and Tully Marshall.
In 1948 Hawks remade the film as the musical A Song Is Born, but
though it featured a cast of well-known musicians and the talents of Danny
Kaye and Virginia Mayo, it did not compare in any way, shape or form to
the original. In this version, one of the professors is played by bandleader
Benny Goodman.
Just a few weeks before the film was released, a peaceful America sud-
denly found itself in the conflict which had been engulfing much of the rest
of the world for more than two years. After Pearl Harbor, Hollywood went
to war and so did the screwball comedy.
 Chapter Fourteen

Morale Boosters:
Screwball Goes to War

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Hollywood geared up for the war effort,
but in its own way. Many in the industry went into the military, including
top stars James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power and, with the death
of his wife Carole Lombard, Clark Gable. Also enlisting were some of the
lesser known people who were instrumental in the making of movies, men
behind the scenes: producers, directors, technicians and cameramen. Those
filmmakers left at home distinguished themselves making films for the gov-
ernment, selling war bonds, visiting the wounded and entertaining the troops
both on American soil and abroad.
The movie business continued non-stop as battlefront dramas began to
proliferate. From the steamy jungles of the South Pacific and the hot sands
of the African desert to the cold, chilling waters of the North Atlantic and
the occupied areas of Europe, Hollywood gave the movie-going public a
popularized version of the conflict.
On the lighter side, the screwball had begun to pale by the early 1940s,
but conditions at home gave the genre plenty of material. The comedies of
the previous decade, frothy cream puffs in the main, gave way to those of war-
time, a tougher type of screwball, still very funny, but somewhat less sophis-
ticated than its predecessors, satirizing real people and situations.
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (Allied Artists, 1947) pokes fun at the rich,
in screwball style, while teaching a lesson in humanity. Victor Moore stars
as elderly Aloysius T. McKeever, a hobo who solves his particular housing
shortage in a unique fashion: He moves with the weather. He takes up res-
idence in a fashionable Fifth Avenue mansion when the owner, Michael J.
O’Connor (Charles Ruggles) goes to a warmer clime. When O’Connor comes
back to New York, the two just exchange places.
McKeever meets and invites some homeless GIs to “share the wealth.”

138
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 139

An “interloper” is found in the house: O’Connor’s daughter Trudy, who has

run away from finishing school. The squatters think she is homeless and take
her in.
She falls in love with Jim, one of the GIs. When her father finds her,
she begs him not to give away her identity. Instead she asks him to pose as
a hobo, meet her young man and “join” the household. Against his better
judgment, Dad agrees. And finds his estranged wife, who has become involved
in the “plot,” serving as the “cook.”
Several screwball scenes are played out in the film: Jim, chained to his
bed, being evicted from his apartment; O’Connor coming to his home and
finding his living room has become a place for hanging clothes; and McKeever
making him do household chores, even getting him a job shoveling snow.
The ending has the millionaire reuniting with his wife, funding a housing
plan for GIs which will become a reality, and the young couple on their way
to matrimony.
McKeever has not been told of these events and takes leave of everyone.
As he goes on his way, O’Connor tells his wife, “Remind me to nail up the
board in the back fence. He’s coming through the front door next winter.”
Also featured in the cast are Gale Storm as Trudy, Don DeFore as Jim and
Ann Harding as Mary. The scenes between Moore and Ruggles make the
movie.
Also using the returning GI premise, No Room for the Groom (Universal-
International, 1952) stars Tony Curtis as a vet eager to resume married life
with his wife, played by Piper Laurie. Our hero’s got a problem on his
hands: she’s now living with her family, and has neglected to inform the
folks that she has a husband. Mama (Spring Byington) wants her to marry
another man (Don DeFore). This in itself is a screwball situation. All is
straightened out with the GI moving into the picture and the erstwhile suitor
moving out. It’s a minor comedy, mostly to be enjoyed by fans of the young
Curtis.
From the prolific pens of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder came The
Major and the Minor (Paramount, 1942), Wilder’s debut as a director in
America. As the plot unfolds, Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) has gone
through 27 jobs. This last one is as a scalp masseuse whose customers want
more than a hair massage from her. One such “client” is Mr. Osborne (Robert
Benchley), who chases her around the room. He asks her, “Why don’t you
get out of that coat and into a dry martini?”
Deciding to return to her small town roots, she discovers that the cup-
board is bare and that there is not enough money for the train fare back. Our
plucky heroine is nothing if not resourceful and comes up with a screwball
scheme: She will pose as a 12-year-old and pay half fare. (Wilder later rather
gleefully stated that they bound Ginger’s breasts for the scenes as a child.
140 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

He also maintained that the censors didn’t say a word about this and he had
gotten away with some sexy situations.)
En route, Susan meets Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland), an officer-
teacher at a military school. Seeing that the “youngster” is traveling alone,
he takes her under her under his wing and brings her to his school where
she proceeds to become the belle of the ball. “Su-Su,” as Kirby calls her is
found out by her roommate Lucy, played by 16-year-old Diana Lynn, who
made a living playing sharp-tongued adolescents. (A grown-up Diana appears
in Paramount’s 1955 remake of The Major and the Minor, You’re Never Too
Young, a vehicle for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The latter plays the Ginger
Rogers role.)
Unbeknownst to the major, Lucy’s older sister Pamela (Rita Johnson),
whom Lucy calls a snake, has kept him back from being assigned to a real
military post. Susan takes care of that. She poses as “the snake,” phones an
influential person and makes sure that Kirby will get the assignment he wants.
By now, the erstwhile juvenile has fallen in love with her “benefactor,”
but at a school dance, she sees
her old nemesis Mr. Osborne,
whose son is an academy stu-
dent. Osborne unmasks her,
much to the delight of her new
nemesis, Pamela. Now aware
of Susan’s true identity, Pam-
ela warns her away, saying
that if her deception is found
out, it will be detrimental to
Philip’s career. Susan leaves.
The major, unaware that
Susan is a grown woman, is
on his way to a real military
assignment. En route, he
tracks her down to the town
in which she lives with her
mother (played by Ginger’s
real mother, Lela). Susan
appears to him as Mrs. Apple-
gate and when he tells her he
has not married Pamela, he
then leaves. The last scene
finds him at the railway sta-
The Major and the Minor (1942): Just why is tion where he finally gets the
Ginger Rogers playing a teen-ager? point that Susan is there to
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 141

go with him. Their first destina-

tion will probably be Washing-
ton.
The housing shortage was
a real problem for this country
during the war years and no-
where was it more pronounced
than in Washington, D.C. With
the nerve center of our war
machine located in the nation’s
capital, the bustling city was
full of transients, VIPs and con-
stant movement.
No film caught the comedic
nuances inherent in this situa-
tion with more panache than
The More the Merrier. The 1943
Columbia release, nominated
for six Academy Awards (includ-
ing one for Best Picture), has an
interesting premise: Govern- The Major and the Minor with Ginger
ment worker Connie Milligan Rogers and Ray Milland: She is definitely
( Jean Arthur), in a spirit of not a teen in this shot.
patriotism, rents half of her
apartment to elderly Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn), a wealthy indus-
trialist who has donated his services to the war effort at a salary of a dollar
a year. He, again in a spirit of patriotism, rents half of his half to handsome
Joe Carter ( Joel McCrea).
At first, Connie is not very happy with this turn of events. She makes
up a schedule of what each of the three is responsible for and in a true screw-
ball scene, the three try to stick to her schedule. Though Connie has been
engaged to someone else for some time, Cupid Dingle thinks that his
“boarder” is the right man for his “landlady.” He aims his arrow straight at
the young couple and scores a bull’s eye: They fall in love to the delight of
the cherubic match-maker.
The film is filled with screwball strokes and some not very believable
situations, but the performances of the stars are as light as gossamer wings.
They seem to be having a good time and invite the audience to do the same.
The picture, director George Stevens, Jean Arthur, her then husband
Frank Ross (who wrote the original story) and Charles Coburn all received
Oscar nominations. Coburn won the gold statuette as Best Supporting Actor,
his first and only in a long and distinguished career.
142 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Cary Grant playing the Coburn role? Unbelievable? Never, you say?
But it did happen in Walk, Don’t Run, Columbia’s revamped version of the
story, released 23 years later. With a change in location, Grant, who was 62
at the time and still as good-looking as ever, plays an English industrialist
who rents half of Samantha Eggar’s apartment in overcrowded Tokyo. He
then turns around and offers half of his half to Jim Hutton, an Olympic
competitor. Though the young woman is engaged to a rather stuffy embassy
official, the older man decides to play Cupid to his apartment mates and is
successful in this endeavor.
Eggar and Hutton are fine as the young couple, but fans flocked to see
Cary Grant. This film was his last.
Standing Room Only (Paramount, 1944), a wartime screwball starring
Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray, satirized the housing shortage in
Washington, but with a different twist. It’s the story of a resourceful secretary
(Goddard) who is in D.C.
on business with her boss
(MacMurray). How does
she get both herself and
her boss living quarters?
Simple: She hires them
out as domestic servants in
a luxurious household.
And what do they know
about being servants?
Absolutely nothing. There
are quips and comic situa-
tions as the erstwhile maid
and butler get deeper and
deeper into hot water, fig-
uratively and literally. The
executive eventually real-
izes that he is in love with
his kooky secretary and
both of them get out of the
kitchen and back to busi-
ness. An experienced cast,
including Edward Arnold,
Roland Young, Hillary
Brooke, Porter Hall and
The More the Merrier (1943) with Charles Coburn
and Jean Arthur: Cupid shoots his arrow in war - Anne Revere add their
time Washington. The film was Oscar-nominated considerable talents to the
in six categories, but only Coburn was a winner. merriment.
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 143

A minor film with a similar premise is Make Your Own Bed (Warner
Brothers, 1944) which stars Jack Carson and, four years away from her Oscar-
winning 1948 performance in Johnny Belinda, Jane Wyman. The two play
detectives who hire on to a family as butler and maid to thwart a ring of
Nazi spies. And what do they know about domestic service? Like MacMurray
and Goddard in the previously discussed film, absolutely nothing. Zany sit-
uations follow, but they do get the job done. A cast including Alan Hale,
Irene Manning and George Tobias make a valiant attempt, but the film was
not a box office winner.
Broadway contributed a wartime screwball with Washington, D.C., as
its locale. The Doughgirls (Warner Brothers, 1944) stars Wyman and Carson
as newlyweds whose honeymoon is interrupted by friends of the bride who
would like part of their hotel suite for their own forthcoming honeymoons.
This makes for a truly frenetic situation. Most of the action takes place in
the suite, with various characters coming and going, to Carson’s chagrin.
Ann Sheridan and Alexis Smith are the conniving ladies, with John
Ridgely and Craig Stevens featured in the roles of their prospective grooms.
(Stevens and Smith were husband and wife off-screen.)
The film is well-acted by the stars and by a supporting cast which
includes Alan Mowbray, John Alexander and especially by Charles Ruggles
as Carson’s boss. Eve Arden, as a Russian sniper in Washington on a govern-
ment mission, steals every scene in which she appears.
Olivia de Havilland stars in Government Girl (1943), yet another screw-
ball satirizing conditions in wartime Washington (sharing apartments, work-
ing crazy hours, over-crowded restaurants, etc.). Legend has it that the actress
did not want to do the film, but was forced into it by an arrangement with
Warner Brothers who loaned her to David Selznick, who promptly turned
her over to RKO. At that time, studios were able to do this with their contract
players.
In the film, a Detroit business executive (Sonny Tufts) is a dollar-a-year
man who has been brought to wartime Washington by the government to
speed up bomber production. Olivia, as his Girl Friday, shows him the hectic
Washington scene as well as the ins and outs of departmental bureaucracy,
resulting in several comical situations.
When hints of malfeasance and dealings in the black market surface
with Tufts as a prime suspect, it’s the loyal Olivia who gets him out of trouble
and gets him, period. Supporting the two stars are well-known performers
Agnes Moorehead, Jane Darwell. Sig Ruman, Jess Barker, Harry Davenport,
James Dunn, Anne Shirley and Paul Stewart. The public bought the premise
and the production made a nice profit for the studio.
Government Girl was not Olivia de Havilland’s best effort in Hollywood.
Neither was Pillow to Post Ida Lupino’s finest hour. That the material of the
144 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Warner Brothers 1945 release did not match the talents of its star is quite
evident upon seeing this film.
The flimsy plot details the trials and tribulations of Lupino becoming
a traveling sales agent for her father’s oil refining company and landing in a
town near an army base. The only accommodations she can get are at an
auto camp which caters to the wives of men in the military. The saleslady
puts her training to good use and sells a good-looking young officer (William
Prince) on the idea of posing as her husband. Adding to the confusion are
Prince’s commanding officer, a rotund Cupid in the form of Sydney Green-
street (light years away from his sinister portrayal of Caspar Gutman in 1941’s
The Maltese Falcon), Stuart Erwin, Johnny Mitchell and Ruth Donnelly.
How the unmarried two manage to fool his superiors forms the basis of most
of the film, but by the final reel, the mock marriage will become the real
thing.
Lupino wisely went back to dramatic roles after this production, which
was quickly forgotten by fans and critics alike. Later in her career, she became
a top Hollywood director.
There are musical moments in Seven Days Leave (RKO, 1942) with the
bands of Freddy Martin and Les Brown featured. Its stars, Victor Mature
and Lucille Ball, however, were not noted for their singing and dancing abil-
ities. The plot concerns a serviceman (Mature) who will receive a $100,000
bequest according to the terms of a will, but only if he will marry a certain
young lady, whom he has never met. The zinger is that he has only one week
to fulfill he terms of the will. Is this not a screwball premise?
Our hero meets the girl (Ball) and the two take an instant dislike to
one another (yet another screwball battle of the sexes). With his buddies (Peter
Lind Hayes and Arnold Stang) cheering him on and her sister (played by
pert RKO contract player Marcy McGuire) egging her on, it is a given that
the money will soon be theirs.
Lucy is not rich at all in A Girl, a Guy and a Gob (RKO, 1941). Silent
screen star Harold Lloyd was the producer of this bouncy little entry, which
concerns a secretary (Ball) who must choose between her rich boss (Edmond
O’Brien) and a breezy sailor named Coffee Cup (George Murphy). After
several screwball incidents, one of which involves Lucy on a ladder falling
into O’Brien’s arms much to the consternation of O’Brien’s staid fiancée
(Marguerite Chapman), and another, a nightclub scene involving O’Brien
and a rhumba contest (he really can’t dance), the end of the film has Murphy
and O’Brien in a wild auto and motorcycle chase, the sailor rejoining the navy
and Lucy again in the arms of her boss, this time romantically. Also in the
cast are Henry Travers and Franklin Pangborn.
Money plays an important part in Hi Diddle Diddle (United Artists,
1943). Silent screen star Pola Negri, after an eleven-year absence from the
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 145

film capital, returns in the role of Adolphe Menjou’s temperamental wife.

The two are the parents of a sailor (Dennis O’Keefe) who is about to marry
a wealthy young lady (Martha Scott). Her mother (Billie Burke) suddenly
announces that she has been swindled out of all her money. To get the money
back, Menjou gets into various comical situations which includes investing
in the stock market and doing some gambling. (Could it be said that the
two are one and the same thing?) Everything goes back to normal when Burke
comes clean and admits that it was all a ruse to prove that the daughter’s
fiancé is not marrying her for money. The young couple finally get married.
June Havoc is also featured in this fast-paced screwball.
The Brothers Warner did quite well by Barbara Stanwyck in Christmas
in Connecticut. In this 1945 romantic comedy with screwball overtones, she
plays Elizabeth Lane, a columnist for a magazine called Smart Housekeeping.
Her talents, to judge by what she writes, include cooking, motherhood and
being an all-around good housewife.
There is, however, one catch to this lovely scenario: Not only can’t she
cook, she’s not even married, has no experience in child rearing, and what
she knows about being the compleat housewife would not fill a thimble. Her
uncle Felix (S.Z. Sakall) has been supplying the delicious recipes for her
columns.
Completely unaware of all this, her boss Alexander Yardley (Sydney
Greenstreet—two screwballs in one year) asks her to entertain returning war
hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan). Jones is a survivor of a Nazi submarine
attack on an American vessel. He and another man had been adrift on a raft
for several days. As they drifted along the raft, they could only envision dif-
ferent meals they would have if they were rescued. The next scene has them
in a hospital being catered to by a nurse who sees stars in her eyes and mar-
riage to Jones on her mind. To show him what wedded bliss would be like,
she has penned a note to Yardley and then the fun begins.
All Elizabeth needs to do is find a husband, a home, a baby and a cook,
in that order. Which she does. Reginald Gardiner is John Sloan, a pompous
architect who has proposed to her several times—and been rejected. She does
persuade him to be the “husband.” His Connecticut home becomes “her”
home, Norah the maid (Una O’Connor) supplies the baby and Felix does the
cooking. Elizabeth trying to diaper the baby and also trying her hand at
cooking are true screwball gems.
Things go fairly smoothly until Elizabeth realizes, on a moonlit sleigh
ride, that she has fallen hard for her guest and he for her. But said guest still
thinks she is married. While the two are on the sleigh, the real mother comes
for her baby. The scene in which the befuddled Yardley sees the kidnapping
and calls the police is true screwball.
By the end of the film, as the sun rises on the lovely Connecticut farm-
146 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

house, all has been straightened out. Elizabeth admits that she is not married.
Yardley fires and then rehires her, Jeff now knows the truth and wedding bells
are in the near future.
Arnold Schwarzenegger directed a remake for cable television in 1992.
The stars are Dyan Cannon, country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson
and Tony Curtis. Same title, same character names, similar storyline. This
time, however, in the age of television, Elizabeth (Cannon) is the star of a
successful TV cooking show. She has also written several books on the sub-
ject. Alexander Yardley (Curtis), her manager, has seen a program on which
a forest ranger named Jones (Kristofferson) who has lost his home in a fire
says that he would love a home-cooked Christmas dinner. Yardley arranges
to have his client invite the ranger to a live show on Christmas Day, and she
will do all the cooking.
But the “new” Elizabeth, like the “old” Elizabeth, can’t cook (the cook-
ing is done by her assistant) and her bio as the complete American housewife
is untrue. As in the 1945 film, Elizabeth and Jones end up together.
Barbara Stanwyck and Dyan Cannon found love in Connecticut.
Claudette Colbert finds love on a cross country train ride. The veteran Col-
bert co-stars with John Wayne in Without Reservations (RKO, 1946), a crowd
pleaser due to the enduring popularity of its star duo and the appearances
of guest stars Cary Grant, Jack Benny and gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
The scenario follows somewhat along the lines of It Happened One Night: a
woman traveling incognito and meeting a strong-willed man whom she will
eventually marry.
A best-selling authoress (Colbert) is on a train to Hollywood to oversee
the making of a movie based on her book. En route, she meets a Marine
(Wayne) and decides he is perfect for the part of her hero. She follows him,
trailing him all the way to the film capital—there is even a haystack scene
(shades of the 1934 classic). When he discovers her identity, he wants no
part of her until the finale.
A case of mistaken identity is the premise of Pardon My Past (Columbia,
1945) which stars another screwball veteran, Fred MacMurray. Fred plays
Eddie York, an ex–GI who wants to be a mink farmer. His look-alike is
Francis Pemberton, a ne’er-do-well who owes money to a gambler (Akim
Tamiroff ). Complications follow Eddie as he tries to prove his innocence,
but as in all films of the era, good triumphs over bad, with our hero even
getting the girl. William Demarest is Eddie’s friend and Marguerite Chap-
man the girl.
MacMurray’s character is looking to invest in minks. Don Ameche is
looking for people to invest in rubber in Girl Trouble (Fox, 1942), a wartime
screwball with topical references to rationing and civil defense. A young
South American (Ameche) arrives in New York City on a business trip in
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 147

Without Reservations (1946) with John Wayne and Claudette Colbert: Shades of
It Happened One Night. This was the last film in which Wayne received second
billing.

search of investment for his father’s rubber plantation. He runs into trouble
when he rents the apartment of a society girl ( Joan Bennett) who pretends
to be a maid. This builds into an amusing situation. Both business and
romantic complications are solved by the time the film comes to its conclu-
sion. Featured in an interesting cast assembled to aid the stars are Billie
Burke, Frank Craven, Alan Dinehart, Vivian Blaine and Dale Evans, better
known to film fans as Mrs. Roy Rogers. It was a very minor vehicle for
Ameche and Bennett.
While Dennis Morgan is a bona fide war hero in Christmas in Connecti-
cut, Eddie Bracken definitely is not in Hail the Conquering Hero (Paramount,
1944), Preston Sturges’ sharp, biting satire of small town Americana, flag-
waving and hero worship.
Eddie had the part of his career as Woodrow Wilson Truesmith, as a
rejected Marine. On a train bound for home, the asthmatic ex-recruit meets
a group of boisterous Marines who invent a bogus story of heroism for him
to tell to the townspeople. Upon his arrival, the “hero” is feted and fussed
over by everyone and the celebration continues until he decides to make a
clean breast of it and does, to a sadder and wiser group of friends and neigh-
bors. As a result of his courageous stand, he becomes a real hero to the home
148 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

town folks, winning their respect as well as that of Libby, the town beauty
(Ella Raines).
Sturges surrounded his leading players with a cast of skilled screwballers,
including William Demarest as the Marine sergeant who is the catalyst of
the plot, plus Raymond Walburn and Franklin Pangborn as town muck-a-
mucks. The film was “hailed” by fans and critics alike and Sturges received
an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay.
Again in 1944, Paramount unleashed Sturges on the movie-going public.
This time the filmmaker turned his iconoclastic pen and camera on American
morals and chose the sanctity of motherhood as the target for his satirical
barbs. The resultant film, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, has come down
through the years as one of the most original and well-known examples of
the wartime screwball comedy.
Frenetic Betty Hutton stars as a small town girl with another improbable
name of the genre, Trudy Kockenlocker. She goes to a wild party at a nearby
military base and wakes up the next morning, hazy as to the events of the
previous night. She thinks she has married a Private Ratskiwatski, but is not
quite sure. One thing, however, quickly becomes clear: The patter of little
feet is Trudy’s future.
Eddie Bracken always was the little guy caught up in situations almost
too big for him to handle. In Bring On the Girls (Paramount, 1945), he’s a
millionaire trying to fend off gold diggers and, in the aforementioned Hail
the Conquering Hero, he plays a non-hero feted by his neighbors for being
one. In Miracle, he is Norville Jones, Trudy’s bumbling 4-F suitor. The
schlemiel tries to help her out, but things become complicated due to her
apoplectic father, superbly played by Sturges regular William Demarest.
Trudy’s sarcastic sister Emily, played by Diana Lynn, is sympathetic to her
sister’s plight and can put Dad down with one remark, which she does at
frequent intervals.
Much to the delight of the townspeople, the little mother-to-be delivers
sextuplets who become the focus of national attention. Norville is assumed
to be the father and willingly accepts his new role.
Sturges then cuts to national figures—Hitler for one—who resent being
thrown off page one of the newspapers. The writer-director also reprises his
Great McGinty characters Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff, political
malfeasants who are hiding out in a “Banana Republic.”
Though the multi-talented Sturges received another Oscar nomination
for his work on this screenplay, he lost the coveted award to Lamar Trotti,
screenwriter of Wilson, the biopic of President Woodrow Wilson.
The invasion of Russia is one kind of story that would knock even
Trudy’s sextuplets off the front page of every newspaper in the world. So
what happens when the Moscow correspondent for Amalgamated News is
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 149

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) with William Demarest, Betty Hutton and
Eddie Bracken. What “miracle” has pushed Adolf Hitler off the front pages of
every newspaper in the world?

so busy dining on caviar that he does not file this story of a lifetime? He is
called by his irate boss (Donald MacBride) and summarily fired. This is the
comedic premise of They Got Me Covered, a 1943 swipe at news reportage.
Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and released by RKO, the film stars Bob Hope
as the inept newspaperman.
Back in Washington, Hope decides to get the kind of scoop that will
win him back his job. He inadvertently stumbles upon a nest of Nazi agents
headed by that arch villain of the silver screen, Otto Preminger. With the
aid of his girl (Dorothy Lamour), our intrepid hero manages to break up the
ring and get his scoop. The film features snappy dialogue about the wartime
blackouts and rationing, plus screwball situations wherein Florence Bates,
as a nutty fortune teller, tries to give him a message and sultry Lenore Aubert
tries to seduce him.
Clark Gable plays the title role in MGM’s Comrade X. The 1940 release,
with a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, stars the actor as a
150 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Comrade X (1940): When an American reporter (Clark Gable) meets a beautiful

Russian streetcar conductor (Hedy Lamarr) named Theodore, sparks begin to
fly.

newspaperman whose beat is the land of steppes, samovars and spies, Mother
Russia. Like Hope, he is stationed in Moscow. This film takes place just
before the start of World War II.
Gable’s character gets restricted information out of the country until
he is found out by a porter in his hotel (Felix Bressart). The latter feels it is
too late for him, but wants to get his overly indoctrinated daughter (Hedy
Lamarr) away from the clutches of the Communists and into the United
States. In a serio-comic scene arguing his case, he gives the newsman a
choice. The latter is reluctant until he meets the gorgeous Hedy, a streetcar
conductor who calls herself “Theodore” and spouts the “Party Line.” She is
adamant about staying in Russia until she becomes disenchanted by the
duplicity of her party superiors. She, her father and the newsman (who is
suspected of being the famous Comrade X, which of course he is) make a
frenetic flight for freedom in a stolen tank which, they promptly find out,
belongs to a Russian general. The troops are engaged in war games and they
are in the lead tank. Needless to say, the three make it.
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 151

The last scene takes place in America and finds the trio at a baseball
game. Says Hedy to Papa, “The Dodgers are murdering the Reds,” to which
her father replies, “Aha, the counter-revolution.” The supporting cast of the
Ninotchka-like film includes Eve Arden, Oscar Homolka, and Sig Ruman.
Cluny Brown (1946) is a sophisticated comedy with screwball elements,
directed by the incomparable Ernst Lubitsch. Jennifer Jones stars in the title
role as a plumber’s niece who is working in an English country manor. There
she meets and is intrigued by one of the guests, penniless writer Adam Belin-
ski (Charles Boyer), a refugee from Czechoslovakia. He has been invited to
the house by Andrew, the son of the owners. Peter Lawford plays this young
man who is itching to get into the coming hostilities and is constantly asking
the writer about conditions in Europe.
The writer soon becomes infatuated with the outspoken Cluny, but it
seems that she has a gentleman friend, a pharmacist named Mr. Wilson.
Belinski meets him and finds him quite dull, and remarks, “You couldn’t
have provided a better sedative for Cluny than yourself.”
This fly in the ointment is soon disposed of and the Czech marries the
girl to the amazement of her upper class employers. The finale finds Cluny
the grand lady and her husband a successful writer of mysteries. Also featured
in the cast are a few members of Hollywood’s “English Colony,” including
Reginald Gardiner, C. Aubrey Smith and Richard Haydn.
The film is a delight and contains some true screwball scenes: Jones
being mistaken by her employers for other than a parlor maid, a fight scene
between Lawford and Boyer, and our heroine at a party given by her gentle-
man friend (hilariously played by Haydn), who looks on in sheer horror when
there is a plumbing problem and his prospective bride begins to work on the
pipes.
Released by Fox, the production takes place in England just before the
start of World War II, with the country’s population wondering what Nazi
Germany’s next move would be. Within a couple of years, America would
enter into the fray and such things as rationing and the draft board would
become realities.
Bob Hope is Caught in the Draft, a 1941 release from Paramount. The
film came at a time before the attack on Pearl Harbor when draft evasion
was still a topic for a comedian to make the most of. And old Ski Nose did.
He plays a movie star who tries every trick possible, including a very funny
medical exam, to avoid going into the army, but he is finally inducted.
Character actor Lynne Overman and soon-to-be star Eddie Bracken,
as Hope’s agent and valet, respectively, follow the boss into the army. The
scene after the exam during which they are issued army uniforms and shoes
is pure screwball.
The new recruit, who faints at the sight of blood, meets his colonel’s
152 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

daughter, played by Dorothy Lamour. Thinking he is a coward, she is not

overly thrilled with him, but he proves, while on maneuvers (in a very funny
scene), that he is not really as cowardly as she thinks he is. Besides she has
fallen for him, and in true screwball fashion she winds up with him.
Hope also appears in one of two wartime screwballs spy spoofs released
by Paramount in 1942. My Favorite Blonde casts him as a burlesque comic
playing straight man to a penguin. During a train ride between theater jobs,
he meets a beautiful British agent (Madeleine Carroll) who has vital infor-
mation and secret orders in her possession. He is immediately attracted to
her, but she has more than romance on her mind. This all changes when he
agrees to help her elude the Nazi agents (played with sinister skill and gusto
by Gale Sondergaard and George Zucco) pursuing her.
Man, woman and bird are chased across America by road, rail and air
in the screwball tradition, but there is a happy ending: The Nazis are
thwarted, the comic gets his blonde and the vital information gets into the
right hands.
The second film, The Lady Has Plans (1942), is set in Lisbon, a World
War II mecca for spies and for Hollywood scenario writers with a bent for
satirizing the real threat of espionage. Paulette Goddard plays Sidney Royce,
an American press correspondent stationed in the Portuguese capital. She is
suspected of being a foreign agent but she is innocent; the real miscreant is
Margaret Hayes as Rita Lenox, who has a tell-tale tattoo on her back, a set
of plans which would do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. Goddard’s fre-
quent co-star Ray Milland is seen here as Kenneth Harper, a government
agent assigned to find out whether or not Paulette is a spy. This case of mis-
taken identity has the Germans, headed by Albert Dekker, comically trying
to disrobe Goddard and she trying to hand the plans over to Milland. The
ending takes place in a Turkish bath with the two stars in a clinch. A good
cast including Roland Young, Cecil Kellaway and Gerald Mohr help to keep
the action moving at a fast clip.
The last two films to be discussed, both from 1942, are a radical depar-
ture from the usual screwball in that their several comic elements are played
against the backdrop of a devastated Europe during the early years of World
War II. The combination of screwball and black comedy in these two films
was called “tasteless” by the critics of the era.
Once Upon a Honeymoon stars Ginger Rogers as Katherine Buchsmith,
an American who has married a rich European, Baron Von Luber (Walter
Slezak). Unbeknownst to her, he is an important Nazi official paving the way
for the invasion of several countries.
At her hotel, she meets newspaperman Pat O’Toole (Cary Grant) who
recognizes her as Brooklyn’s own Katie O’Hara, ex–burlesque dancer (she
thinks he’s there to take her clothing measurements for her honeymoon trip).
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 153

O’Toole knows all about the baron and with difficulty makes Katie realize
the truth and the enormity of her mistake. She goes away with him.
While the world is in flames, the two begin a love affair which ends on
a ship getting out of Europe. Unfortunately the baron is also aboard and, in
a screwball ending, is sent into the ocean by Katie while the ship’s officers
are engaged in a card game, not to be disturbed. Katie and O’Toole can con-
tinue their romance.
An interesting sidelight to the film is that neither Grant nor Rogers
would agree to give each other top billing. A compromise was worked out
wherein half the ads would feature Ginger’s name first and the other half,
Grant’s name first.
Unlike the last film discussed, To Be or Not to Be had several formidable
events working against it at the time of its release by United Artists: the
brutal attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nazi control over much of Europe and
the death of its lovely star, Carole Lombard. Ernst Lubitsch, who co-wrote
the original story, co-produced and directed the project, was thought by
many at the time “to have an odd sense of humor and a tangled script” when
he made the film.
This is not the consensus of opinion among reviewers and students of
film today. It is now considered a classic. It concerns the Nazi invasion and
occupation of Poland. Comedian Jack Benny had the role of his career as
“that great, great actor,” Joseph Tura, whose troupe of Polish Shakespearean
performers is put out of business by the Nazis until they find themselves
knee-deep in intrigue and espionage.
Tura’s wife Maria (Carole Lombard) is extremely beautiful and her hus-
band is extremely jealous of her. Maria tells him, “You’ll do anything to grab
the spotlight. When I start to tell a story, you finish it. When I go on a diet,
you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have
a baby—”
“I’ll be satisfied to be the father!” Tura responds.
He is also somewhat mistrustful of her. He needn’t be, though she is
engaged in a mild flirtation with young Polish airman Stanislaus Sobinski
(Robert Stack). When Tura, on stage as Hamlet, utters the words, “To be
or not to be,” it is Sobinski’s signal to go backstage and spend time with
Maria.
All this changes as war breaks out. A Polish traitor, Professor Siletsky
(Stanley Ridges), is returning to Warsaw from England with names of Polish
Resistance members. Sobinski, in London with the Polish Squadron of the
Royal Air Force, sees through the treacherous Siletsky and returns to Warsaw
on a mission to kill him. He takes refuge in the Turas’ apartment, and the
actors become involved. Siletsky is killed and the actors become even more
involved.
154 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

To Be or Not to Be (1942) with (posing for photographer, left to right) Charles

Halton, Tom Dugan (made-up as Hitler), Lionel Atwill, Jack Benny, Carole
Lombard and Robert Stack. Lombard’s last film, and Benny’s role of a lifetime.

Tura and his compatriots fool the Gestapo at every turn. One of the
actors does such a good impression of Der Fuhrer that the troupe is able to
escape to Scotland.
Screwball moments abound in the film: Benny’s face when Stack leaves
his seat at the beginning of Hamlet’s soliloquy and then when he finds the
airman asleep in his bed; Lombard’s meeting with the real Siletsky; Benny
masquerading as the notorious Colonel Ehrhardt when confronting the trai-
tor and later meeting the real Gestapo chief; Lombard’s fending off the
traitor and then Colonel Ehrhardt towards the end of the film when “Hitler”
appears. Benny and Lombard are ably supported by a superb ensemble cast
including Lionel Atwill, Felix Bressart and Tom Dugan as members of the
theatrical troupe and by Sig Ruman as Colonel Ehrhardt.
In 1983, Fox released a remake, produced by Mel Brooks, starring
Brooks, his wife Anne Bancroft and Jose Ferrer. Much of the dialogue was
taken almost word for word from the original, but does not compare to the
Benny-Lombard film. To honor comedian Jack Benny, his given name,
Kubelsky, is used in the film.
 FOURTEEN. MORALE BOOSTERS: SCREWBALL GOES TO WAR 155

The end of the war heralded a new era in moviemaking. The public
demanded realism, and this, more than anything else, led to less screwballs
being made. Even so, they were still being produced in the years which fol-
lowed and are still to be seen today.
In our final two chapters, we’ll look at some which are fondly remem-
bered and some which are not, plus several made in the last years of the 20th
century.
 Chapter Fifteen

Screwball Lives On: Part One

The early screwball comedies were a product of the times in which they
thrived. They succeeded when the nation was at its lowest ebb, an escape
valve sorely needed. Warm and healthy, yet often satirical, the genre lifted
the spirits of the people, made them laugh and offered a brief respite from
the realities of everyday living.
The growing maturity of the generation which had welcomed the screw-
ball plus the advent of World War II brought a tremendous change in both
the nation and in its moviegoing tastes. We had more to come to grips with
than cross-country chases and nutty heiresses. The plight of returning vet-
erans and the popularity of the neo-realistic films imported from abroad gave
rise to new forms of filmmaking in Hollywood: adult westerns and comedies,
socially significant dramas and exciting film noir—those grainy black and
white forerunners of the anti-hero genre.
The screwball, for all intents and purposes, was no longer, but was this
the case? There were several attempts made to emulate the genre’s sophisticated
lightness and it is these with which we will be concerned in the next few pages.
By the mid– and late 1940s, many of the stars who had pioneered the
screwball genre were still making some, plus appearing in other genres. These
old pros were still fan favorites and their films were eagerly anticipated.
Let’s take a look at some of the highlights and also some of the lesser
films of this body of films which has never truly given up.
The year 1945 brought us She Wouldn’t Say Yes from Columbia. Rosalind
Russell is top-billed as a psychiatrist who thinks people should keep their
emotions under control. Lee Bowman, seen as second lead in several screw-
ball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, plays a successful cartoonist whose
alter ego, a cartoon character, has different ideas. The two meet when he
slams a door in her face, the battle of the sexes is on until they get together
at the end. In the supporting cast are Charles Winninger as her doctor father,
Percy Kilbride, Adele Jergens and Harry Davenport.

156
 FIFTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART ONE 157

In My Dear Secretary (United Artists, 1948), Kirk Douglas plays a best-

selling author who cannot keep his secretaries because he has the habit of
being overly amorous towards them. This changes when he meets Laraine
Day. She tames him, even marries him and then decides to write her own
book, which becomes a bestseller. Thus begins the battle of man vs. woman,
an important component of screwball, which ends with Douglas and Day in
an equal partnership. Keenan Wynn is third-billed as Kirk’s friend and his
antics doing housework are in the screwball tradition. In support of the
threesome are a cast consisting of several screwball veterans, among them
Rudy Vallee, Alan Mowbray, Florence Bates and Irene Ryan, who would
later star as Granny on TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies.
Screwball alumnus Ginger Rogers stars in It Had to Be You, a 1947
release from Columbia. She is a young woman who has left three men at the
altar and is about to do same to prospective husband number four. Her long-
suffering parents (Spring Byington and Percy Warram) need not worry.
Daughter Ginger meets handsome Cornel Wilde whom she at first thinks
is an American Indian—he is not, but he exists in her vivid imagination as
one. (As a small child, her first sweetheart was a little boy dressed up like
an Indian.) Wilde disabuses her of this fantasy and winds up with a much
wiser Ginger. If this is not a screwball plot, what is? Only dyed-in-the woods
Rogers fans could find any merit in the film.
Our next tale is of a lady who seeks a rich husband and the method she
uses to find one. Claudette Colbert stars in Bride for Sale (RKO, 1949) as
Nora Shelley, an ex–WAC officer with a unique scheme to attain her goal:
She gets a job at an income tax firm owned by Paul Martin (George Brent).
The latter finds that his employee is combing his files for some hot prospects
and prevails upon his wealthy friend Steve Adams (Robert Young) to woo
and then dump her. This backfires when both realize that they are in love
with the lady. Steve wins her. Watching the three pros at work is a lesson in
making this sort of premise work.
Young stars, this time with Barbara Hale, in And Baby Makes Three
(Columbia, 1949). The rather slim plot revolves around a recently divorcee,
on her way to remarry, who suddenly thinks she is pregnant. Her former
mate refuses to give her sole custody of the yet unborn child. All is resolved
when the woman finds out that, not only is she not having a baby, but that
she is still in love with Young. Taking part in this unbelievable mishmash is
Robert Hutton, who is left at the altar, Billie Burke, Janis Carter and Lloyd
Corrigan. Cast and crew deserved better.
Young made several films in the genre, but when one thinks of the
top screwball performers, the name that first comes to mind is Cary
Grant. Funny, yes, suave and sophisticated, definitely. So when he is being
chased by a lovesick teenager, it is a given that the movie-watcher is in for
158 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

lots of laughs. This is the premise of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (RKO,
1947).
Up on some minor charges before a judge (Myrna Loy), author-playboy
Grant is the object of her young sister’s (Shirley Temple) crush. Upon meet-
ing him, the teenager envisions him as her knight in shining armor. There-
upon, the irate judge sentences him to be the teen’s escort until the girl “sees
the light.”
This doesn’t happen until Cary is subjected to jitterbugging, having ice
cream sodas with a bunch of youngsters, running obstacle courses, etc. In the
meantime, he is trying to romance Myrna who, at the beginning, isn’t having
any (again the battle of the sexes). But in the end, she, like her little sister,
sees Grant as a knight in shining armor. Who can resist Cary Grant?
When television fans are asked to name their favorite small screen per-
former, five will get you ten that Lucille Ball will lead the parade. Lucy made
several screwball films before catching the brass ring in I Love Lucy. Some-
what similar to the previously mentioned Affectionately Yours, Lucy’s Lover
Come Back (Universal, 1946) stars George Brent as a roving war correspondent
who has a roving eye: There has been a dalliance with a photographer (Vera
Zorina) in the two years he’s been away. Brent’s wife (Lucy), upon meeting
her husband’s wartime “companion,” heads straight to Las Vegas. Brent fol-
lows and after several zany attempts to win her back, including fending off
two of her admirers (Carl Esmond and Raymond Walburn) and dealing with
his father who has come to “help” him, persuades her to leave Vegas and
come back to him. In the cast are screwball veterans Charles Winninger as
Brent’s father plus Franklin Pangborn and Louise Beavers.
A year later, Lucy and Franchot Tone made Columbia’s Her Husband’s
Affairs. Playing husband and wife advertising execs, they are trying to mar-
ket a product brought to them by a screwball inventor (Mikhail Rasumny).
The product is a potion that can do anything from growing hair to preserv-
ing flowers. The screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer has Tone
trying to interest a rich industrialist (Gene Lockhart) in the product and
also trying to circumvent the problems posed by Lucy. Helping the proceed-
ings along are Edward Everett Horton, Jonathan Hale, Mabel Paige and
Nana Bryant.
In 1963, Lucy joined Bob Hope in the Warner Brothers production
Critic’s Choice. They play husband and wife, he a critic and she a fledgling
playwright. Much of the running time is devoted to Hope denigrating Ball’s
ability to write a play. He is also jealous of her director, a much younger man.
The fun begins when Bob faces the problem of whether or not he should
review Lucy’s play. When he does and gives it a devastating notice, war is
declared. Before the situation leads to a satisfactory conclusion, Hope has
been driven to drink and an analyst’s couch. The lively supporting cast
 FIFTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART ONE 159

includes Marilyn Maxwell as Hope’s first wife, Jerome Cowan, Jim Backus,
Marie Windsor, and the improbably named Rip Torn as the director.
Like Lucy and her husband Desi Arnaz, Dick Powell saw his future in
television and dove in head first, as a producer, a director and sometimes star.
In between, he managed to make a few films, one of which is Susan Slept
Here. This RKO 1954 production is the only one in Hollywood history thus
far to be narrated by an Oscar statuette!
Powell plays an Oscar-winning screenwriter of a certain age who wants
to write a script about delinquency. As a “Christmas gift,” an obliging cop
saddles him with a teenage hellion (Debbie Reynolds in the title role) for
“research purposes.” She’ll be gone after the holidays, the cop promises.
A gentle battle of the sexes ensues, but to keep her from being put away,
he marries her and, much to his surprise, he soon finds that he’s in love with
his young bride. In support of the leads are Anne Francis as Powell’s green-
with-envy ex-girlfriend, Glenda Farrell as Powell’s secretary and Alvy Moore
as his sidekick. Catch the newly married Susan speaking on the telephone
to her husband’s old flame, watching his home movies with accompanying
smirks and grimaces, ordering pickles and ice cream (she always does) to the
astonishment of Moore, etc. Improbable, yes. Entertaining, yes.
A more mature bride ( Joan Fontaine) runs away from her stuffed shirt
bridegroom on her wedding day and hires a good-looking pilot to take
her to California in You Gotta Stay Happy, a 1949 film from Universal-
International. The flyer is played by James Stewart. He is at first reluctant,
thinking of her as a dizzy dame, but the money is good and she climbs
aboard. After a crash landing on an Oklahoma farm, the pilot realizes that
he’s in love with this “dizzy dame.” Supporting players include Eddie Albert
as Stewart’s friend, Willard Parker as the left-behind groom and the always
funny Percy Kilbride as the farm owner.
Did the forgoing synopsis sound somewhat familiar? It should. Think
It Happened One Night and The Bride Came C.O.D. Like its predecessors, the
idea was taken from a story in a magazine, in this case The Saturday Evening
Post. This production, however, does not compare to the earlier ones and
has mostly been forgotten, even possibly by diehard fans of each star.
Three screwball comedies did do well at the box office around that same
time. Two starred Cary Grant, the third Rex Harrison, a newcomer to the
ranks of the screwball.
An aftermath of the war was the influx of war brides. Many in the armed
forces married women they’d met overseas. Howard Hawks decided to turn
this around and came up with I Was a Male War Bride, released by Fox in
1949.
Grant is Henri Rochard, a French officer assigned to a project in postwar
Germany along with WAC Catherine Gates (Ann Sheridan). What starts
160 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

out to be a battle of the sexes turns to love and, after a short courtship which
involves a disastrous motorcycle ride and a night in a haystack, they marry.
There is a lot of paperwork involved and when the Frenchman wants to
come to America, he finds that he does qualify for entry, but the laws that
govern this entry do not provide for husbands.
Catherine comes up with a scheme: Henri will become Florence, a war
bride. Everything is eventually ironed out but not until Henri-Florence has
gone through some humiliating experiences. These scenes were quite hilar-
ious to those who flocked to theaters to see a favorite star in drag. They still
are, when seen today on television.
In a 1952 Hawks venture for the same studio, Cary co-stars with Ginger
Rogers in Monkey Business, a send-up of the science profession. He plays Barn-
aby Fulton, a brilliant research chemist who invents a formula for delaying
the aging process. A laboratory chimp pours the formula into a water cooler.
When the chemist takes a drink, he becomes an adolescent and when his
wife Edwina (Rogers) has more than one drink, she behaves like a child.
In a very funny scene, Cary puts war paint on his face and joins some
boys playing cowboys and Indians with war whoops and tries to “scalp” his
lawyer. In another scene, Edwina begins to believe that a baby she sees is
actually her husband.
Also affected is Barnaby’s stuffy boss (Charles Coburn) who, upon tak-
ing a drink, reverts back to his childhood. They all recover and realize that
what has happened is only temporary. Marilyn Monroe is featured as the
office secretary. Coburn’s line to her is a classic: “Find someone to type this.”
With a screenplay by veterans Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and I.A.L. Dia-
mond plus the screen magic of Cary Grant, how could the project fail? It
didn’t.
Another project that does not fail to get audiences laughing when shown
on television is the first version of Unfaithfully Yours. The irrepressible Preston
Sturges delivers his satirical barbs in this 1948 gem from Fox, which he pro-
duced, directed and wrote. It stars Rex Harrison as a British orchestra con-
ductor imagining that his beautiful young wife (Linda Darnell) is having an
affair with his male secretary, handsome Kurt Kreuger. This is not true, but
during a concert, his mind wanders and he thinks of many forms of revenge,
one of which is murder, another his suicide. All is forgiven, as the conductor
soon realizes that his wife has been blameless, but not before he has made
a complete fool of himself.
In the cast are Rudy Vallee and Barbara Lawrence as a wealthy husband
and wife. She utters this classic line as she sees Harrison kissing Darnell:
“You see, some men just naturally make you think of brut champagne, with
others, you think of prune juice.”
A very successful film in its day, it was remade by Fox in 1984 with
 FIFTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART ONE 161

Unfaithfully Yours (1948): What can that look in Rex Harrison’s eye mean?
Should Linda Darnell be afraid?

Dudley Moore and Nastassja Kinski in the Harrison-Darnell roles. The orig-
inal premise is intact, but in this version, the wife is imagined to be having
an affair with a concert violinist, played by Armand Assante. The latter is
the soloist in the composition Moore is conducting while picturing the
“revenge” he will wreak upon his wife and her “Lovere.” It’s still funny, but
Moore lacks the elegance and panache required for the role. Also, Kinski
does not have the grace and beauty of Darnell and the film is missing the
Sturges touch.
In My Wife’s Best Friend (Fox, 1952), a husband tells his wife about his
dalliance with her best friend. The wife, in her mind, seeks revenge and
imagines how she would behave if she were Cleopatra, Joan of Arc and other
such historical figures. She soon realizes that the “affair” was just a mild
flirtation and the marriage is saved. Macdonald Carey and Anne Baxter
play the married couple with Catherine McLeod appearing as the “best
friend.” Does this sound familiar? It should. Think Rex Harrison and Dudley
Moore.
162 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

By the 1950s, films that would have been called “screwball” decades
before were now known as “romantic comedies.” But to paraphrase Gertrude
Stein, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Screwball veterans
were still plying their trade in the 1950s. To wit: Rosalind Russell, Fred
MacMurray, Claudette Colbert, and Gary Cooper.
In Woman of Distinction (Columbia, 1951), Rosalind Russell plays the
dean of a small college. The last thing on her mind is marriage. Through
some unwanted publicity, she meets an English astronomer (Ray Milland)
visiting the U.S. on a speaking tour. The newspapers play up this meeting,
much to the delight of his blonde press agent ( Janis Carter).
The star-gazer seems ready for romance, but the dean is not. The battle
of the sexes is in full swing. A series of screwball scenes, one with Milland
riding with a group of women on an unsteady bike, eventually losing the
wheels, another with Roz riding in a student’s car (read: heap) trying to avoid
seeing Ray and ending up in a drag race, make for much hilarity. But, as in
all of these films, the antagonists wind up in a clinch.
Aiding in the merriment are Edmund Gwenn as Russell’s father, who
would like to see his daughter married, and Jerome Courtland as a bewildered
student.
How does a legal secretary who wants to get married, accomplish her
goal? A Millionaire for Christy (Fox, 1951) starring Fred MacMurray and
Eleanor Parker takes you through the process one step at a time.
Step One: You get sent cross-country (in this case Los Angeles) to
inform a lucky man that he has inherited a lot of money.
Step Two: You meet him and decide that you are going to marry him.
But there is a problem: He already has a fiancée. You also learn that said
fiancée is loved by a doctor.
Step Three: Meet the medic. The two of you devise a scheme wherein
each of you gets the mate you want.
Step Four: Celebrate the happy ending.
The stars are supported by Kay Buckley and Richard Carlson as the
fiancée and the doctor. A fast pace and snappy dialogue make this film a
winner.
Miriam Halsworth (Claudette Colbert) in Let’s Make It Legal (Fox,
1951) is not looking for a husband because she has just divorced one: Hugh
Halsworth (Macdonald Carey), an inveterate gambler. Daughter Barbara
(Barbara Bates) tries to reconcile the bickering couple, but to no avail. Enter
Victor McFarland (Zachary Scott), millionaire politician and long-ago suitor
of Miriam. He now becomes Hugh’s rival.
Still in love with his wife, Hugh tries a number of schemes, including
introducing Victor to a sexy mantrap named Joyce (Marilyn Monroe), dig-
ging up his rose bushes with help from his son-in-law Jerry (Robert Wagner)
 FIFTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART ONE 163

and getting arrested. The newspapers get hold of the story. This does not
bode well for the Miriam-Victor nuptials. And when it’s revealed that Hugh
won Miriam in a crap game, all bets are off for both men, until Hugh con-
fesses that he had played with loaded dice. The finale has the formerly
divorced couple in a clinch.
In the 1950s, Billy Wilder was still at his best. The writer-producer-
director, whose films were and still are considered by film buffs and critics
to have the Lubitsch type of sophisticated comedy, came up with Love in
the Afternoon (Allied Artists, 1957), a witty and charming story with over-
tones of screwball. In Paris, millionaire playboy Frank Flannagan (Gary
Cooper) is being shadowed by private detective Claude Chavasse (Maurice
Chevalier). The latter has been hired by an irate husband ( John McGiver)
to find out if there is anything going on that he ought to know about. If there
is, the husband will go gunning for his wife’s seducer.
Chavasse’s daughter Ariane (Audrey Hepburn), looking in her father’s
files, becomes curious about Flannagan and decides to warn him. She goes
to his hotel, where gypsies are playing the lovely song, “Fascination.” He is
intrigued and she falls in love, but before they wind up together, there are
some screwball situations. One of the funniest is the seduction scene with
the gypsies playing, which ends with Flannagan and the music-makers in a
Turkish bath.
Though Wilder first wanted Cary Grant, Cooper proved that he could
still have the fans flocking to see his films. And then, there is Audrey Hep-
burn.
The energetic Billy worked on two other blockbusters in the mid– and
late 1950s. A few years before, in the late 1940s, Marilyn Monroe had
exploded on the screen with a force that is still felt today, decades after her
untimely and controversial death. She made love to the camera and it
responded in kind. Wilder cast her in The Seven Year Itch (Fox, 1955). With
his wife Helen (Evelyn Keyes) away for the summer, Richard Sherman (Tom
Ewell) fantasizes about the sexy blonde (Monroe) who has moved into the
apartment upstairs. A gentle “battle of the sexes” ensues, on his part alone.
The young woman spends time with him, but does not realize the effect she
is having on him. He is brought back to reality when his wife comes home.
Also in the cast are Sonny Tufts, Robert Strauss and Oscar Homolka.
This is the film during which the famous scene of Marilyn’s skirt bil-
lowing up was shot, to the consternation of her then husband, baseball super-
star Joe DiMaggio.
As Marilyn’s star power increased to incredible heights, she became
increasingly insecure and difficult to work with. Even so, Wilder cast her in
Some Like It Hot (United Artists, 1959). The story revolves around two musi-
cians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry ( Jack Lemmon) who have witnessed the
164 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

infamous St. Valentine Day massacre. To escape from the gangsters who know
that they are eyewitnesses, the two join an all-girl band on its way to Florida.
In drag, they are now “Josephine” and “Daphne.” They befriend the band’s
vocalist Sugar Kane (Monroe).
While in Florida, Jerry, as “Daphne,” attracts the attention of rich eccen-
tric Osgood Fielding ( Joe E. Brown). Joe is busy, as himself, attracting the
attention of the sexy Sugar, using the millionaire’s yacht to woo her.
The gangsters are unsuccessful in their attempts to get the two witnesses
and Joe’s life will be “sweetened” by Sugar, but what about Jerry? Still in
drag, he is proposed to by Osgood. He accepts but then has second thoughts
and confesses that he is a man. Osgood’s reply is one of the most memorable
in the history of film: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Others in the cast include George Raft, Pat O’Brien and Nehemiah
Persoff. The film is considered one of the greatest comedies in the history
of Hollywood, a combination of parody, romance and farce, a tribute to both
the screwball comedies and gangster movies of the 1930s. Lemmon and
Wilder were both Oscar-nominated, but lost to Charlton Heston and director
William Wyler for Ben-Hur. The only Some Like it Hot Oscar went to cos-
tume designer Orry-Kelly.
On the subject of Marilyn’s troubles off-screen, Wilder is said to have
put it this way: “Difficult to work with? Yes. Late on the set? Yes. I could
hire my grandmother for the role. She’d be on time, but who would pay to
see her?” Succinct and to the point.
Another beloved lady of the fifties whom we lost all too soon (in 1965)
is Judy Holliday. On Broadway, she scored a resounding hit as the not-so-
dumb blonde Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. Repeating her role in the film
version, released by Columbia, brought her the 1950 Best Actress Oscar.
Billie is the mistress of vulgar Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford), who
calls her “a dumb broad.” When Brock goes to Washington to do a little
bribing, he hires reporter Paul Verrall (William Holden) to “smarten her up
a little.” To show Billie up, Brock asks her what a peninsula is. Her answer?
“It’s that new medicine.” Paul and Billie go to work and soon she is “smart-
ened up” enough to fall in love with her teacher.
Catch Billie playing gin rummy with Brock, wriggling her pinkie when
winning, giving Brock his comeuppance at she realizes that he is nothing
but a two-bit crook and, at the end, envisioning a life with the reporter based
on love and respect. The film garnered great reviews and was Oscar-nominated
but lost to All About Eve.
A 1993 remake starred Melanie Griffith as Billie, John Goodman as
Brock and Don Johnson as Verrall. As in most cases, it does not compare to
the earlier version.
A soon-to-be Oscar winner, Jack Lemmon (for Mister Roberts, 1955)
 FIFTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART ONE 165

joined Holliday in It Should Happen to You (Columbia, 1954). Judy plays

Gladys Glover, a small town nobody who has dreams of fame and fortune.
New York is not waiting for her with bated breath, so she hits upon the idea
of paying for a billboard with her name on it in lights. Upset by this is Pete
(Lemmon), her smitten neighbor, a small-time documentary filmmaker. One
billboard leads to another and she becomes an object of curiosity. After being
taken advantage of by an unscrupulous promoter (Michael O’Shea) and a soap
magnate (Peter Lawford) with anything but business on his mind, Gladys
goes back where she belongs, a nobody to some, but a somebody to Pete.
Judy plays Laura Partridge in The Solid Gold Cadillac (Columbia, 1956),
satirizing big business. She is a small stockholder (ten shares) in a large cor-
poration who attends a stockholders meeting and, in an unmistakably Judy
Holliday voice, asks some embarrassing questions. To keep her quiet, the
board of directors gives her a job answering correspondence from small share-
holders. Her answers to questions are wise, funny and to-the-point. She is also
finding things out and not liking what she learns—for instance, that Edward
McKeever (Paul Douglas), founder of the company and an honest business-
man, has resigned to work for the federal government in Washington.
Laura now knows there is corruption within the board and tries to get
McKeever to come back to the corporation. She puts him wise to the machi-
nations going on in his absence, in the meantime falling in love with him.
They team up and after several hilarious incidents, Laura becomes chief
stockholder in the company due to the trust of the small stockholders who
have given her their proxies. She faces the corrupt board and in her inimitable
voice, yells, “You’re fired.” She and Douglas get the company back and also
get together.
Judy’s film debut had come in Adam’s Rib (MGM, 1949), a winner with
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn top-billed. Doris Attinger (Holliday)
is on trial for the attempted shooting of her no-good philandering husband
Warren (Tom Ewell). Adam and Amanda Bonner (Tracy and Hepburn) are
lawyers at loggerheads (read “battle of the sexes”) over the case, she defending
Doris and he trying to convict her. She is acquitted.
Catch Judy on the witness stand, Tracy giving Hepburn a rubdown and,
best of all, Tracy with a gun in his mouth trying to prove a point (the gun
is made of licorice).
Tracy and Hepburn would continue to work together until his death in
1967. In 1945, MGM signed the duo to Without Love, the story of an odd battle
of the sexes between a scientist and a widow who marry “without love.”
Pat Jamison (Tracy) is working on an important project for the govern-
ment and his new wife, Jamie (Hepburn) becomes his willing partner. Jamie
is the first to undergo an emotional change, but soon Pat, seeing his wife
being ogled by a foreign charmer, becomes jealous and realizes that his mar-
166 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

riage cannot be without love. Keenan Wynn and Lucille Ball are in a sec-
ondary battle of the sexes, but are hindered by his bitchy ex-fiancée.
There are many funny scenes in the film. A drunk Wynn, Tracy sleep-
walking and finding himself in Hepburn’s bed (she acts like her husband’s
old flame) and the clever repartee make the production a lively one.
Another success for the duo is Pat and Mike, a 1952 MGM production.
Pat Pemberton is a terrific all-around athlete. She dazzles, except when her
domineering fiancé, Collier Weld (William Ching), is around. She is within
reach of a golf championship until she sees him. He wants her to forget the
whole thing and marry him.
She meets a somewhat shady sports promoter named Mike Conovan
(Tracy) whose other client is a dimwit boxer named Davie Hucko (Aldo Ray).
Mike takes Pat on, saying to a buddy, “There’s not much meat on her, but
what there is, is cherce.” Without her fiancé, but with Mike at her side, she
feels she can go far in the world and does. Screwball scenes include Pat
taking on a few gangsters in defense of Mike and the latter facing a bewil-
dered Davie, who is jealous of his growing attention to Pat. An extra added
attraction are cameos by sports greats Gussie Moran, Babe Didrikson
Zaharias, Don Budge and Alice Marble.
In 1959, Doris Day became part of a star team that would prove as pop-
ular as the Hepburn-Tracy duo. Doris, a former band singer, had begun her
Hollywood career in 1947 with Warner Brothers and had made several pop-
ular films for that company during her time there.
Before signing with the company that would make her a superstar, she
made Teacher’s Pet (1958) with Clark Gable. The film showed that the aging
actor still had charisma after 25 years in the business. Gable plays a self-
educated city editor who reads a letter from a journalism teacher opposed
to the old school of reporting. He visits the class and who is the teacher?
None other than Doris. He enrolls in her class and the battle of the journalists
becomes the battle of the sexes.
Third-billed is Gig Young who was Oscar-nominated for his role as
Doris’ former fiancé. Mamie Van Doren, Nick Adams and Jack Albertson
head the supporting cast.
Universal signed Doris to a multi-picture deal and reaped a bonanza in
the late 1950s and early 1960s, teaming her and Rock Hudson. Her first film
for her new bosses proved to be a blockbuster.
Pillow Talk (1959) is the story of two people who are truly engaged in the
battle of the sexes which, after many screwball situations, turns into love and
marriage. Doris plays an interior decorator, while Hudson is a songwriter. What
they have in common is a telephone party line. Any time she wants to make a
call, he is on the line, crooning the same song to several different women.
She is irate and he thinks of her as a frumpy old maid. When he sees
 FIFTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART ONE 167

Send Me No Flowers (1964) with Rock Hudson, Tony Randall and Doris Day. Is
hypochondriac Rock really on his deathbed?

her, he changes his mind. To woo her, he pretends to be a shy, wealthy Texan
and she falls for him, believing him different from the other men she’s
encountered. When she discovers the truth, it’s too late, she’s hooked.
Tony Randall is terrific as one of the lady’s disappointed suitors and
Thelma Ritter also shines as Day’s alcoholic maid. Doris and Thelma were
both Oscar-nominated, but Doris lost to Simone Signoret and Thelma to
Shelley Winters.
Day and Hudson scored another bull’s-eye in Lover Come Back (1961),
a satirical look at the world of advertising. Carol Templeton (Day) is working
to get business for her agency. Jerry Webster (Hudson) is her rival. She has
never met Jerry, who then pretends to be a scientist at work on a product
called VIP. No such product exists and much of the fun is in watching Doris
trying to get an advertising contract for the “product.”
A good supporting cast helps to make Lover Come Back a winner. Tony
Randall is third-billed as a nebbish for whom Hudson works, with Edie Adams
and Jack Oakie prominently cast.
Send Me No Flowers (1964) proved to be the last of the Day-Hudson
ventures. This time Hudson is a hypochondriac who happens to overhear
168 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

his doctor discussing another patient’s fatal condition. He thinks that patient
is himself and immediately sets out to find a replacement for his wife (Doris).
Alarmed, she sees the medical man and finds out that her husband is perfectly
well. She now believes that he has made up the story because he is having
an affair. By the end of the film, Rock knows he will live a long life and Doris
knows that there has been no affair.
Tony Randall, the third member of the previous Day-Hudson successes,
is on hand again, this time as a nutty neighbor who is recruited to find a new
husband for Doris. Other cast members include Clint Walker, Hal March
and Paul Lynde as an aggressive but very funny cemetery plot salesman.
In between two of Day’s films with Rock Hudson, she starred with the
ageless and charismatic Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink (1962). Grant
plays Philip Shayne, a philandering tycoon who sets his eye on chaste, job-
seeking Cathy Timberlake (Doris). He invites her to go on a trip with him,
he thinking that she will succumb to him. She goes away with him, but
doesn’t give in, and by the time he realizes that he is in love with her, she’s
gone. He finds her and, after a wild car chase, marries her and gets a rash
on their wedding night. Gig Young and Audrey Meadows score, he as Grant’s
financial advisor and she as Doris’ friend. It was a sure-fire money-maker
for Universal, but the duo never made another film. Four years later, Grant
made his last movie.
Down with Love (Fox, 2003) is reminiscent of the Doris Day–Rock
Hudson films. Renee Zellweger, author of a book empowering women, meets
up with Ewan McGregor, a macho reporter for a men’s magazine. Like the
Day-Hudson films, the battle of the sexes begins when the man, wanting to
take the lady down a peg, takes on a different persona and like the Day-
Hudson films, the two are together at the end.
It is time now to delve more into the last decades of the twentieth cen-
tury and beyond.
 Chapter Sixteen

Screwball Lives On: Part Two

Throughout this book, I have maintained that the screwball comedy

still lives on, beyond the 1930s and the 1940s, contrary to the beliefs of many.
To prove my point, I give you Cher, Goldie Hawn, Barbra Streisand, Bette
Midler and Julia Roberts—four Oscar winners and one nominee. These stars
let their hair down and made comedies during the last decades of the 20th
century which have many elements of this delightful genre.
Gone are the days of the “studio system” which spawned the careers of
some of Hollywood’s greatest stars. The key word in the film capital of today
is “bankable,” and “bankable” is the word for the five ladies just mentioned.
Anyone who has seen Moonstruck (Palmer/Jewison, 1987) cannot help
applauding the Oscar given to Cher, who has come a long way from her days
with Sonny Bono. Moonstruck is a romantic comedy with screwball elements.
Cher is Loretta Castorini, a young Italian widow who accepts a marriage
proposal from somewhat nerdy Johnny Cammareri, well played by Danny
Aiello. In a “screwballian” scene, she makes him get down on his knees, with
funny commentary by both, to propose to her. When her intended goes to
Italy to be with his dying mother, Loretta meets her fiancé’s estranged brother
Ronny (sexy Nicolas Cage) and sparks begin to fly.
Before this battle of the sexes is ended, Loretta, in love with Ronny, is
in a quandary, but decides to go against Italian convention and wind up with
the one she really loves. Vincent Gardenia and Olympia Dukakis play Cher’s
parents, with Dukakis taking an Oscar home as Best Supporting Actress.
The New York Times called the film “an incredibly nourishing comedy filled
with warmth, cheer and terrific snappy dialogue.”
Goldie Hawn, like Cher, had spent the earlier part of her career on tel-
evision. Not as dumb as the character she played on TV’s Rowan and Martin’s
Laugh-In, she was tapped for the second lead in Cactus Flower, a Columbia
release. Holding her own with Ingrid Bergman and Walter Matthau, she
received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

169
170 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

Of the many films she’s made in a career which has lasted over four
decades, I’ve chosen two screwball Hawn films for discussion in this part of
my narrative.
From the fertile brain of Neil Simon, Seems Like Old Times (Columbia,
1980) is the tale of a lawyer (Hawn), her nerd of a husband (Charles Grodin)
and her ex (Chevy Chase) who comes back into her life while running from
the law (he has been innocently involved in a bank robbery) and disrupts her
seemingly happy marriage. After some funny scenes with Chase (and a “How
did I get into this?” type of reaction from Goldie and Grodin), the lawyer
settles her first husband’s case and falls in love with him all over again. Need-
less to say, the current mate is no longer in the picture (pun intended).
Two years later, Goldie was at Warner Brothers for Best Friends, in
which she co-starred with Burt Reynolds. They play two successful screen-
writers who have a harmonious working and romantic relationship. They
decide to get married. No more harmonious working relationship. As for
“romantic”? Forget it. When the two sets of parents get together, true screw-
ball reigns.
Catch Goldie and Burt in her parents’ home. She doesn’t want to sleep
with Burt in her old room, saying, “This is my teenage room. It’s not for
sexual relations, it’s for slumber parties.” They later divorce. These and other
choice bits of dialogue come from the pens of Valerie Curtin and Barry
Levinson. The story was based in part upon their real-life relationship. In
the supporting cast are Jessica Tandy and Barnard Hughes as Goldie’s parents
and Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn as Burt’s. Ron Silver plays a zany
director for whom the team works.
Like Hawn, Barbra Streisand became an Oscar winner in her debut film.
She had burst upon the screen in Funny Girl, a Columbia 1968 release. A
native New Yorker, Streisand appeared in nightclubs and on television with
Johnny Carson and Judy Garland. Her big break came via Broadway in I
Can Get It for You Wholesale. After her appearance on the stage as Fanny
Brice in Funny Girl, she again played the legendary performer in the film
version of the play, winning the coveted award. Her Hollywood career was
established.
She has become an icon, winning Oscars, Grammys and Tonys. During
her lengthy career, she has sung, acted, produced and directed, insuring her-
self a place in show business history.
Considered temperamental, she calls herself a perfectionist. Movie fans
couldn’t care less: They have flocked to see her films, including three harken-
ing back to the screwball comedies of yesteryear.
What’s Up Doc? is filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich’s homage to director
Howard Hawks. The 1972 Saticoy Productions release casts Ryan O’Neal
as Howard Bannister, an absentminded musicologist whose unwanted
 SIXTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART T WO 171

acquaintance with a kook named Judy Maxwell (Streisand) leads to him get-
ting mixed up with underworld characters and four suitcases, one of which
contains some stolen jewels, much to the annoyance of his fiancée (Madeline
Kahn). Shades of paleontologist David Huxley and dizzy Susan Vance in
Bringing Up Baby and also Sugarpuss O’Shea and Bertram Potts in Ball of
Fire, both Hawks hits.
Bogdanovich was less successful with At Long Last Love (Fox, 1975), a
screwball comedy with music. It stars Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd
as a rich couple who engage in a battle of the sexes, replete with songs by
Cole Porter. The film wastes a supporting cast which includes Madeline
Kahn, Eileen Brennan, John Hillerman and Mildred Natwick as a daffy old
lady.
Two years after What’s Up Doc?, Barbra moved over to Columbia and
For Pete’s Sake. In his book The Columbia Story, Clive Hirschhorn states that
the company, then “in the doldrums,” was saved by two Streisand films, one
of which was the film under discussion. (The other: The Way We Were, released
in 1973.)
For Pete’s Sake is an old-fashioned screwball farce about a housewife
named Henry, short for Henrietta (Streisand, whose talent for comedy is
gloriously realized in this role), and her taxi-driving husband Pete (Michael
Sarrazin). He would like to go back to college. In order to help him, she first
goes to his brother (William Redfield) and the latter’s condescending and
thoroughly disagreeable wife (Estelle Parsons) whom she detests, but it’s a
no-go. She borrows the money they need, $3000, without telling her husband
where she got it. On a tip, they invest in pork-belly futures and lose the
money. The rest of the film is spent trying to pay back the people she owes,
first a loan shark and then Mrs. Cherry, an elderly Jewish lady, wonderfully
played by veteran actress Molly Picon, who just happens to be a madam.
Hilarity ensues when Henry tries to be one of the madam’s call girls.
The end of the film has the couple’s pork-belly futures investment hit-
ting an all-time high, but not before Henry gets involved with a judge, a
bomb-sniffing dog and a group of cattle rustlers.
Once more, Barbra’s leading man in The Main Event (Barwood Films,
1979) is Ryan O’Neal. Her character, Hillary Kramer, successful in the per-
fume business, finds out that her accountant has robbed her and gone to South
America. What remains of her few assets is a small-time boxer named Eddie
“Kid Natural” Scanlon, who has been making a living giving driving lessons.
Hillary decides to recoup her fortune by putting Eddie back into the ring.
Eddie resists, but the lady “owns” him and he helps her.
The boxing scenes are funny, including the one with the two stars in
the ring together at the end of the film. It was not as funny as the other two
films mentioned, but Streisand fans lined up at the box-office.
172 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

The Main Event (1979): Barbra Streisand “owns” Ryan O’Neal. Who will score
the knock-out punch?

Bette Midler has, like Streisand, succeeded in every facet of show busi-
ness. She may also be remembered as the last guest on The Tonight Show as
Johnny Carson bid a fond adieu to his many fans.
Oscar-nominated in her first film, the dramatic The Rose (Fox, 1979)
Bette has mainly stuck to comedy. In 1986, she starred with Nick Nolte and
Richard Dreyfuss in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, a Touchtone Films satire
based upon Boudu, Saved from Drowning, a 1931 French film directed by Jean
Renoir.
The film tells the story of the nouveau riche Whitemans, Barbara and
David (Midler and Dreyfuss), living in a posh Beverly Hills mansion.
Wealthy, but not very happy, she does the things a society matron would do,
while he is sleeping with the housemaid. The children are dysfunctional and
totally spoiled.
Nick Nolte is Jerry Baskin, a homeless man who has lost his dog. He
wanders into the Whiteman backyard and is almost drowned in their swim-
ming pool. He is invited to stay with this mixed-up family and changes the
lives of its members, young and old.
 SIXTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART T WO 173

That Old Feeling (1997): Dennis Farina and Bette Midler are divorced and have
remarried. They wreak havoc at their daughter’s wedding.

That same year, Touchtone also starred the Divine Miss M in Ruthless
People as Barbara, the obnoxious wife of Sam Stone (Danny DeVito). He is
filled with hate for her and lust for Carol (Anita Morris), his gold-digging
mistress. He plans to murder Barbara and go away with Carol. He is unaware
of the fact that the mistress already has a boyfriend (Bill Pullman).
Barbara is first seen in a burlap bag, kicking and screaming. She has
been kidnapped by the Kesslers ( Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater), a couple
who have it in for Sam. (Sam, a clothing manufacturer, has ripped off their
designs.) At first Sam refuses to pay the ransom, but Barbara is such a nui-
sance that the couple releases her. Sam is then accused of faking the kid-
napping. At the end, Barbara will stay with him, probably kicking and
screaming all the way. DeVito and Midler are a joy to watch and they milk
every nuance of the situation.
Bette got together with Dennis Farina for That Old Feeling (Buena Vista,
1997), an old-fashioned comedy directed by Carl Reiner. They play a movie
star and a journalist, once married, now married to others, brought together
after several years by their daughter’s forthcoming marriage to a Senator’s
son. The groom would like a big wedding, but the bride-to-be warns against
it: “My parents hate each other with a nuclear intensity.”
174 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

She is so right. On the dance floor at the wedding reception, they cannot
control themselves, yelling and screaming at each other. Their fighting is
painful for Farina’s new wife and Midler’s new husband, but more disturbing
to this scenario is when ex-wife and ex-husband engage in a short-lived affair.
Bette, as usual, is dynamic and Farina, known more for dramatic roles,
is well-matched with her. In the excellent supporting cast are Paula Marshall
as their daughter, Jamie Denton as their new son-in-law, Gail O’Grady as
Farina’s second wife, and David Rasche as Midler’s husband.
Screwball scenes include O’Grady getting drunk with the groom, the
bride locked in a room with a paparazzi trying to get attention by dropping
fruit from the balcony, and the dialogue between the fighting Midler and
Farina.
The star of the 1990s had to be Julia Roberts, who made her screen
debut in a 1988 film titled Blood Red. Later in her career, as an established
star, she won an Oscar for her role as the activist in Erin Brockovich ( Jersy
Film Productions, 2000).
Her break-out role came in 1990 with Pretty Woman (Touchstone/Buena
Vista Productions) in which she plays a hooker who is hired by wealthy
workaholic businessman Edward Lewis (Richard Gere). He has borrowed
his aide’s fancy car and winds up in the red light district of Los Angeles.
Asking for directions, he meets Vivian Ward (Roberts), sees something in
her and asks her to be his companion for a week. He takes her to a luxury
hotel and buys her an expensive wardrobe. He wants to be seen at society
events with a “pretty woman” on his arm as it doesn’t seem right for a man
of his “stature” to be seen going to these fancy functions alone.
At first, it is strictly business but then there are confrontations with the
girl giving as good as she gets. The businessman is attracted to her feisty
attitude as well her looks. Each goes through a metamorphosis: She has made
him more human while he has seen an innate classiness about her and given
her a taste of a life that some girls can only dream about. In the finale, Edward
shows up in a limo (instead of a white horse), jumping out of the car and
coming to claim his princess. (In the original story, the girl goes back on the
street, but director Garry Marshall wanted a happy ending, so in the film,
Cinderella does get her Prince Charming.)
Also in the cast are Ralph Bellamy as a business rival, Hector Elizondo
as the hotel manager who falls under Vivian’s spell and Jason Alexander as
Philip Stuckly, Edward’s smarmy aide. The scene with Alexander trying to
grab Roberts is a screwball scene out of the past. The film became a megahit
due to the chemistry between its two stars and its smart dialogue.
Not as successful as Pretty Woman is I Love Trouble (Meyers/Block,
1994).This time Roberts is paired with Nick Nolte, whom many critics felt
at the time was too old to be sparring with her.
 SIXTEEN. SCREWBALL LIVES ON: PART T WO 175

The Runaway Bride (1999): Julia Roberts has left three men at the altar. Will
Richard Gere change this pattern?

Nolte is Pete Brackett, a smug veteran columnist on a Chicago news-

paper who has just had a novel published. Roberts is Sabrina Peterson, a
new reporter on a rival paper who meets Nolte at the scene of a train wreck.
When she scoops him, he initiates a competition with her. Working sepa-
rately at first, they each find out that the story is much more than just a train
derailment—it involves corporate intrigue and greed. Eventually they come
to the conclusion that they need to work together. All through their inves-
tigations, they insist it is only a business pairing, but at the end as in all
battle of the sexes, they find a mutual attraction for each other.
The writers of this film tried to harken back to the newspaper stories
of the 1930s and 1940 (like His Girl Friday) without too much success. Nick
Nolte is no Cary Grant and Roberts does not have the brittleness of Rosalind
Russell.
What could be a better idea for a screwball comedy than a girl who has
left her prospective bridegrooms at the altar more than once? This is the
premise for our last presentation in this chapter. The trio that made Pretty
Woman a hit, struck gold again with The Runaway Bride (Touchstone, 1999).
With Garry Marshall directing, Roberts plays Maggie Carpenter, a girl who
obviously wants to get married, but cannot take that last step. Richard Gere
176 PART II : THE SUB-GENRES OF SCREWBALL

is Ike Graham, a newspaper columnist who writes an uncomplimentary col-

umn about this interesting “phenomenon.”
Maggie writes an irate letter to Graham’s paper pointing out several
misrepresentations and the guy is fired. He is, however, intrigued by the girl
and travels to her home town to get a story which will vindicate him. The
usual animosity between two opposites in a screwball takes place, but even-
tually, as we all know, this hostility turns to love. The popularity of the
Roberts-Gere-Marshall team and the use of a theme popular in earlier
decades, make for a delightful film. The Runaway Bride was a runaway hit
with the public.
Supporting the duo are Hector Elizondo, Joan Cusack and popular tel-
evision star Christopher Meloni (Law and Order, SVU), who plays prospective
husband number four.
 Epilogue

As long as there are men and women, there will be a battle of the sexes,
therefore providing much fodder for the screwball comedy, i.e., romantic
comedy movies. Whether this genre will, in this 21st century, achieve the
luster of what has come before, is a matter of conjecture.
In many a film, there is a thread of familiarity coursing through its screen-
play. Claudette Colbert cannot make up her mind in It Happened One Night,
Ginger Rogers cannot make up her mind in Tom, Dick and Harry while Julia
Roberts cannot make up her mind in The Runaway Bride. Different plotlines,
released in different decades, yet there’s that thread of familiarity.
Someone once said that there are only six or seven original plot lines
that writers can use. I think that this can be seen from the foregoing. Movie-
makers have always been aware of this and are constantly looking out for
some new variations on a theme. This goes for any genre.
Let’s hope the screwball comedy will be a part of this search. But in
their search, filmmakers need to take another look at the comedies of an ear-
lier era and produce motion pictures with the wit and sophistication that
charmed the moviegoers of those bygone days.
The viewer can also look to television networks such as Turner Classic
Movies, Fox Movie Channel and RetroPlex, go back in time and again watch
the films that charmed America and other countries during the 20th century.
DVDs of the films of an earlier era can be purchased or rented and enjoyed
at the viewer’s leisure.
Will the stars of today reach the heights of those who came before
them? Only time will tell.
As in the Great Depression, we are in a period of turmoil, stress and
strife. Whether in a movie theater or at home watching films on television
or DVDs, what we all need now is a good laugh.
A well-made screwball–romantic comedy should be able to supply some
laughter, at least for a little while.

177
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 Bibliography

Basinger, Jeanine. American Cinema: One Hundred Years of Filmmaking. New York:
Rizzoli, 1994.
_____. A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930 –1960. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
Bergan, Ronald. The United Artists Story. New York: Crown, 1986.
Blum, Daniel. A Pictorial History of the Talkies. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1958.
Boller, Paul F., and Ronald L. Davis. Hollywood Anecdotes. New York: William Mor-
row, 1987.
Canby, Vincent, and Janet Maslin. New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies
Ever Made. New York: Times Books, 1999.
Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan,
1971.
Cawkwell, Tim, and John M. Smith, eds. The World Encyclopedia of the Film. New
York: Galahad, 1972.
Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. New York: W.W. Norton, 1981.
Dooley, Roger. From Scarface to Scarlett: American Films in the 1930s. New York: Har-
court Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
Eames, John Douglas. The MGM Story. New York: Crown, 1979.
_____. The Paramount Story. New York: Crown, 1985.
Hirschhorn, Clive. The Columbia Story. New York: Crown, 1990.
_____. The Universal Story. New York: Crown, 1983.
_____. The Warner Brothers Story. New York: Crown, 1983.
Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harkins. The RKO Story. New York: Arlington
House, 1982.
Maltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin’s 2002 Movie and Video Guide. New York: New
American Library, 2001.
Michael, Paul, ed.-in-chief, and James Robert Parish, assoc. ed. The American Movies:
The History, Films, Awards. New York: Garland, 1969.
_____, and _____. Movie Greats: The Players, Directors, Producers. New York: Garland,
1969.
New York Times Directory of the Film. Intro. Arthur Knight. New York: Arno Press,
1974.
Quigley, Martin, Jr., and Richard Gertner. Films in America: 1929–1969. New York:
Golden Press, 1970.

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180 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Shipman, David. The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years. New York: Bonanza, 1970.
_____. The Story of Cinema. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982.
Sikov, Ed. Screwball: Hollywood’s Madcap Romantic Comedies. New York: Crown,
1989.
Thomas, Tony, and Aubrey Solomon. The Films of 20th Century–Fox. Secaucus, NJ:
Citadel Press, 1985.
Vermilye, Jerry. The Films of the Thirties. Secausus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1982.
Walker, John, ed. Halliwell’s Film Guide. New York: Harper Collins, 1994.
Wiley, Mason, and Daniel Bona. Inside Oscar. New York: Ballantine, 1996.
 Index

Abbott, George 24 Arden, Eve 18–19, 67, 96, 143, 151

Adair, Jean 127 Are Husbands Necessary? 94
Adams, Edie 67 Arlen, Richard 127
Adams, Katherine 126 Armstrong, Louis 128
Adams, Nick 166 Armstrong, Robert 113, 116
Adams, Samuel Taylor 83 Arnaz, Desi 100
Adam’s Rib 10, 24, 165 Arno, Sig 95, 159
Adler, Stella 110 Arnold, Edward 53, 60, 68, 76, 116, 123, 142
Adventure in Manhattan 113 Arsenic and Old Lace 127
Affairs of Annabel 64 Arthur, Jean 10 –11, 48–49, 51, 53–54, 60,
Affectionately Yours 7, 19–20, 92, 158 73, 89–90, 108, 112–113, 123, 141–142
After Office Hours 114 Assante, Armond 161
After the Thin Man 108 Asta 7, 14, 34, 87–88, 106 –110, 133
Aherne, Brian 97, 120, 125, 131–132 Asta Jr. 110
Aiello, Danny 169 Asta, Mrs. 108
Alberni, Luis 16, 47, 53 Astaire, Fred 12, 31, 33
Albert, Eddie 159 Astor, Mary 19–20, 35, 46, 90, 94 –95, 97,
Albertson, Jack 166 99, 116
Albright, Hardie 29 At Long Last Love 171
Alexander, Jason 174 Atwill, Lionel 154
Alexander, John 143 Auer, Mischa 16, 29, 60, 123–124, 132
Alexander, Katherine 98 The Awful Truth 6, 9, 15, 20, 24, 87–88
All About Eve 164 Ayres, Lew 39, 99
Allen, Gracie 119–120
Allyson, June 11, 85, 124 Bacall, Lauren 78, 121
Alwin, Astrid 43 The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer 158
The Amazing Mr. Williams 19, 116 –117 Bachelor Mother 11–12, 16 –17, 24, 40 –41, 44
Ameche, Don 45–47, 60, 77, 81, 100, 146 – The Bachelor’s Daughters 61
147 Back Street 91
Ames, Leon 110 Backus, Jim 159
Ames, Robert 135 Bainter, Fay 78, 81, 125
And Baby Makes Three 157 Baldwin, Faith 167
And So They Were Married 90 Ball, Lucille 24, 27, 64 –65, 104, 126, 144,
Anderson, Eddie “Rochester” 135 158–159, 166
Andes, Keith 52 Ball of Fire 13, 22–23, 135–137, 171
Andrews, Dana 135 Bancroft, Anne 154
Ann-Margret 56 Bannon, Jim 117
Annabel Takes a Tour 64 Barbier, George 75
Annabella 39 Barker, Jess 143
Another Thin Man 108–109 Barnes, Binnie 37, 91, 96 –97, 100
Appointment for Love 14, 17, 91 Barrie, Mona 43
Arbuckle, Roscoe “Fatty” 1 Barrie, Wendy 75, 86, 91–92

181
182 INDEX

Barry, Philip 24, 34, 36, 128 Bowman, Lee 27, 43, 77, 82–83, 156
Barrymore, Ethel 62 Boy Meets Girl 14, 67
Barrymore, John 8, 14, 19, 46 –47, 62, 69, 70, Boyer, Charles 44, 91, 151
79, 98 Bracken, Eddie 147–149, 151
Barrymore, Lionel 62, 69, 123 Brackett, Charles 22–23, 30, 46, 139
Bartlett, Bonnie 131 Brady, Alice 18, 41, 65, 124
Bates, Barbara 81, 162 Breakfast for Two 7, 14, 16, 27–28
Bates, Florence 105, 149, 157 Breen, Joseph 2
Baxter, Alan 110, 114 Brennan, Eileen 171
Baxter, Anne 161 Brennan, Walter 37, 50, 66
Baxter, Warner 96 –97 Brent, George 48–49, 64, 77, 81, 117, 132,
Beal, John 105 157–158
Beau Geste 102 Bressart, Felix 30, 83, 119, 150, 154
Beavers, Louise 69, 158 Brice, Fanny 170
Because of Him 66 Bridal Suite 38
Bedtime Story 10, 19, 67 Bride by Mistake 17, 32
Bellamy, Ralph 6, 20, 29, 36, 43, 63, 67, 73, The Bride Came C.O.D 14, 17, 25–26, 38, 159
88, 92, 115, 174 The Bride Comes Home 10, 16, 23, 27, 33
Ben-Hur 102, 164 Bride for Sale 157
Benchley, Robert 32, 49, 67, 97, 101, 135, 139 The Bride Walks Out 6, 18–19, 92
Bennett, Constance 84, 93, 114, 124 –125, 133 The Bride Wore Boots 101
Bennett, Joan 77, 114 –115, 127, 132, 147 Bring On the Girls 148
Benny, Jack 94, 132, 146, 153–154 Bringing Up Baby 9, 15, 17, 22, 27, 33–36,
Bergen, Polly 89 171
Bergman, Ingrid 169 Broadway Limited 170
Berkeley, Busby 118 Broderick, Helen 18–19, 39, 42, 60, 66, 92
Berlin, Irving 1 Brooke, Hillary 142
Bernstein, Leonard 132 Brooks, Mel 154
Best, Willie 42, 44 Brophy, Edward 108, 113
Best Friends 170 Brown, Joe E. 164
Beverly Hillbillies (TV) 157 Brown, Les 144
Bickford, Charles 85 Bruce, David 120
Big Brown Eyes 114 Bruce, Virginia 76, 97, 117
The Big Valley (TV) 13 Bryant, Nana 158
Binyon, Claude 23, 86 Buchanan, Edgar 17, 89, 91
The Birds and the Bees 47 Buckley, Kay 162
Blackmer, Sidney 83 Budge, Don 166
Blaine, Vivian 61, 147 Bundle of Joy 40
Blair, Janet 131 Burke, Billie 18, 39, 61, 79, 96, 99, 114, 125,
Blonde Bombshell 68 127, 129–130, 133–134, 145, 147, 157
Blondell, Joan 10, 41–42, 49–50, 68, 81, Burns, George 119
116 –117, 134 Byington, Spring 18, 51, 58, 63, 83, 123,
Blood Red 174 130, 139, 157
Blore, Eric 15, 28, 39, 47, 58, 63, 65, 113
Blue, Ben 104 Cactus Flower 169
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife 7, 11–13, 15, 17, 22– Cafe Metropole 27, 31
23, 98 Cafe Society 7, 78
Bogart, Humphrey 68, 121 Cage, Nicholas 169
Bogdanovich, Peter 170 –171 Cagney, James 13–14, 38, 67, 73, 116, 120
Boland, Mary 126 –127, 131 Calhern, Louis 66, 117
Boller. Paul 46 Call It a Day 14, 16, 18
Bologna, Joseph 78 Calleia, Joseph 108
Bond, Ward 50 Campbell, Alan 67
Bondi, Beulah 44, 58, 67 Cannon, Dyan 146
Bondu, Saved from Drowning 172 Capra, Frank 21–22, 26, 54 –56, 83, 85, 110,
“Bonne Chance” 57 122–123, 127, 129, 165
Bono, Sonny 169 Carey, Macdonald 49, 161–162
Booth, Shirley 128, 131 Carlson, Richard 129, 162
Born to Be Kissed 12 Carmichael, Hoagy 133
Born Yesterday (1950) 164 Carradine, John 131
 INDEX 183

Carrillo, Leo 54 Coward, Noël 79

Carroll, John 97 The Cowboy and the Lady 37
Carroll, Leo G. 195 Crabbe, Larry (Buster) 130
Carroll, Madeleine 7, 42, 78, 152 Craven, Frank 147
Carson, Jack 38–39, 44, 57, 68 Crawford, Broderick 18, 32, 95–96, 164
Carson, Johnny 170, 172 Crawford, Joan 10, 14, 50, 86
Carter, Janis 157, 162 Cregar, Laird 130
Casablanca 26 Critic’s Choice 158
Cattlett, Walter 131 Crosby, Bing 128
Caught in the Draft 151 Cross-Country Romance 86
Cavalcade 56 Cross My Heart 98
Champion, Gower 90 Cukor, George 24, 128
Champion, Marge 90 Cummings, Constance 116
Chaplin, Charles 62 Cummings, Robert 51, 59–60, 101
Chapman, Marguerite 88, 144, 146 Curtin, Valerie 170
Charisse, Cyd 31 Curtis, Alan 39, 49
Chase, Chevy 170 Curtis, Tony 139, 146, 163
Chatterton, Ruth 64 Cusak, Joan 176
Chekov, Michael 98
Cher 169 Danger, Love at Work 131
Chevalier, Maurice 59, 163 D’Arcy, Alexander 133
Ching, William 166 Darnell, Linda 91–92, 97, 160 –161
Christmas in Connecticut (1948) 145, 147 Darrieux, Danielle 60
Christmas in July 17, 26, 56 Darwell, Jane 143
Claire, Ina 30 Davenport, Harry 37, 58, 89, 110, 143, 156
Clarke, Mae 73 Davies, Marion 68
Clayworth, Jill 58 Davis, Bette 13, 22, 24, 38, 56, 62–63, 77,
Clive, E.E. 103 79–80, 116, 120
Cluny Brown 151 Davis, Ronald 46
Cobb, Lee J. 100 Day, Doris 89, 157, 166 –168
Coburn, Charles 16, 40 –41, 44, 46, 48, 51, Day, Laraine 157
90, 132, 141–142, 160 Daytime Wife 91–92
Cohn, Harry 54, 83–84, 122, 131 December Bride (TV) 18
Colbert, Claudette 7, 9–10, 12–13, 17, 21, 36, de Cordova, Arturo 46
38, 43–47, 73, 77, 84 –85, 94 –95, 97–100, Dee, Sandra 59
118, 126 –127, 146 –147, 157, 162, 177 Defore, Don 138–139
Collins, Ray 50 de Havilland, Olivia 14, 57, 60, 62, 63, 83–
Colman, Ronald 57 84, 143
The Columbia Story (book) 55 Dekker, Albert 152
Comden, Betty 132 Demarest, William 14, 46, 51, 146, 148–149
Come Live with Me 16 de Mille, Cecil B. 23, 25
Compton, Joyce 88 Denny, Reginald 49, 91, 116, 130
Comrade X 14, 19, 149–150 Denton, Jamie 174
A Connecticut Yankee 103 The Desert Song 103
Connolly, Walter 15, 39, 49, 55, 69, 75, 83– Design for Living 11, 13–14, 17, 22
84, 103, 126 –127 Design for Scandal 76
Connors, Chuck 79, 89 Designing Woman 78
Conried, Hans 66 Devil and Miss Jones 16 –18, 23, 51
Conway, Tom 119 De Vito, Danny 173
Cook, Elisha, Jr. 101 Diamond, I.A.L. 160
Cooper, Gary 7, 11–13, 22, 37, 54 –55, 98– Dickson, Gloria 100
99, 135–137, 162–163 Dietrich, Marlene 33
Cooper, Melville 45 Dillinger, John 103
Coplen, Elbert, Jr. 41 DiMaggio, Joe 163
The Corpse Came C.O.D. 117 Dinehart, Alan 118, 131, 147
Corrigan, Lloyd 157 Dingle, Charles 94, 132
Cosmopolitan Magazine 67, 83 Divorce of Lady X 37
Cotten, Joseph 128 Dixon, Jean 35–36
Courtland, Jerome 162 The Doctor Takes a Wife 20, 75
Cowan, Jerome 93, 116, 119, 159 Dodd, Claire 117
184 INDEX

Don Juan 102 Fast Company 117

Donlevy, Brian 148 Father Knows Best (TV) 10
Donnell, Jeff (Miss) 120, 121 Father Takes a Wife 19, 99
Donnelly, Ruth 18–19, 49, 64, 91, 117, 144 Feld Fritz 34, 64, 98
Double Indemnity 13 Fellows, Edith 90, 98
Double Wedding 104 The Feminine Touch 81
The Doughgirls 17, 19, 143 Ferrer, Jose 154
Douglas, Kirk 157 Field, Betty 94
Douglas, Melvyn 10 –11, 27, 30 –31, 43, 49– Fields, Dorothy 65
50, 65, 82–83, 89–90, 93, 96 –98, 100, Fifth Avenue Girl 12, 15, 25, 126
116 –117 Finian’s Rainbow 32
Douglas, Paul 97, 165 Fisher, Eddie 40
Down and Out in Beverley Hills 170 Fitzgerald 34
Down with Love 6, 68 Flying Down to Rio 12
Drake, Tom 58 Flynn, Errol 83–84, 118–119
Dressler, Marie 55 Fonda, Henry 7, 11, 46 –48, 66, 90, 115–116,
Drew, Ellen 56, 90 130, 138
Dreyfuss, Richard 172 Fontaine, Joan 37–38, 136, 138
Dugan, Tom 117, 154 Fools for Scandal 63
Dukakis, Olympia 169 Footsteps in the Dark 118
Dumbrille, Douglas 54, 117–119 For Pete’s Sake 6, 171
Dunn, James 143 Foran, Dick 67, 100
Dunne, Irene 6 –7, 9, 11, 20, 36, 65, 73, 82– Forbes, Ralph 64, 69–70
83, 87–89 Forbidden Fruit 1
Dupree, Minnie 129 Ford, Glenn 56
Durante, Jimmy 79 Ford, John 113
Durbin, Deanna 58–59, 65–66, 120 Ford, Wallace 113
Duryea, Dan 120, 136 Foster, Preston 38
Dvorak, Ann 161 Four’s a Crowd 14, 19, 83–84
Fox Movie Channel 177
The Eagle and the Hawk 8 Francis, Anne 159
Easy Living 12, 15–17, 23, 26, 53, 60 Francis, Kay 65, 81, 114
Easy to Love (1933) 99 Frawley, William 119
Easy to Wed 104 The Front Page (1931) 17, 22, 72–74
Eggar, Samatha 142 The Front Page (1974) 74
Eilers, Sally 116 Front Page Woman 77
Elizando, Hector 174, 176 Funny Girl (film) 170
Ellis, Edward 107 Funny Girl (play) 170
Ellison, James 28, 44
Emergency Wedding 91 Gable, Clark 12, 14, 21, 25, 84 –86, 103, 114,
Epstein, Julius 26 118, 138, 149, 150, 166
Epstein, Philip 26 Garbo, Greta 10, 23–24, 29–31, 93–94, 119
Erin Brokovich 174 Gardenia, Vincent 169
Erwin, Stuart 60, 95, 114, 144 Gardiner, Reginald 39, 75, 79, 145, 151
Esmond, Carl 158 Gargan, William 97, 115
Eternally Yours 11, 17–19, 95–96 Garland, Judy 170
Evans, Dale (Mrs. Roy Rogers) 147 Garner, James 89
Everybody Does It 97 Garrett, Betty 132
Ewell, Tom 163, 165 Garson, Greer 99
The Ex–Mrs. Bradford 15–16, 108, 112 The Gay Deception 16
Gaynor, Janet 81, 116, 129
Fairbanks, Douglas, Jr. 60, 65, 129 Gaynor, Mitzi 47
Fairbanks, Douglas, Sr. 62 Gehrig, Lou 13
Falk, Peter 56 George Washington Slept Here 25, 132
Fancy Pants 126 Gere, Richard 6, 174 –176
Farina, Dennis 7, 173–174 Gilbert, Billy 32, 38–39, 65, 86
Farrell, Glenda 128, 132, 159 The Gilded Lily 16, 23, 77
“Fascination” (song) 163 Giradot, Etienne 113, 131
Fast and Furious 117–118 Girl, a Guy and a Gob 144
Fast and Loose 117–118 The Girl from Missouri 2, 68–69
 INDEX 185

The Girl, Most Likely 52 “Happy Days Are Here Again” 1

Girl Trouble 146 Hard to Get 14, 57, 60
A Girl with Ideas 75 Harding, Ann 35, 139
Gish, Dorothy 62 Harlow, Jean 2, 68–69, 103–104, 109
Gish, Lillian 62 Harrison, Rex 159–161
Gleason, James 93, 113, 127 Hart, Moss 26, 79, 122, 132
Gobel, George 47 Haver, June 61
Goddard, Paulette 129, 142–143, 152 Havoc, June 145
Going My Way 24 Hawks, Howard 21–23, 34, 69, 73, 136 –137,
Goldwyn, Samuel 135, 149 159–160, 170 –171
Gombell, Minna 108 Hawn, Goldie 169–170
Gone with the Wind 19, 31 Haydn, Richard 94, 137, 151
The Good Fairy 14, 16, 26, 58 Hayes, Helen 22, 58
Good Girls Go to Paris 49–50, 116 Hayes, Margaret 152
Goodbye Again 81 Hayes, Peter Lind 144
Goodman, Benny 137 Hays, Will 2
Goodman, John 164 Hays Office 49
Gordon, Ruth 24 Hayward, Louis 60
Goulet, Robert 59 Hayward, Susan 135
Government Girl 43 Hayworth, Rita 92, 116
Grable, Betty 60, 77, 89–90 He Married His Wife 16, 18, 101
The Gracie Allen Murder Case 120 He Stayed for Breakfast 11, 17, 31
Grahame, Gloria 110 Hecht, Ben 21–22, 70, 72, 75–76, 118, 149,
Granach, Alexander 30 158, 160
Grant, Cary 6, 8–9, 11, 17, 33–36, 65, 68, Heflin, Van 81, 128
73–74, 77, 87–90, 99, 114, 127–129, 133, Hellman, Lillian 106
142, 146, 152–153, 157–160, 163, 168, 175 Henry, Louise 131
Granville, Bonita 57, 63, 83 Hepburn, Audrey 163
Grapes of Wrath 11 Hepburn, Katharine 9, 24, 27, 33–36, 73,
Gravet, Fernand 63–64 78, 128–129, 165–166
Gray, Dolores 79 Her Husband’s Affairs 158
The Great Gatsby 102 Herbert, Hugh 96, 99
The Great McGinty 26, 148 Here Comes Mr. Jordan 136 –137
Great Ziegfeld 83 Heston, Charlton 164
Greeley, Horace 11 Hi Diddle Diddle 144
Green, Adolph 132 High Noon 13
Green-Eyed Woman 49 High Society 128
Greenstreet, Sidney 145–146 Hillerman, John 171
Greenwood, Charlotte 60 Hinds, Samuel S. 75, 123
Grey, Virginia 42, 109 Hired Wife 12, 25, 97
Griffith, D.W. 125 Hirschhorn, Clive 55, 171
Griffith, Melanie 164 His Girl Friday 6, 9, 12, 17, 20, 73–74, 83,
Grodin, Charles 170 97, 175
Guest Wife 100 Hitchcock, Alfred 101
Guitry, Sacha 57 Hitler, Adolf 148
Gwenn, Edmund 51, 75, 162 Hold Back the Dawn 22
Holden, William 119, 164
Hail the Conquering Hero 17, 26, 147–148 Holiday (1930) 17, 19, 35–36
Hale, Alan 58, 143 Holiday (1938) 9, 17, 24, 34
Hale, Barbara 91, 157 Holliday, Judy 164 –165
Hale, Jonathan 34, 117, 158 Hollywood Anecdotes (book) 46
Haley, Jack 60, 131 Hollywood’s Madcap Romantic Comedies
Hall, Porter 98, 108, 119, 142 (book) 43
Hall, Thurston 57, 64, 82, 116, 118 Holm, Celeste 97
Halliday, John 128 Holt, Tim 126
Halton, Charles 154 Homolka, Oscar 137, 151, 163
Hamilton, Margaret 18–19 Honeymoon for Three 81
Hammett, Dashiell 25, 106 Honeymoon in Bali 19, 42
Hands Across the Table 8, 13, 17, 19–20, 23, Hope, Bob 126, 149–152, 158–159
43–44 Hopkins, Miriam 11, 24, 31–33, 84, 114
186 INDEX

Hopper, Hedda 38, 41, 46, 62, 86 Jimmy the Gent 14, 20
The Horn Blows at Midnight 94 Johnny Belinda 143
Horton, Edward Everett 17, 35–36, 73, 99, Johnson, Don 164
114, 127, 131, 158 Johnson, Rita 91, 140
The Housekeeper’s Daughter 115 Johnson, Van 104
Howard, John 100, 128 Jones, Alan 42
Howard, Leslie 62–63, 68 Jones, Gordon 131
Hubbard, John 97, 115 Jones, Jennifer 151
Hud 10 Joslyn, Allyn 67, 100, 131
Hudson, Rock 166 –168 Joy of Living 16, 18, 65
Hughes, Barnard 170 Joyce, Brenda 20, 29
Hughes, Mary Beth 77, 118 June Bride 14, 79
Hull, Josephine 127 Just Tell Me What You Want 110
Hunt, Marsha 32
Hurst, Fannie 91 Kahn, Madeleine 171–172
Hussey, Ruth 82, 90, 109, 118, 128 Kanin Garson 24, 52
Hutton, Betty 98, 148–149 Karns, Roscoe 77
Hutton, Jim 142 Kaufman, George S. 26, 79, 122, 132
Hutton, Robert 157 Kaye, Danny 22, 137
Hyer, Martha 124 Keighley, William 25–26, 67
Keith, Robert 124
I Can Get It for You Wholesale (play) 170 Kellaway, Cecil 38, 49, 94
“I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby” Kelly, Grace 128
(song) 34 Kelly, Nancy 101
I Love Lucy (TV) 18, 58 Kelly, Patsy 37, 69–71, 76, 125, 135
I Love Trouble 174 Kelly, Paul 112, 119
I Love You Again 25, 105 Kennedy, Edgar 98, 118
I Married a Witch 135 Kennedy Center Life Achievement Award
I Met Him in Paris 10, 12, 23, 43 110
I Was a Male War Bride 22, 59 Kent, Dorothea 49, 75
I’d Rather Be Rich 59 Kern, Jerome 65
If You Could Only Cook 14, 25, 53, 58, 60 Keyes, Evelyn 163
I’ll Be Yours 58 Kibbee, Guy 55, 65, 77, 118
I’m No Angel 2 Kilbride, Percy 132, 156, 159
In Name Only 8 King Kong 31
In Old Chicago 18 Kinskey, Leonid 31, 70 –71, 137
In Person 64 Kinski, Nastassja 161
Independent Theater Owner’s Association Kiss Me Kate (play) 110
33 Kisses for Breakfast 90
Interference 102 Knight, Fuzzy 37
Intolerance 25 Knowles, Patric 36, 63, 83–84, 101
It Ain’t No Sin 2 Kolb, Clarence 125
It Had to Be You 157 Kolker, Henry 29, 35
It Happened on Fifth Avenue 138 Korda, Alexander 37
It Happened One Night 12, 15, 21, 28–29, 36, Krasna, Norman 23, 31, 40, 44, 51, 59, 101
56, 83–86, 114, 146, 159, 177 Kreuger, Kurt 160
It Should Happen to You 165 Kristofferson, Kris 146
It Started with Eve 58 Kruger, Otto 109
It’s a Date 65 Krupa, Gene 135
It’s a Wonderful World 12–13, 17, 22, 25, 118 Kurnitz, Harry 110
It’s Love I’m After 14, 16, 18, 62–63
La Cava, Gregory 25, 36, 124
The Jazz Singer 102 The Lady Eve 11, 13, 16 –17, 26, 46 –48, 90,
Jeans, Isabel 45, 57 130
Jeffreys Anne 135 Lady for a Day 21–22, 55–56
Jenkins, Allen 57, 64, 120 The Lady Has Plans 152
Jenks, Frank 42 Lady in a Jam 36
Jergens, Adele 156 Lady on a Train 120
Jewell, Isabel 69 Lady Tubbs 41
Jezebel 125 Lake, Arthur 76, 133
 INDEX 187

Lake, Veronica 135 Love on the Run 14, 16 –17, 25, 86

Lamarr, Hedy 38, 150 –151 Lover Come Back (1946) 158
Lamour, Dorothy 46, 149, 152 Lover Come Back (1961) 167
Landi, Elissa 108 Lowe, Edmund 105, 120
Landis, Carole 60, 97, 134 Loy, Myrna 6, 14, 25, 42, 83–84, 94, 102–
Lane, Allen 37–38 111, 157
Lane, Priscilla 127 Lubitsch, Ernest 22–23, 30, 98, 114, 151,
Lane, Richard 74 153, 163
Lange, Hope 56 Lucky Partners 57
Lantz, Walter 25 Lugosi, Bela 31
Lassie 15 Lukas, Paul 120
The Last Command (1928) 102 Luke, Key 119
Lattimore, Frank 61 Lupino, Ida 143–144
Laughton, Charles 58, 66, 125–126 The Lux Radio Theater 25
Laurel and Hardy 23 Lynde, Paul 168
Laurie Piper 139 Lynn, Betty 80
Law and Order (TV) 176 Lynn, Diana 101, 140, 148
Lawford, Peter 151, 165
Lawrence, Barbara 160 MacArthur, Charles 21–22, 70, 72
Lawrence, Gertrude 79 MacBride, Donald 131, 135, 149
Lawrence, Marc 115 MacMahon, Horace 109, 118
Lederer, Charles 149, 158, 160 MacMurray, Fred 7, 10, 13, 38, 42–44, 48–
Lederer, Francis 46 49, 77–78, 89–90, 98, 119, 142–143, 146,
Lee, Lila 113 162
Leeds, Andrea 42 The Mad Miss Manton 11, 13, 19, 26, 115
Leigh, Janet 76, 132 Maid’s Night Out 37
Leisen, Mitchell 23, 43, 53 Main, Marjorie 76, 97, 109
Lemmon, Jack 74, 85, 90, 132, 163–165 The Main Event 6 –7, 171–172
Leonard, Sheldon 56 Maisie series 39
Lester, Vicki 116 Major and the Minor 12, 23, 139–14
Let’s Do It Again (1953) 88 Make Your Own Bed 143
Let’s Make It Legal 162 The Maltese Falcon 144
Levene, Sam 108, 110, 116 The Man Who Came to Dinner 14, 26, 79–80
Levinson, Barry 170 Manhattan Melodrama 25, 103, 10
Lewis, Jerry 76, 140 Mankiewicz, Joseph 78
Libeled Lady 15, 103–104 Manning, Irene 143
Lindley, Audra 170 Marble, Alice 166
Lindsay, Margaret 117 March, Fredric 7, 14, 67, 75–76, 115, 135
Little Women 18 March, Hal 168
Live, Love and Learn 32 Marcus Welby, MD (TV) 10
Living It Up 76 Marley, Peverell 92
Lloyd, Frank 56 Marlowe, Hugh 58
Lloyd, Harold 144 Married Bachelor 10, 81
Lockhart, Gene 112, 158 Married Before Breakfast 10, 58
Lockhart, June 104 Marsh, Joan 130
Lockridge, Frances 119 Marshall, Alan 31–32, 52, 108
Lockridge, Richard 119 Marshall, Brenda 119
Logan, Ella 32 Marshall, Gary 174 –176
Lombard, Carole 7–9, 11, 13, 20, 22, 38, 43– Marshall, Herbert 7, 14, 28, 53–54, 58, 60,
44, 50, 63, 69–70, 73, 75, 98–99, 101, 119, 114
124 –125, 138, 153–154 Marshall, Paula 174
The Loretta Young Show 10 Marshall, Tully 137
Lorre, Peter 127 Martin, Dean 76, 140
Louise, Anita 41 Martin, Freddie 144
Love Before Breakfast 38 Marx, Harpo 79
Love Crazy 19–20, 94, 105 Masquerade in Mexico 46
Love in the Afternoon 163 Massen, Osa 42, 81
Love Is News 10, 77–78 Massey, Raymond 127
Love Me Tonight 103 Mather, Aubrey 137
Love on a Bet 18 Matthau, Walter 74, 169
188 INDEX

Mature, Victor 115, 144 Moonstruck 169

Maugham, Somerset 89 Moore, Alvy 159
Maxwell, Elsa 29 Moore, Constance 49
Maxwell, Marilyn 159 Moore, Dudley 161
Mayer, Louis B. 78, 84 Moore, Pauline 60
Mayo, Virginia 137 Moore, Victor 39, 138–139
McCarey, Leo 23–24, 88 Moorehead, Agnes 143
McCrea, Joel 11, 31–33, 42, 60, 94 –95, 101, Moran, Gussie 166
113, 141 Moran, Jackie 90
McDaniel, Hattie 18–19, 44, 75, 92, 98, 116 More Than a Secretary 48, 113
McGiver, John 163 The More the Merrier 11–12, 16, 141–142
McGlaglen, Victor 70 –71 Morgan, Dennis 7, 90, 92, 145, 147
McGregor, Ewen 168 Morgan, Frank 58, 69
McGuire, Marcy 144 Morgan, Ralph 112–113, 118
McHugh, Frank 67, 73, 105 Morison, Patricia 94, 110, 131
McKinney, Ruth 131 Morris, Anita 173
McLeod, Catherine 161 Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences
McLeod, Norman Z. 24 123
McWade, Mary 82 Motion Picture Producers and Distributors
Meadows, Audrey 168 of America 2
Meek, Donald 16, 28, 66, 83, 86, 97, 113, 115 Move Over, Darling 89
Meloni, Christopher 176 Mowbray, Alan 6, 16, 41, 50, 68–69, 96,
Menjou, Adolph 40, 58, 61, 72–73, 97, 99– 124 –125, 133, 143, 157
100, 115, 145 Murphy, George 29, 52, 144
Mercer, Frances 44 My Darling Clementine 11
Meredith, Burgess 52, 96, 130 –131 My Dear Secretary 157
Merivale, Philip 101 My Favorite Blonde 152
Merkel, Una 98, 132 My Favorite Wife 9, 19–20, 24, 89
Merrily We Live 16, 18, 25, 124 My Man Godfrey (1936) 8, 11, 15–18, 20, 25,
Methot, Mayo 120 –121 124 –125
Midler, Bette 6 –7, 169, 172–174 My Man Godfrey (1957) 125
Midnight 12, 14, 19, 23, 45–47 My Sister Eileen (1942) 131
Milan, Frank 65 My Sister Eileen (1955) 132
Milestone, Lewis 73 My Three Sons (TV) 13, 16
Milland, Ray 32, 53, 75, 77, 88, 94, 140 –141, My Wife’s Best Friend 161
152, 162
Miller, Ann 123 Naish, J. Carroll 77
A Millionaire for Christy 162 Nancy Goes to Rio 65
Minnelli, Vincente 79 Nash, Mary 53, 128
Minter, Mary Miles 2 National League of Decency 2, 100
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek 17, 26, 148–149 National Student’s League 29
Mr. and Mrs. North 119 Natwick, Mildred 171
Mr. and Mrs. Smith 8, 14, 23, 101 Neal, Tom 109
Mr. Deeds 55 Negri, Pola 144
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 12–13, 15, 17, 19, 21, Nelson, Barry 110
54, 113 New York Algonquin Hotel Round Table 79
Mister Roberts 110, 164 The New Yorker (magazine) 131
Mitchell, Grant 42, 79, 130 The Next Time I Marry 24, 27–28
Mitchell, Johnny 144 A Night to Remember 10, 120
Mitchell, Thomas 56, 82, 113 Nightingale, Florence 79
Model Wife 17, 19, 41 Ninotchka 11, 14, 22–24, 27, 30 –31, 151
Mohr, Gerald 152 Niven, David 11, 40 –41, 47, 60, 95–96, 124
Monkey Business 22, 160 Nixon, Marion 130
Monroe, Marilyn 89, 160, 162–164 No Room for the Groom 139
Montgomery, Douglass 41 No Time for Comedy 12–13, 17, 25–26, 67
Montgomery, George 61 No Time for Love 13, 23, 44
Montgomery, Robert 14, 24, 32, 42, 80 –81, Nolan, Doris 35
84, 101, 118 Nolan, Lloyd 114, 127
Moon Over Miami 60 Nolte, Nick 172, 174 –175
The Moon’s Our Home 7, 11, 14, 19, 25, 66, 99 Noonan, Tommy 53
 INDEX 189

Normand, Mabel 2 Porter, Cole 127, 171

Nothing Sacred 7, 14 –15, 19, 22, 75 Post, William, Jr. 119
Powell, Dick 17, 41–42, 56 –57, 85, 102, 116,
Oakie, Jack 64, 167 159
Oberon, Merle 6 –7, 20, 37, 92–93, 96 Powell, Jane 52–53, 65–66
O’Brien, Edmond 144 Powell, William 14, 25, 68, 94, 101–113, 120,
O’Brien, Pat 67, 69, 72, 116, 164 124 –125
O’Connor, Una 31, 117, 145 Power, Tyrone 27, 31, 77, 91–92, 95, 138
O’Grady, Gail 174 Practically Yours 23
O’Keefe, Dennis 70, 134, 145 Preminger, Otto 149
Oliver, Edna Mae 130 Pretty Woman 6, 174 –175
Oliver, Gordon 117 Pride and Prejudice 18
Olivier, Lawrence 37 The Pride of the Yankees 13
Olson and Johnson 68 Prince, William 144
Once Upon a Honeymoon 24, 150 The Princess Comes Across 8, 13, 16, 119
O’Neal, Ryan 7, 170 –172 The Princeton Players 66
O’Neill, Henry 110 Private Secretary (TV) 39
O’Shea, Michael 165 The Production Code 2
O’Sullivan, Maureen 107–108 Public Deb Number One 16 –17, 20, 29
Our Miss Brooks (TV) 19 The Public Enemy 73
Our Wife 90 Pullman, Bill 173
Overman, Lynne 98, 151
Owen, Reginald 43, 58, 99, 113, 118 Qualen, John 173
Ox-Bow Incident 11 Quine, Richard 131

Paige, Mabel 158 Radio City Music Hall 76

Paige, Robert 116 Raft, George 127, 164
Pallette, Eugene 17–18, 31, 36, 38, 47, 65, The Rage of Paris 16, 19, 60
76, 91, 94, 96, 124, 133 Rainer, Luise 83
The Palm Beach Story 11–12, 15, 17, 19, 26, Raines, Ella 148
94 –95 Ralph, Jessie 39, 108
Pangborn, Franklin 15, 29, 44, 53, 56, 65, Ramirez, Carlos 104
97, 133, 144, 148, 158 Randall, Tony 166 –168
Pardon My Past 160 Rasche, David 174
Parker, Dorothy 7, 76 Rasumny, Mikhail 158
Parker, Eleanor 162 Rathbone, Basil 45, 120
Parker, Jean 55 Ray, Aldo 88, 166
Parker, Willard 159 Raymond, Gene 39, 74, 86, 92, 101
Parks, Larry 91 Reagan, Ronald 67
Parsons, Estelle 171 Rebecca 101
Parsons, Louella 63, 146 Red Salute 10, 19, 27, 29
Pat and Mike 10, 24, 166 Redfield, William 171
Patrick, Gail 19–20, 75, 89, 94, 105, 124 Reed, Donna 110
Pearl Harbor 137–138, 151, 153 Reed, Philip 110
Peck, Gregory 78–79 Reeve, Christopher 74
Pendleton, Nat 108–109, 118 Reid, Wallace 2
Perry Mason (TV) 19 Reiner, Carl 173
Persoff, Nehemiah 164 Reinhold, Judge 173
Petticoat Fever 42 Reisch, Walter 30
Petticoat Junction (TV) 17 Remember? 99
The Philadelphia Story 9, 12–13, 16, 24, 127– Remember Last Night? 116
129 Renoir, Jean 172
The Philadelphia Story (play) 78, 128 Retro-Plex 177
Pickford, Mary 22, 62 Revere, Anne 142
Picon, Molly 171 Reynolds, Burt 74, 170 –171
Pidgeon, Walter 65, 75–76, 114 Reynolds, Debbie 40, 159
Pillow Talk 166 Rice, Florence 58, 100, 105, 117
Pillow to Post 143 Richardson, Ralph 137
Pitts, ZaSu 71, 126 Richest Girl in the World 11, 23, 25, 31–32
Pocketful of Miracles 22, 56 Ridges, Stanley 117, 153
190 INDEX

Ridgley, John 143 Seven Days Leave 144

Rin Tin Tin 15 Seven Year Itch 163
Rings on Her Fingers 18, 130 Shadow of the Thin Man 108–109
Risdon, Elizabeth 82 Shakespeare, William 38, 75
Riskin, Robert 21, 55–56, 83, 86, 110 She Married Her Boss 10, 17, 25, 97
Ritter, Thelma 167 She Couldn’t Take It 127
Roach, Hal 21, 124, 135 She Wouldn’t Say Yes 156
Roberta (play) 77 Shea, Gloria 130
Roberts, Julia 6, 169, 174 –177 Shelton, Maria 68
Robertson, Cliff 52–53 Shepherd, Cybill 171
Robinson, Edward G. 113 Sheridan, Ann 64, 79–81, 132, 143, 159
Robson, May 22, 34, 55–66 Sherlock Holmes 102
Rodgers and Hart 64 Sherwood, Robert E. 44
Rogers, Ginger 12, 17, 40 –41, 44 –45, 52, 57, She’s Got Everything 19, 39
64, 108, 112–113, 126, 139–41, 152–153, Shirley, Anne 143
157, 160, 177 A Shocking Night 1
Rogers, Jean 77 Sidney, Sylvia 68
Rogers, Lela 140 The Sign of the Cross 12
Rogers, Will 56 Signoret, Simone 167
Romero, Cesar 38, 58, 96, 101, 108 Sikov, Ed 43
Rooney, Mickey 32 Silk Stockings 31
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 1, 20, 28 Silver, Ron 170
The Rose 172 Simon, Neil 170
Rosenbloom, Maxie 29 Sinatra, Frank 128
Ross, Frank 141 Singleton, Penny 57, 108
Ross, Shirley 90 Sinners in Silk 1
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In 169 Skipworth, Alison 119
Ruggles, Charles 17, 23, 29, 34, 67, 81, 98, Slater, Helen 173
114, 126, 138–139, 143 Slezak, Walter 152
Ruggles, Wesley 23 Slightly Dangerous 50
Ruggles of Red Gap 124 –125 The Smartest Girl in Town 18, 39
Ruman, Sig 30, 99, 106, 143, Smith, Alexis 143
The Runaway Bride 6, 175–177 Smith, C. Aubrey 96, 109, 151
Runyon, Damon 55 Smith, Charles 61
Russell, Gail 61 Smith, Ethel 104
Russell, Rosalind 10, 12–13, 20, 32, 48–49, Smith, Thorne 132, 135
67, 73–74, 76, 81, 83–84, 97, 100, 118, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 137
131–132, 156, 162, 175 Sokoloff, Vladimer 106
Ruthless People 173 Solid Gold Cadillac 165
Ryan, Irene 157 Some Like It Hot 163–164
Ryder, Winona 55 Sondergaard, Gale 152
“Song” 1
Sakall, S.Z. 51, 65, 137, 145 A Song Is Born 22, 137
Sandler, Adam 55 Song of the Thin Man 110
Sarrazin, Michael 171 Sothern, Ann 19, 39, 66, 74, 115, 118, 130 –
The Saturday Evening Post 159 131
Schwarzenegger, Arnold 146 Sparks, Ned 92
Scott, Martha 145 Spewak, Bella 67
Scott, Randolph 89 Spewak, Sam 67
Scott, Zachery 162 Stack, Robert 153–154
Screwball: Hollywood’s Madcap Romantic Stand-In 68
Comedies (book) 43 Stander, Lionel 49, 54
Second Honeymoon 10, 95 Standing Room Only 142
Seems Like Old Times 170 Stang, Arnold 144
Segall, Harry 136 Stanwyck, Barbara 6 –7, 10, 13, 27–29, 33,
Seiter, William A. 25, 54 38, 46 –47, 90 –92, 101, 115, 135–137, 145–
Selznick, David 76, 101, 143 146
Send Me No Flowers 167 A Star Is Born 116
Sennett, Mack 8, 21, 23 Star of Midnight 108, 112
Sergeant York 137 Stein, Gertrude 162
 INDEX 191

Stephens, Harvey 114 The Thin Man 6, 25, 106 –108, 112–113, 117
Stephenson, Henry 39 The Thin Man Goes Home 16, 110
Sterling, Robert 135 The Thin Man series 14 –15, 25, 42, 103
Stevens, Craig 143 Third Finger, Left Hand 17, 82–83
Stevens, George 78, 141 Thirty Day Princess 68
Stevens, Onslow 131 This Thing Called Love 100
Stewart, Donald Ogden 24, 128 Thomas, Jamison 84
Stewart, James 12–13, 44 –45, 66 –67, 108, Thorpe, Richard 110
118, 123, 128–129, 138, 159 Three Blind Mice 11, 25, 60
Stockwell, Dean 110 Three Cornered Moon 18, 126
Stone, George E. 73, 115 Three for the Show 90
Stone, Lewis 69 Three Little Girls in Blue 61
Storm, Gale 139 Three Loves has Nancy 81
Strauss, Robert 163 The Three Stooges 131
Streisand, Barbra 5, 7, 169–172 Tierney, Gene 77, 130
Strictly Dishonorable 26 To Be or Not to Be (1942) 22, 132, 153–154
Sturges, Preston 23, 26, 47, 53, 56, 58, 68, To Be or Not to Be (1983) 154
94 –95, 147–148, 160 –161 To Have and Have Not 121
Sullavan, Margaret 7, 11, 14, 58, 66, 73, 76, Tobias, George 31, 93, 131, 143
84, 91, 99 Tobin, Genevieve 25, 67, 81, 99
Sullivan, Barry 66 Todd, Thelma 37
Sullivan’s Travels 26 Toler, Sidney 170
Sully, Frank 131 Tom, Dick and Harry 12, 24, 52, 177
Summerville, Slim 73 Tone, Franchot 66, 69, 81, 86, 118, 158, 161
Sunrise at Campobello 20 Too Many Husbands 10, 12, 17, 23, 89
Sunrise at Campobello (play) 20 Topper 9, 16 –17, 132
Sunset Boulevard 100 Topper Returns 16, 134
Susan Slept Here 159 Topper Takes a Trip 15–16, 25, 13
Suspicion 38, 136 Torn, Rip 159
Swanson, Gloria 99, 100 Tovarich 44
Sweet Rosie O’Grady 77 Tracy, Lee 68
Switching Channels 74 Tracy, Spencer 9, 24, 78, 103–104, 165–166
Trade Winds 114
Take a Letter, Darling 12–13, 23, 48–49 Travers, Henry 99, 114, 137, 114
Talbot, Lyle 95, 101 Travis, Richard 79–80
Tallichet, Margaret 59 Treacher, Arthur 39, 116
Tamiroff, Akim 42, 146, 148 Trevor, Claire 61, 95
Tandy, Jessica 170 Trotti, Lamar 148
Taylor, Don 110 Trouble in Paradise 11, 22, 114
Taylor, Elizabeth 40 True Confession 13–14, 19, 23, 98
Taylor, Renee 78 True to Life 17
Taylor, Robert 99 Truex, Ernest 17, 56, 118, 132
Taylor, William Desmond 2 Tufts, Sonny 98, 143, 163
Teacher’s Pet 166 Tully, Tom 81
Teasdale, Verree 126, 133 Turnabout 19, 97
Temple, Shirley 98, 158 Turner, Kathleen 74
The Ten Commandments 23 Turner, Lana 38, 50
Tennyson, Alfred Lord 89 Turner Classic Movies 177
That Old Feeling 7, 173 Twentieth Century 8, 15, 21–22, 69–70, 98,
That Touch of Mink 168 101
That Uncertain Feeling 6, 16, 19, 96 Twin Beds 17, 19, 132
That Wonderful Urge 77 Two-Faced Woman 11, 24, 26, 93–94
Theodora Goes Wild 9, 18, 82
There Goes My Girl 74 Unfaithfully Yours (1948) 160
There Goes My Heart 16 –17, 25, 76
There Goes the Groom 18, 130 Vagabond Lady 49
There’s Always a Woman 10, 19, 116 –117 Valentino 102
There’s That Woman Again 117 Vallee, Rudy 94 –95, 157–160
They All Kissed the Bride 10, 14, 18, 50 Van Doren, Mamie 166
They Got Me Covered 149 Van Dyke, W.S. 25, 106, 108, 110, 118
192 INDEX

Van Dyne, S.S. 102, 120 Withers, Grant 117

Vassar, Queenie 36 Without Love 9–10, 165
Venable, Evelyn 49 Without Reservations 146 –147
Vera-Ellen 61 The Wizard of Oz 18, 19
Vivacious Lady 12–13, 15–16, 44 Woman Chases Man 11, 32–33
Woman of Distinction 162
Wagner, Robert 162 Woman of the Year (1942) 9, 78
Walburn, Raymond 17, 54, 56, 83, 98, 148, Woman of the Year (1978, TV) 78
158 The Women 18
Walk, Don’t Run 142 Wood, Natalie 101
Walker, Clint 168 Wood, Peggy 101, 115
Walker, Virginia 34 Woodworth, Marjorie 70
Walking on Air 39 Woolcott, Alexander 79
Wanger, Walter 114 Woolley, Monty 79–80
Waram, Percy 157 Wray, Fay 31
Warner, H.B. 134 Wray, John 117
Watson, Lucille 42, 101, 110 Wyatt, Jane 61, 90
Watson, Minor 41, 118 Wyler, William 58, 164
The Way We Were 171 Wyman, Jane 81, 88, 143
Wayne, John 146 –147 Wynn, Keenan 104, 110, 157, 166, 170
Weaver, Marjorie 60
Wedding Present 77 You Belong to Me 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 90 –91
Weidler, Virginia 128 You Can’t Run Away from It 85
We’re Rich Again 130 You Can’t Take It with You 12–13, 16, 18, 21,
West, Mae 2 54, 122–124
What’s Up Doc? 170 –171 You Gotta Stay Happy 159
White, Alice 120 Young, Gig 166, 167
Whitty, Dame May 50 Young, Loretta 10 –11, 31, 60, 67, 75, 77, 92,
The Whole Town’s Talking 113 95–97, 120
Wickes, Mary 79 Young, Polly Ann 97
Wife, Husband and Friend 10, 96 Young, Robert 10, 27, 29, 38, 43, 49–50, 58,
Wilde, Cornel 157 77, 81, 92, 116, 157
Wilder, Billy 22–23, 30, 46, 136, 139, 163– Young, Roland 16, 101, 125, 128–129, 133–
164 134, 142, 152
William, Warren 55, 81, 91–92, 120 Young in Heart 16, 18, 128
Williams, Esther 104 You’re Never Too Young 140
Wilson 148 Youth Takes a Fling 42
Wilson, Dooley 49 Yurka, Blanche 120
Wilson, Marie 64, 67–68
Winchell, Walter 62 Zaharias, Babe Didrickson 166
Windsor, Marie 159 Zellweger, Renee 6, 168
Winninger, Charles 32, 57, 75, 156, 158 Ziegfeld, Florenz 18
Winters, Shelley 167 Zorina, Vera 158
Wise Girl 32 Zucco, George 108, 118, 152