Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA on April 9, 2023
TRANSCRIPT
(LAUREN WOLFER:) Is it a Screwball Comedy or a Romantic Comedy?
(ALIECE PICKETT:) There’s confusion about that. It even confuses film scholars. Yes, it is a Screwball Comedy.
Romantic Comedy shares traits with Screwball Comedy: relationship conflict, witty dialogue, happy ending. But the structure is different.
Romantic Comedy has a traditional love story with melodrama and sentiment.
Characters are earnest, with a “heroic” male who is overcoming obstacles and then will win the girl at the end. And she will complete him.
There’s no use of irony in Romantic Comedy.
Screwball Comedy is different.
By its nature, it’s a satire.
It satirizes relationships, marriage, traditional institutions.
It satirizes the wealthy.
(Relationship) conflict is shown through sexually antagonistic dialogue and the battle-of-the-sexes.
You see “anti”-heroic behavior, such as here.
Look at the men in “The Philadelphia Story” (1940).
The ex-husband, “C.K. Dexter Haven”, is an alcoholic.
The father is an adulterer.
The fiancé is a social climber.
Then you have the sarcastic reporter.
These are not traditional love story attributes.
>> LW: Mac, the nightwatchman, is a prince among men, and Uncle Willie is a “pincher”.
How does this fall on the spectrum of Screwball Comedy?
It feels, compared to the last time we saw Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby” (1938), very different.
How do you feel about the spectrum there?
>> AP: The pacing is different. In “Bringing Up Baby”, the pace is breakneck.
The dialogue is fast.
There is chaos.
This movie takes a leisurely pace.
But the pace does not change the structure.
It does not negate the fact that it’s a Screwball Comedy.
It is on the other end of the spectrum though, between the two.
>> LW: And the dialogue is just as witty.
Cary Grant’s performance is so different than in “Bringing Up Baby”.
>> AP: You read or hear, “Cary Grant is just playing ‘Cary Grant’ in all his movies”. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you compare his performance in “Bringing Up Baby”, where he plays the paleontologist, he personifies the absent-minded professor.
He’s befuddled the whole time.
He plays someone who’s so out-of-step.
He’s a step behind the other characters.
Here you have Cary Grant playing “C.K. Dexter Haven” as suave, sophisticated.
He is a sardonic observer of the others.
He’s grounding the other characters.
And with his wit he is sarcastic and he mocks.
Very different, indeed.
It shows what a remarkable actor he was, and his large range.
>> LW: The plot of this film still feels relevant, with the tabloid reporters and the media access.
>> AP: And the issue of “Remarriage” is a big element in this film, and in Screwball Comedy.
We talked before in this series about how morality was legislated with the criminalization of alcohol use.
Religious organizations had persuaded Congress to enact Prohibition.
That was a 13-year experiment that failed.
Religious organizations lobbied legislatures across the country to make divorce a moral issue.
As a consequence, it was unusual for people to get divorced.
But, as women obtained freedoms they got the vote in 1920. Then they were allowed to drive. Then they were permitted to start entering society and working. The professions generally weren’t open to them, medicine, law, architecture.
However, they could achieve some financial independence through teaching, nursing, or secretarial work.
As they achieved freedom, women started to push back on the “immorality” of divorce.
They started seeking it more frequently.
Writers were able to seize upon that.
It’s a wonderful device, used throughout Screwball Comedy.
Because it enables writers to delve deeper into relationships.
When you have youngsters dating, their conflicts are going to be fairly limited and shallow.
But when you have people in long-term relationships, then divorce, you can explore a person’s personal issues, their failures, their shortcomings.
Which is what satire is all about.
And writers were able to avoid the censorship rules against adultery, because the person is no longer married.
Therefore, they can explore other relationships.
That’s all part of Screwball Comedy.
The journey for self-discovery.
You are learning about yourself through your relationships with others, while you’re divorced.
Then, of course, you remarry at the end.
>> LW: You get the romantic happy ending after all.
>> AP: There are many (remarriage) Screwball Comedies, “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), “The Awful Truth” (1937), “The Ex-Mrs. Bradford” (1936), hilarious. “His Girl Friday” (1940), a famous example.
>> LW: Which you can see here on June 4th.
Speaking of alcohol and Prohibition, the last film we watched was “The Thin Man” (1934), which is delightfully boozy.
This one too.
>> AP: Alcohol is woven into plots of Screwball Comedy for a couple of reasons.
A hallmark of Screwball Comedy is erratic, eccentric, oddball, nutty behavior.
And alcohol fuels that.
Inhibitions are lowered.
People act zany and crazy.
So, it’s natural to put that in.
It’s an easy way for writers to put in how someone ends up acting bizarrely.
In “The Philadelphia Story”, it’s effectively used because it allows the development of the relationship between “Tracy” and the reporter to be fast-tracked.
Their inhibitions are lowered, so they’re getting to know each other over this night of revelry, which leads to her transformation.
Very good use of alcohol.
They’re intoxicated on the champagne. And they’re intoxicated on each other.
>> LW: That scene is spectacular.
And it’s a relief too, when she’s been so verbally torn down.
That moment is gorgeous.
For one thing, it’s the aesthetics of the champagne.
And the radio.
And the fountain.
And that Adrian (Greenburg) gown.
It’s spectacular.
But the writing.
The dialogue. It gives me goosebumps.
>> AP: Donald Ogden Stewart outdid himself on the screenplay.
And Philip Barry from the original play, just outstanding.
The cornerstone of Screwball Comedy is dialogue. That’s key to everything.
>> LW: George Cukor, outstanding director.
An icon of cinema.
>> AP: He directed 50 films.
He directed Katharine Hepburn in 10 films.
He was the highest paid director at MGM.
MGM was, during Hollywood’s Golden Age, the most prestigious studio.
He was at the top of the heap.
He was known as a “woman’s director”.
MGM had coined that term as a compliment to him because he had coaxed so many outstanding performances out of women.
However, it transitioned into being an insult.
The implication later was he doesn’t have the right stuff to direct men, only women. He’s a “woman’s director”.
It was a backhanded insult.
And it couldn’t be further from the truth.
George Cukor directed more men to Academy Award-winning performances for Best Actor than any other director. A record that still stands today.
So, you see the perceptions there.
>> LW: I heard he was homosexual.
Was that an issue?
Was he openly gay?
Or just whispered because he was the “woman’s” director?
>> AP: Joseph Mankiewicz, the producer of this film, wrote that George Cukor neither suppressed his sexuality or hid it, nor did he wear it on his lapel. So, he was discreet about his life. But it was well known he was a homosexual.
And he did succeed in Hollywood to the top ranks of Hollywood.
That said, there’s the elephant in the room that has to be discussed when you mention George Cukor.
He was fired from the biggest film of them all.
If you adjust for inflation in today’s dollars, the most successful film of all time is “Gone With The Wind” (1939).
After being the director during pre-production for two years, when they got into principal photography, shortly after starting, the producer, David O.
Selznick, fired Cukor and replaced him with Victor Fleming.
It is reputed–the scuttlebutt around Hollywood to this day–is that he was fired because Clark Gable refused to work with a homosexual director and had him fired.
However, research doesn’t support that.
It’s been picked up in scholarly treatises.
However, David O. Selznick was an inveterate memo writer.
He wrote during pre-production he was concerned about Cukor, that Cukor wasn’t a good fit for this epic, “Gone With The Wind”.
He considered early on replacing him with Victor Fleming.
Also, Clark Gable had worked with George Cukor on “Manhattan Melodrama” (1934), without issue.
Clark Gable was the biggest movie star.
He was “The King”.
When he negotiated his contract for “Gone With The Wind”, had he not wanted to work with George Cukor, he could have said I’d like another director.
He had that kind of power.
It would have been, “Of course”.
And he didn’t.
So I don’t know if the facts support that scuttlebutt.
>> LW: This is a comeback for him after the humiliation of being fired from the biggest film of the decade.
>> AP: And it’s our gain, as the movie audience.
But for him being fired from “Gone With The Wind”, he would not have directed “The Women” (1939), and this film, “The Philadelphia Story”.
>> LW: But it did hang over him.
>> AP: It was a little dark cloud over him that disturbed him personally.
>> LW: I went into a bit about Katharine Hepburn and how she came into this role, and this play.
I would love to hear what you have to share about it.
>> AP: You gave excellent background on her.
She came to Hollywood from the theater.
George Cukor performed a screen test on her when she first got to RKO.
He immediately saw her potential, that she photographed beautifully.
She was incredibly photogenic.
And she just “projected” on the screen, even in a screen test.
He put her in a movie, as the star, “A Bill of Divorcement” (1932), opposite John Barrymore.
She hit the ground running.
It was a major hit.
She went from that to other hit-after-hit.
“Alice Adams” (1935).
She received the Academy Award for “Morning Glory” (1933).
She did “Little Women (1933).
She could do no wrong.
Until she did wrong.
There were a series of flops, “Quality Street” (1937).
“Sylvia Scarlett” (1935).
It was film after film.
Even “Bringing Up Baby” (1938), as you mentioned in your introduction.
It’s now a classic.
It’s a masterpiece, but upon its initial release it was a flop.
She played in the lead in “Christopher Strong” (1933) that was a flop.
So she left.
She had negotiated an incredible contract with RKO, where she received a percentage of profits in addition to a substantial salary, as a newcomer in Hollywood.
It was unheard of.
She was a tenacious businesswoman.
And, as you mentioned, she did have an equity position in the play, “The Philadelphia Story”.
She went toe-to-toe with Louis B.
Mayer at MGM.
She negotiated for the screen adaptation of the play to the film we saw today, and did an incredible job with it.
On a personal level, she was raised on the East Coast to a liberal family.
Her father was a doctor.
Her mother was a Suffragette, involved in women’s rights, women’s reproductive rights.
She worked with Margaret Sanger on birth control.
Katharine Hepburn in her memoirs talked about the dinner table conversations.
Nothing was off limits.
Everything was discussed.
She came in, being independent, self-determined, confident.
Some people interpreted that as arrogance. But she was the quintessential Screwball heroine.
>> LW: She’s a force of nature in this film. She’s spectacular!🎥
Film Society of Screwball Comedy®
Edited by Aliece Pickett
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