Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA on June 18, 2023
TRANSCRIPT
(ALIECE PICKETT:) Nine of ten people don’t have access to classic Screwball Comedy.
The Film Society is on a mission to change that.
It starts with exhibiting them in theaters, live, as they were intended to be seen.
Like at the historic Camelot Theatre.
(LAUREN WOLFER:) Aliece, give us a quick look through the Film Series.
>> AP: During our Film Series, we’ve been on a journey, the audience, you and I.
We’ve talked about the economic, social, and political events in America during the 1920s and 1930s that led to the advent of the Screwball Comedy genre of film.
It was different.
Revolutionary.
We’ve talked about the construct of the films’ plotting, character archetypes, and the targets of satire.
We’ve talked about how wonderful it is to have a safe environment to look at these social issues, as they are enveloped in laughs, romance, and beauty.
>> LW: One of my favorite things about the genre is the sexual dynamics. The double entendre.
Everything they’re sneaking past the censors.
And this film’s got a lot of that.
>> AP: Those two are hot, hot, hot.
It’s all about the “hoi-toi-toi”.
Film critic Andrew Sarris said, “Screwball Comedy is a sex comedy without the sex.” How right he was.
We’ve talked about the elements that led to the advent of Screwball Comedy.
One of them was severe censorship on all films of the period.
There could be no visual depictions of sex.
There could not be references in the dialogue.
These clever, crafty writers had to work their way around to get their points across.
And we are the beneficiaries.
Because it is indirect.
It’s oblique.
Double entendre, innuendo.
It’s subtle and fun.
>> LW: When we had our technical difficulty, I thought, Barbara Stanwyck melted the celluloid!
She did.
She’s so amazing.
Was anyone here for Arthur Lyons Film Noir when we screened “Double Indemnity” (1944)?
That was fun to see on the big screen.
She had a tough life, right? She was a tough broad.
>> AP: Very tough.
We’ve talked about her in the Film Series.
She acted across all film-genres.
She’s beloved as a Screwball heroine, and performed in eight Screwball Comedies.
We had “The Lady Eve” (1941), in which she is amazing.
Two others that come to mind besides today’s film are “The Mad Miss Manton” (1938) and “Remember the Night” (1940).
She was so talented.
She’s one of our most revered actors of all time.
She had the ability to have audiences root for her.
We want her to succeed, even when she is playing unsavory characters.
That’s a gift.
Think of today’s role.
She is authentic.
She’s earthy, and attractive.
But she’s also a schemer.
She is opportunistic.
But we still root for her.
>> LW: That face. That look she gives “Ms. Bragg”, when she’s won.
>> AP: She’s a con.
>> LW: This movie also has a lot of classic Screwball elements.
There’s the role reversal.
There’s the cross-class conflict with the mobsters interacting with the ivory tower-types.
>> AP: Let’s take a moment and talk about that. We’ve discussed the construct of a Screwball Comedy.
It starts as a Satire.
That’s what differentiates it from a Romantic Comedy. You’re satirizing courtship and marriage, and traditional institutions.
At the center of the action is a mismatched couple. They’re often from different social-backgrounds.
Here we have a highly educated professor, articulate.
And the singer from the wrong side of the tracks.
You see, through the movie, the evolution.
They change each other for the better.
At the end, he gets out of his mind. He gets physical with her. And he gets physical in the fist fight.
And she changes, from being drawn to mobsters, to socializing with the professors.
So, it gives us hope, as an audience, that there can be harmony for people getting together from different social backgrounds.
>> LW: I love the slang in this movie.
It’s spectacular.
I wish there was a list of all that delicious 1940s slang.
>> AP: The slang had to speak to (co-writer) Billy Wilder as the immigrant.
He came from Europe, he did not know English well. He was partnered with Charles Brackett, highly educated.
I’m sure this film spoke to them, about how difficult language is, and when you’re out of it.
The irony is that you have this grammarian, who is so out of touch with modern language.
That’s funny.
But the plot is put into place by the garbage man, the slangy garbage man teaching “Professor Potts”.
He doesn’t know what’s going on in education.
Even though the slang is dated to us now, is the concept of slang dated?
No, it’s timeless.
Let’s think about all the techno-jargon we’re assaulted with through social media.
Twitter, Instagram, and all the abbreviations and shorthand we deal with and try to figure out all the time.
Language is always evolving. It’s always changing. If we don’t keep up with it, we’re going to be left behind.
>> LW: All the time.
I can’t understand half the things that Gen Z say.
I’m like, now I feel old.
This is our third Howard Hawks Film.
We had “Bringing Up Baby” (1938).
Then “His Girl Friday” (1940), with director Howard Hawks.
He worked with Gregg Toland, the same cinematographer.
Is that right?
>> AP: Correct.
>> LW: Had they worked together before?
>> AP: I’d have to check. I believe this is their most famous collaboration.
Director Howard Hawks, we’ve talked about him several times.
So I won’t cover old territory.
I want to repeat that he was a master of all film genres and especially beloved in Screwball Comedy. His signature is, you see this thread throughout his films, characters in-conflict can change each other for the better. You see that here.
And it’s very inspiring. He’s fantastic.
And cinematographer Gregg Toland, who brought out a new dimension unseen in other Screwball Comedies. Because of his extraordinary cinematography.
He’s best known for “Citizen Kane” (1941).
He received six Academy Award nominations, and won one.
And he had innovations in cinematography, particularly with what is called “Deep Focus”, where you have background in focus, mid-range in focus, and the foreground in focus, all together in one scene.
That allowed filmmakers to have more in the scene, in terms of people and props.
If you think of the scenes where the professors are in the great room. And their desks, books, and materials are there.
Gregg Toland’s innovation is perception like the human eye, where you see many things in-focus.
He also worked with light and shadow.
His innovations led to the Film Noir genre, with all their lights and shadows.
He photographed Barbara Stanwyck beautifully.
She’s never looked more attractive, than when he had his camera focused on her.
We’ve had a deep dive into Screwball Comedy, and we know the writing is what is different about these movies.
It goes back to these strong scripts.
They’re so witty, funny, and clever.
And they interweave social issues and thought-provoking things that go on.
I’d like to leave you with a quote from director Steven Spielberg, about writing. It’s an excerpt from his speech when he received the Irving Thalberg Award.
Spielberg said, “Most of my life has been spent in the dark watching movies. Movies have been the literature of my life. The literature of Irving Thalberg’s generation was books and plays. They read the great words of the great minds. I think in our romance with technology, we’ve lost something that we need to reclaim. It’s time for us to renew our romance with the written word. I’m as culpable as anyone in having exalted the image at the expense of the word.”
When you think of it, ingenious plots, witty dialogue, zany characters, all the great social issues: that’s Screwball Comedy.
That’s why we’re here.🎥
Film Society of Screwball Comedy®
Edited by Aliece Pickett
Copyright 2025