Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA on March 12, 2023
TRANSCRIPT
(LAUREN WOLFER:) How do you define “Screwball Comedy”?
(ALIECE PICKETT:) The Term derives from baseball, a “screwball” pitch, which is a pitch with an erratic trajectory to confuse the batter.
From that it worked its way into the lexicon of slang, “screwy” and “you’ve got a screw loose”.
From there, it was used to describe eccentric and unpredictable characters in films that became the “screwball” genre.
>> LW: How would you explain the rise of the “screwball” comedy?
>> AP: Screwball Comedy is not a traditional love story, it’s the opposite.
It’s a satire.
It satirizes courtship, marriage, traditional institutions, and the wealthy.
The center of the action is a couple, mismatched and usually from different social classes.
There is sexually charged-antagonism that substitutes for a sexual relationship, due to censorship rules.
The dialogue is fast and witty.
And it’s not sentimental.
That’s the core.
You can see from its structure and characterization it’s not a traditional love story, not a “Romantic Comedy”.
It derives from social, economic and political factors during the 1920s and 1930s.
There were five factors, the Great Depression; repeal of Prohibition; women participating in society, voting, driving, which led to the relaxation of social mores involving women; the advent of sound transformed the movie industry; and the imposition of severe censorship on all films that were made, specifically regarding visual or verbal allusions or depictions of sex.
>> LW: “Bringing Up Baby” is “slapstick” comedy in many ways.
Is that part of the genre, or is it special to this film?
>> AP: It is not “slapstick” in the way it is also not a “romantic” comedy.
Slapstick is a series of sight-gags strung together.
Think the Three Stooges, the Keystone Cops.
Screwball Comedy does have slapstick elements in it.
You saw it today.
This is probably the most extreme example of slapstick elements.
“David” slipping on the olive, or sliding down the steep embankment, or when they’re crossing the stream and they step into a sinkhole.
And then, famously, the ending of the movie where “Susan” is rocking wildly on the ladder.
Slapstick comedy has inept-use of props as a primary element.
It was popular during the silent era.
It doesn’t need dialogue.
The construct of Screwball Comedy is different than slapstick, but you do see elements of it.
Calling this movie slapstick would be akin to calling “Casablanca” (1942) a musical because Dooley Wilson sings “As Time Goes By”.
>> LW: Howard Hawks brought in a couple of screenwriters to develop this, Hagar Wilde and Dudley Nichols.
What is notable about what they came up with?
>> AP: It’s a fantastic script.
It is hilarious, first and foremost.
It is funny.
That’s what Depression-era audiences needed.
They needed the laughs.
They needed a respite from the suffering and deprivation they were experiencing.
The script delivers it in spades.
Also, the screenplay is original. And it’s very clever.
It’s loaded with double entendre and innuendo, which give it subtlety and nuance.
These writers were inventive.
They wanted to write about what they wanted to write about.
They didn’t want to be dictated to by the Censorship Board.
However, they did comply.
The use of the double entendre and innuendo throughout the movie, that’s very funny.
“Bone” jokes run throughout the film.
There’s so much to love about this script.
>> LW: Speaking of the classic scene with Cary Grant in the negligee, which is hilarious, when he says, “I just went gay all of a sudden!”.
Did he mean it like that?
How old is that slang?
>> AP: The speech “I just went gay all of a sudden!” is the first use by a major movie star in a major movie implying homosexuality for the word “gay”.
This is an example of the double entendre because it also means “happy”.
It was a way he could convey that, without triggering a censorship protest, because it would be alluding to sex, which was strictly verboten.
>> LW: So they got away with it.
They snuck it in under the censors.
>> AP: Cary Grant contributed that line.
It’s so funny, and it goes with the cleverness of the script.
Also, it supports the Screwball element of role-reversal.
Here is the character “David” in a super-feminine negligee with feathers around the collar and on each sleeve, while the Screwball heroine is in a masculine terry cloth robe.
That leads to the other role-reversal of this film.
You’ve got the “hero” being pursued by the Screwball heroine.
That was revolutionary.
>> LW: The cinematography in this movie is different than what we’re used to in contemporary movies.
There are many lengthy, wide shots.
>> AP: A joy to watch.
You’re not being disrupted.
You are in the scene. It’s natural, it’s organic, as if you’re in the room as the scenes are played out with those long shots.
Very spare use of close-ups.
The audience is empowered to view the scene as they will.
Filmmakers must have confidence in the acting, the dialogue, and the scenery.
They have to have confidence the audience will pick up on the important parts of the scene.
Today’s cinematography, with all the quick-cuts and close-ups throughout a film lead the audience by the nose.
They leave no discretion to the audience.
It’s different.
It’s disorienting.
It can be disruptive.
You can’t dive deep into the story because you’re constantly being jostled with the quick-cuts.
An exception is when they’re used artfully and effectively.
What comes to mind is Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1960).
In the shower scene, Alfred Hitchcock uses 52-cuts in that short scene. But how effective it is.
You get anxious.
You’re panicking. You’re feeling disoriented.
All the things he wants us to feel.
That’s an example of when it’s effective. But there’s almost a promiscuous use of editing, quick-cuts and close-ups now, that I don’t think serve the films well.
>> LW: Let’s talk about the director of this film, Howard Hawks.
This is the first Howard Hawks film we have in the series.
“His Girl Friday” (1940) and “Ball Of Fire” (1941), also directed by him.
Tell me about Howard Hawks.
>> AP: He is in the pantheon of great directors, not just in Hollywood’s Golden Era.
He is a titan.
What makes him revered is he was a master of multiple-genres.
We discussed Frank Capra’s particular aesthetic, celebrating the common man and the innate goodness of people.
These threads, motifs, run through almost every film of his.
He has a distinctive footprint.
Howard Hawks made movies in every genre.
And they’re all masterpieces.
He made comedies, adventures, westerns, gangster-films.
They’re all fantastic.
He was able to move from genre-to-genre beautifully.
He’s timeless.
>> LW: He had a connection to Palm Springs.
I know Cary Grant does.
>> AP: They both do.
They both had deep roots in Palm Springs.
Cary Grant’s first home was on Palm Canyon. It’s now home to Copley’s Restaurant.
The house remains mostly intact in its original condition.
You can walk through the house and absorb and feel the history of the home.
The other home he’s most known for is in the Movie Colony on Avenida Palmas.
It has his initials on the gate.
He lived there for decades.
Likewise, director Howard Hawks from this film also lived in Palm Springs for decades on Stevens Road in Old Las Palmas.
>> LW: Cary Grant is perfect in this movie.
>> AP: This was different, as you mentioned.
This was 180-degrees different than any role he had played.
He played suave and charming, the leading man, the hero.
Here, he’s bespeckled, and uptight, rigid, socially awkward, and struggling the whole time.
And he plays it beautifully.
He took a big gamble playing this role.
He didn’t know how the public would respond to him in this awkward–.
>> LW: He’s dorky, he’s adorably dorky.
>> AP: And it works.
He mastered the dialogue and characterization of an intellectual, of an academian, and also someone who was uptight.
This film required intense physicality.
He mastered that because of his background as an acrobat and vaudevillian.
He was able to do this work effortlessly, and it shows.
You can’t picture anybody in this part but Cary Grant.
>> LW: It’s amazing too, how perfect Katharine Hepburn is, when it was so foreign to her.
She’s the perfect Screwball heroine.
>> AP: She also was very athletic.
So the physical came easily.
The persona of a flighty, dizzy, madcap, crazy-in-love woman, was different for her.
She, like Cary Grant, had never played a role like this.
She took a big gamble.
She had always played serious-minded characters.
She’s a commanding presence on screen in her movies.
And here, so different.
She’s so effective.
She’s never been more charming, more effervescent, and adorable.
You’re rooting for her.
You want her to get together with “David”.
You know he needs her.
He needs that frivolity in his life because he’s so straight-laced.
And you know she’s going to let it loose.
Anyone who’s been crazy-in-love knows that feeling.
You just can’t stop thinking about him.
You’ve got to be with him.
You’ll do anything.
And she conveys that perfectly.
>> LW: She shows him there’s more to life than just being dignified.
>> AP: Exactly. Forget dignity.
The sad thing is, our loss as audience, it was the one and only role she played like this, never to return to this type of character again.🎥
Film Society of Screwball Comedy®
Edited by Aliece Pickett
Copyright 2025