Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA on May 21, 2023
TRANSCRIPT
(LAUREN WOLFER:) What makes a Screwball Comedy?
(ALIECE PICKETT:) We’ve covered, in the film series, the origins of the Screwball Comedy.
We’ve defined it, we’ve contrasted it with Romantic Comedy, and we’ve celebrated the Screwball heroine.
The origins, socially, politically, economically, were the Great Depression, the repeal of Prohibition, greater freedoms for women to start entering into society; and in Hollywood, the advent of sound film and the imposition of severe censorship.
We talked about the Screwball Comedy is a satire on courtship and marriage, traditional institutions.
At the center you have a couple that is mismatched.
There’s rapid-fire dialogue, and it’s not sentimental.
We contrasted that with the Romantic Comedy, which is a traditional love story with a dominant man, generally a passive woman, and he overcomes obstacles and wins her as a prize.
She has her satisfaction knowing she completes him.
We celebrated the Screwball heroine, who is self-determined and overturns normal courtship rules.
She’s on equal footing with men, and she gives as good as she gets.
>> LW: Literally, in this film.
It’s a surprise when Myrna Loy proposes.
It’s a beautiful part of Screwball.
The ultimate Screwball heroine is going to propose unexpectedly.
>> AP: You get two heroines in this film.
You have two “anti”-heroes with these two gentlemen.
You get two for the price of one with this film.
>> LW: This is the third in the series that’s dealt with newspapers and the press, and “His Girl Friday” (1940) is coming up.
Why was that a common element in Screwball films?
>> AP: You see newspapers and the press in Screwball Comedy for two reasons primarily: One, many former journalists were writing screenplays.
At the advent of sound, Hollywood needed accomplished writers, and they paid top dollar.
They pulled from all disciplines, novelists, playwrights, and journalists came to Hollywood.
Like many accomplished writers, they wrote what they knew.
They had intimate familiarity with the newsroom, being former reporters.
They understood, having known that milieu, the “underbelly”.
They knew the abuses that go on with the press, whether you call it “yellow” journalism, “jazz” journalism, “tabloid” journalism, or today’s “fake news”.
The power of the press can affect public opinion and public policy, and it can be abused.
It was a ripe subject for satire.
That’s why it’s skewered so often in Screwball Comedy.
Here you have an unscrupulous owner.
I’m going to quote from the film, because I think it’s important to focus on this.
Behind the laughs, there are serious issues.
The owner of the newspaper says, “I’ve fought Allenbury for 20 years. I’ve kept him out of the Senate. And when they wanted to make him an ambassador, I stopped it.”
Not once does he say Mr. Allenbury did anything illegal, unethical, or wrong; that he had a grudge; or that he even knew him.
We’re left to infer he was probably from the “wrong” political party.
And he’s going to double-down on the wrongdoing of the press by getting a con man (“fixer”) to put this woman in a compromising position after learning from the newspapers lawyers she has a meritorious libel suit.
She has already been wronged and damaged.
Not a pretty picture.
>> LW: The principal screenplay writer had a background in journalism.
>> AP: (Maurine Dallas Watkins) was a trailblazer.
She started out working the courtroom-beat in Chicago, then answered the call to write screenplays in Hollywood.
She came out, and she was tenacious.
An ugly truth about Hollywood is women struggled to get acknowledged.
They’re still struggling.
These women writers, it didn’t matter how accomplished they were, would become “staff” writers, but they wouldn’t be credited, and they didn’t get the high wages.
They were “staff” and weren’t acknowledged.
The men writers got the credit.
You’ll notice on this film, Maurine Dallas Watkins is on the screen credits.
She was tenacious.
She is known today primarily for this film and the play “Chicago”, which became the film “Roxie Hart”, starring Ginger Rogers in 1942, and then the movie “Chicago” (2002) that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
>> LW: Let’s talk about, going back to the credits, the Art Director on this film, Cedric Gibbons, MGM’s legend.
I’m looking at the apartment and it has those Art Deco touches, Greco-Roman motif and all of those classics.
>> AP: And the cruise ship is loaded with Art Deco, his stateroom, and the dining room where they meet.
>> LW: And the “Allenbury” mansion.
Why is Cedric Gibbons important to Screwball Comedy?
His fingers are on a lot of these films.
He’s huge.
>> AP: The audience can use Cedric Gibbons’ name, drop it at cocktail parties, and impress people.
He is the former Director of the Art Department of MGM, back in the day.
In 1925, Cedric Gibbons attended a design exposition in Paris, and it was radical.
It was about current trends in architecture, design, and clothing.
Out was fussy, Victorian style with elaborate carved woods, and clothing with heavy fabrics, high necklines and low hemlines.
Think of Victorian housing with all the differing wood patterns of siding and the many colors.
The mantra of Victorian is, “More is more”.
You see heavy floral wallpapers.
He attends this exposition and learns about Art Deco being about glass, chrome, lacquered woods, shiny fabrics, rich satins and velvets.
And the clothing.
Not only was it not high-necked, but scoop-necks and no sleeves, and fitted toward the body, and higher hemlines.
Fabric patterns were geometrics, and Chevron zigzags.
It was revolutionary.
The mantra of Art Deco is “Less is more”, the exact opposite of Victorian.
He brought this back.
His mind was blown.
He immediately started incorporating Art Deco into his set design.
Today, audiences most remember Art Deco probably not through MGM films, because the other studios copied Cedric Gibbons.
You probably most remember the Art Deco sets of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in their musicals, those breathtaking sets.
But it all started with Cedric Gibbons.
We’re going to talk more about Art Deco later in the film series when we get to “My Man Godfrey” (1936).
The “Bullock” apartment, wow! It’s an Art Deco paradise.
>> LW: More William Powell and more Art Deco–sign me up.
Jean Harlow, I just adore her.
She has the best screen presence.
Everyone adores her.
She’s the perfect heroine for that look.
Myrna Loy is amazing as well.
But in the sleek gowns and with the Cedric Gibbons sets, it’s just so perfect.
What’s her status in the world of Screwball Comedy?
>> AP: She is an icon.
She’s also known as Screwball’s first heroine.
The reason is because in 1933 she starred in a movie that was very different from any other movie, called “Bombshell” (1933).
It was directed by Victor Fleming of “Gone With The Wind” (1939) and “Wizard of Oz” (1939) fame.
But in “Bombshell”, she delivered rapid-fire dialogue.
It was shocking.
But she still retained being a sex goddess.
Here she is with the banter, one-upmanship, and the kooky physicality.
She hit all those marks with the men while retaining her “sex goddess” look.
But she came off the pedestal.
She became our first “Screwball heroine”.
>> LW: She’s a force of nature.
I would not want Jean Harlow to yell at me.
And this movie was remade, right?
>> AP: 10 years later, “Easy To Wed” (1946), with Lucille Ball in the part of “Gladys”.
>> LW: I have not seen the film, but I can picture it.
How does she compare to Jean Harlow?
>> AP: She (Lucille Ball) matches Jean Harlow in her extreme beauty, and her willingness to be the butt of the joke, to be the clown.
So few actresses that are that beautiful and known as sex goddesses will allow themselves to be the butt of the joke.
Both Jean Harlow and Lucille Ball did that.
Lucille Ball, you see through her Screwball Comedies, a decade later than Jean Harlow’s, the development of the comic force she became as she evolved into the “Lucy Ricardo” character in our beloved “I Love Lucy” series.
Side note, the Film Society’s Screwball Comedy has compiled a comprehensive database of Screwball Comedy films. It will be available on the Film Society’s website. Visitors to the website can click on different films, years, directors, stars.
They will be able to look up Lucille Ball and see her list of Screwball Comedies.
For instance, one of my favorite Screwball Comedies is a Lucille Ball comedy.
It’s not well known today, called “Miss Grant Takes Richmond” (1949).
I hope to show it at a future film series.
>> LW: I’ve not heard of that one, but I trust your taste.
Let’s wrap up our discussion with the classic, iconic fishing scene.
When William Powell was flopping around and the fish is flopping, it’s so good.
>> AP: It is impeccable physicality, physical comedy.
You can see from the close-up and long extended takes of the fishing scene, it is not a body-double.
William Powell did it all.
It is iconic, not only for Screwball Comedy, but comedy in general.
It was filmed on location in Sonora.
More important than that is what William Powell was doing as an actor.
When you think of William Powell, the audience thinks of urbane sophistication.
They’re going to think of “The Thin Man” (1934).
Here’s a man who is charming, and in control.
And what do we see in that fishing scene?
We see someone out of control.
He is losing it.
He’s going down the stream in his wet, floppy hat, gripping for his life onto the fishing rod as he’s being dragged down the stream.
He’s flailing around, he’s floundering.
We know he’s not an expert.
We know he’s not doing well at it.
And we love him for it.
He is the newspaper’s “fixer”.
He’s the “anti”-hero.
He’s trying to maneuver this woman into a compromising position.
And we love him for it.
>> LW: When the book gets away from him, “Oh no, they’re going to find the book.
They’re going to know”.
>> AP: We still root for him all the way.
That’s how effective he is, and why he’s one of our most beloved actors of all time.
And why this movie is so special.
>> LW: You’re special, Aliece, and thank you.
It is a joy to be back here on stage with you.🎥
Film Society of Screwball Comedy®
Edited by Aliece Pickett
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