Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges

by James Harvey

Overview

In 1934 four movies—It Happened One Night, Twentieth Century, The Thin Man, and The Gay Divorcee—ushered in the golden age of the Hollywood romantic ("screwball") comedy. Slangy, playful, and "powerfully, glamorously in love with love," the films that followed were unique in their combination of swank and slapstick. Here are the directors—Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise), Capra (It Happened One Night), Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday), McCarey (The Awful Truth), La Cava (My Man Godfrey, Stage Door), Sturges (The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle at Morgan's Creek)—and their stars—Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, William Powell, Myrna Loy, among others—all described and analyzed in one comprehensive and delightful volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306808326
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	03/22/1998
Edition description:	DA CAPO
Pages:	734
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

James Harvey is a playwright, essayist, critic, and author several books on the movies. His most recent work has appeared in the New York Review of Books and the Threepenny Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

Cary Grant, William Powell, Fred Astaire, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard -- these are among the beloved stars who joined forces with such talented directors as Frank Capra, George Stevens, Howard Hawks, and Preston Sturges to create the timeless classics of the 1930s and '40s, Hollywood's golden age of romantic comedy. In Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges, James Harvey celebrates that charmed era.

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