From July 5 to August 1, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents Screwball!, a series of eight key films in the Hollywood comedy genre that subverted conventional notions of screen romance for the sake of wringing laughs out of the breakdown of gender and class divisions.

Setting itself apart from the traditional romantic comedy, the screwball comedy came to be defined not only by its lightning-fast pacing and often ludicrous narrative exaggerations but also by its dedication to conflict, featuring romantic relationships sparked by adversarial gibing and combative flirting. Within these pairings, female characters were usually granted a degree of agency not afforded to their male counterparts, acting as pursuers of hapless men who are given no choice but to submit to their paramours' unusual charms. In the utopia of screwball, the quickest route to gender parity and conflict resolution is simply to fall in love.

Beginning roughly in 1934, just before enforcement of the Hays Code would begin to restrict screen content, and tapering off once the United States became involved in World War II, screwball comedy stands alongside film noir as one of the preeminent genres native to the Golden Age of Hollywood. Building on Frank Capra's critical and commercial hit IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Hollywood quickly saw the innate potential of the screwball formula, roping in some of the surest studio hands to direct dialogue dripping with innuendo, often penned by the best comedy writers swiped from Broadway but also frequently improvised on set by a game cast of charismatic contract performers.

While the results didn’t always connect with the public (BRINGING UP BABY earned star Katharine Hepburn the label “box-office poison”), the genre remained a popular mainstay on American screens throughout the Great Depression, often engaging with class in a way that would become increasingly rare in postwar comedies. Despite their often outrageous plot machinations, films like MY MAN GODFREY, EASY LIVING, and THE PALM BEACH STORY were grounded in very real considerations about the strain that money placed on relationships. Screwball audiences were just as likely to see a romance enacted in a hobo encampment or the back of a Greyhound bus as they were in the drawing rooms of high society.

This series showcases the work of major screwball figures like performers Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert, and Carole Lombard; writer Preston Sturges (who penned three of the films in the series, two of which he directed); and directors Gregory La Cava, Leo McCarey, and Mitchell Leisen. We end with the series with two films directed by Howard Hawks, one of the genre’s indisputable masters, including his unjustly overlooked neo-screwball MAN’S FAVORITE SPORT?, which falls outside the genre's classic time-frame but shines a light on its myriad subversive pleasures.

—Cameron Worden, Assistant to Programming