Film School Drop Outs Challenge 2017 - Week 6 - Genre - Romance - Screw Ball Comedy

“Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.”
― Henry Kissinger

The only Screwball Comedy I had seen before now was His Girl Friday. It was a real doozy of a film, a thrilling depiction of a highly entertaining battle between a divorced couple, played by Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, as they go at it hammer and tongs. It felt like I had court-side seats to a tennis open grand final as the couple traded verbal zingers back and forth with panache and force until one of them lobbed up an opportunity for…

I wonder if Marilyn Monroe ever watched this film?

What I seem to be doing at the moment with my filmwatching is starting to plug some holes in my cinematic knowledge. It has been inadvertent but I had noticed that particular pattern had emerged in the last few weeks or so.

What with me having broken my Paul Thomas Anderson duck last night, making vague noises about watching more musicals, and even dipped my toe into Japanese noir, I now find myself tackling the screwball comedy. I know, sometimes I surprise even myself.

Truth be told, The Awful Truth just happened to be a title that caught my eye - like I say, completely inadvertent. I have ventured into these…

A husband and wife suspect each other of cheating so agree to a divorce. Though neither really wants it. Then, they both try to move on and make the other jealous at the same time. Poor Ralph Bellamy, he's always the rebound guy in these films.

I always cringe when I read the synopsis of these screwball comedies, because it sounds contrived and silly. However, the situations they get themselves into, the dialog, and the interesting side-characters make up for it every time. Especially the dialog.

Leo McCarey doesn't get much recognition as a director, but he did a number of the top comedies as well as more heartfelt films such as Make Way for Tomorrow and An Affair to…

It was famously remarked by the film’s director Leo McCarey upon his acceptance of the Oscar for Best Director for The Awful Truth, “Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture.” This was spoken in reference to the fact that Make Way for Tomorrow had also been released within the same year, and of course it would be easy enough to say that said film is easily the superior effort of McCarey’s, but I also feel that The Awful Truth deserves its time in the spotlight because it’s also a great screwball comedy. Sure, it would be easy enough to say from the offset that it looks incredibly cute but what it is that makes The Awful…

Scavenger Hunt 39
#16 - A film from the 1930's that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture but did not win.

Truthfully, The Awful Truth is awfully awful. Cary Grant is one of my favorite actors ever, but his charisma and wit is not enough to salvage this film.

The editing in this film is terribly inconsistent. It seems like the sound editor didn't know that they could have audio from one track play over multiple shots, and so whenever there is a cut, the audio itself seems to drop out, which leads several scenes feeling awkward and silent, especially considering there is scarcely any music in the film. It doesn't shock me at all that this…

Goddamn it all to hell!!!!

Why can't real life be just this easy, this witty, this effity jeffity effortless????

A simple tale of man and woman marry, take each other for granted, divorce and realise they actually do love each other. But when the man is one Archibald Leach and the woman is the adorable Irene Dunn, well, bugger me, if it's not just the utter purest fucking joy.

Unlike some of Grant's other famous screwball comedies, this doesn't have the rat-a-tat dialogue, it doesn't have the contrived backdrop or context, it's relatively straight forward. But every second sparkles with an ease and a casual swagger to it that seems to come from the almost wholly improvised approach the director…