Screwball Comedy: A New Golden Age?

There’s not much of a silver lining to be found in our current black cloud of a national crisis.  Even the good news -- a candidate who really does seem to be about changing the status quo may win the election -- is undercut by the realization that his presidency has already been pre-crippled by our current administration’s mismanagement and misdeeds.  Things have gotten so dire on every front that even the national tumult of a couple months ago, as Gail Collins points out in a recent column, seems like the good old days in retrospect.

There is, however, one tiny island of cheer to be glimpsed amidst the roiling floodwaters.  This shit storm’s a goldmine for screwball comedy.

Our modern romantic comedy genre was founded on the screwballs of the Great Depression.  Back then, in the wake of a fatal market crash, against a backdrop of plummeted fortunes and massive unemployment, men and women whose lives had become unmoored went sparring and cavorting around a figurative asylum taken over by lunatics; the rich were dumb and greedy, while the poor were smart and starving -- anyone who knew anything knew that the powers-that-be had screwed up good.

Sound familiar?

Today, true to the screwball sensibility, figures of authority have become figures of fun: for the past few weeks the President of the United States seemed like a running gag, the irrelevant tweety-bird in a blackly-comical cuckoo clock, briefly popping out of the White House at odd intervals to tell us the wrong time.  Then there’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the former exalted financial wizard turned into reviled, stuttering ninny who, lacking only a monocle, looks just like a character actor playing a corrupt financier in a black-and-white 1930s RKO pic. 

Calling Preston Sturges – though actually, reality’s already playing as though that late, great writer-director were writing the scripts.  A fun-loving, six-pack swilling teenager gets his girlfriend pregnant (think a modern-day Eddie Bracken in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek), only to have her mom suddenly become a vice presidential candidate.  And then – this is vintage Sturges – Mom’s wily political team figures out a way to spin what could’ve been scandal into campaign capital (“No, see, this makes her a good role model!”) as the poor teen gets strong-armed into a shotgun marriage.  It’s quintessential screwball rom-com fare.

Satirist Sturges would have appreciated it, when after a week that saw one of the ugliest, most hate-mongering campaigns in recent political history suddenly try to make nice, we were treated to this bit of priceless dialogue:

Woman at campaign rally:  I’ve heard that Senator Obama is an Arab.
Republican candidate:  No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man and citizen.

Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder, both fond of lampooning hypocrisy, couldn’t have written it better: the seeming piety and peace-making that can’t mask the appalling, inherent racism in McCain’s reply (all Arabs, evidently, are indecent and have no families, let alone any government allegiance).

When Saturday Night Live merely has to have Tina Fey quote Sarah Palin verbatim to get laughs, you know we’ve entered a new realm of post-modern irony.  But if you’re tired of hearing meant-to-be-taken seriously lines that are bleakly, grimly amusing, then the witty, often cynically acerbic screwballs of the Depression ought to top your Netflix queue this week; the travails of their protagonists will make perfect sense to modern-day viewers. 

As Daniel M. Kimmel, author of the new book I’ll Have What She’s Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies points out, screwballs like It Happened One Night, Easy Living and My Man Godfrey are “movies in which people who are poor or working stiffs get to show up the wealthy as spoiled, greedy, stupid or simply in need of commonsense guidance.”

My Man Godfrey in particular seems ripe for a remake, if it could be greenlit and fast-tracked by a studio that still has some cash in its coffers.  This 1936 classic (written by Morrie Ryskind & Eric Hatch, directed by Gregory La Cava) featured Carole Lombard as a ditzy heiress, looking for a “forgotten man” as an item in a scavenger hunt, who picks up homeless tramp William Powell at a city dump.  Their cute-meet conversation has an apt resonance:

Irene: Could you tell me why you live in a place like this when there's so many other nice places?
Godfrey: You really want to know?
Irene: Oh, I'm very curious.
Godfrey: It's because my real estate agent felt that the altitude would be very good for my asthma.
Irene: Oh, my uncle has asthma!
Godfrey: No!

Puts me in mind of what might happen when a person who, say, owns countless homes and thinks $5 mil a year makes you middle class, confronts someone who has no home and empty pockets.  Another line spoken by Godfrey could be spoken by any American in October, 2008: “The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job.”

I’m seeing a nicely unshaven George Clooney opposite Tea Leoni in the updated Godfrey, but on the other hand, who needs remakes when tomorrow’s newspaper headlines furnish plot a-plenty for a new Golden Age of Screwball?  Let’s see: How about one where a professional comedian decides to run for state senate (Al Franken himself can pen it, if he loses to Norm Coleman in Minnesota and has some time on his hands)?  Or one where a ditzy Vice Presidential candidate who’s only been in the public eye for less than six weeks keeps saying that nobody really knows the guy who’s been running for President for two years?  And talks about going after the Washington insiders who’ve been abusing their power, the day after she’s been charged with abuse of power?

Screwball plots don’t get any screwier than seeing some guys whose business had to seek an $85 billion bailout from the Fed, spend nearly half a mil of it on a retreat to reward their management… then ask for and receive an additional $37 billion.

Like they say, you couldn’t make this stuff up.  Meanwhile, we can only hope that before too long, today’s financial crisis really does become the basis for relieved laughter instead of lasting disaster.  Because the glum humor of Godfrey talking to his friend Mike in that ever-relevant movie is sounding all too timely:

Godfrey: Opportunity is just around the corner.
Mike: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.

Comments

[E.C. Henry]

"I’ll Have What She’s Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies" by Daniel M. Kimmel, nice to see you so receptive to giving the competition some pub, Billy.

If the screwball comedy does make a comeback, who in this modern era do you see spearheading its charge? Given my belief that artists change over time, do you think Judd Apatow would ever foray into something like this?

I've written one screwball comedy, and a sequel to it. Would LOVE to hook-up with someone willing to do it. Currently there's a movie in production with a simular backdrop to what I've written, "Zookeeper." But let me reassure you the logline for what I've written is very different from "Zookeeper's." Anyway, if you know anyone willing to play, would love a shout-out going my way. Even put a few political jabs in it -- though I think its pretty hard to sustain political slam hummor as the main thrust of a movie plot.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Christian H.]

Wow, that would be knee-slapping hilarious if it wasn't so ultimately sad.

We do need some real changes in this country. The same old trickle-down rhetoric will take us farther down the path towards mediocrity.

It is a shame that McCain chose so "strangely." I don't think I want my VP to wink at me all the time.
Palin totally reminded me of Sally Field in "PunchLine" when she was imitating John Goodman.

I mean she's a hot MILF but Hillary is the look of a VP, not Tina Fey (no offense, Tina).

I was watching the debate and was really uncomfortable. Her stance was "vote for me cause I'm hot and McCain likes my baby factory. Hell, my daughter's well on her way too. I bet Obama's daughter can't be that kind of role model."

WTF?

America wake the hell up. We have to move forward. Sure we can laugh about this some other time but the choice is clear.

Moving forward = Obama. Moving backward = McCain.

My current career choice is pretty much recession-proof as every company needs a web site and support for it, but plenty of people will be out in the cold if things get much worse.

Though I can say that according to my research there needs to be a major gain in average selling prices of PCs for this to really go away.

I don't think Intel is going to let that happen because they only care about squashing competition by lowering prices to beyond what their only competitor can afford.

[Dan Kimmel]

I appreciate the plug for my book. Thanks!

I think you're right that the times call romantic comedies with some bite, like "My Man Godfrey," but I'd rather see something new and original rather than a remake. After all, they did remake it (with David Niven and June Allyson) in the 1950s, and they shouldn't have bothered.

[j]

"Screwball" is such a nice word for what's happening right now in the US of A.

I prefer to call it "completely effing stupid" myself. Also, sometimes I call it "really scary for those of us slowly being crushed by an anvil of bills..."

[pw]

I hope the apolitical Billy returns next week.

[Judith Duncan]

Billy,you nailed it! All I can say is,"Amen to that brother,amen"
Cheers,
Judith

[binnie]

NO NO NO, pw, EVERYTHING is political! I've been loving these posts.

[chris]

i've loved "Godfrey" for years and hope nobody tries to remake it (again). Lombard's performance in that just can't be touched. i wish they wouldn't even try.

[Joanna Farnsworth]

Yet again, Mernit's brilliance sifts through the muck to dig out the truth. And since the beginning of movies, nothing makes better fodder for the industry than fact.

For the British version of the Godfrey re-make, I say we make the heiress a WAG ("Footballers' wife/girlfriend" for those not familiar with the term) and the working-stiff the bank analyst who took the fall for her broker!

That should add originality!

[mernitman]

EC: Someone in the Apatow camp is bound to throw us a screwball, if not the man himself. The upcoming GET HIM TO THE GREEK may be one.

Christian: To paraphrase what someone in the NY Times noted recently -- Palin's ability to handle an SNL appearance doesn't make her look any more qualified for the White House.

Dan: The idea of a GODFREY remake was facetious (I generally don't heart remakes). Thanks for the visit -- I'm enjoying the book.

J: The weight of it has actually thrown my back out.

PW: Sorry to disappoint you, but I fear he may be gone for good.

Back atcha, Judith.

Thank you, Binnie! (And I hope you had a great L.A. visit)

Chris: Better to do a radical rethink (i.e. "based on the idea of") than to even attempt. Anyway... Lombard lives!

Go for it, Joanna.