Tag Archives: My Man Godfrey

Hucksters, Phonies and Rubberneckers

Posted on by
Reply

Nothing Sacred (1937) is a key film in that short-lived genre known as ‘the screwball comedy,” a unique Hollywood creation that flourished between 1933 and 1940. Distinguished by its eccentric characters, irreverent humor, and breakneck pacing, these films usually featured privileged but irresponsible characters running amok against the backdrop of the Great Depression when society was in turmoil. But while the idle rich were mercilessly lampooned in the most popular screwball comedy of the previous year – My Man Godfrey (1936) – the whole human race gets dished in Nothing Sacred, from the newspaper industry to a public that enjoys reading sob stories about someone else’s misfortune.

Continue reading →

William A. Seiter’s If You Could Only Cook (1935)

Posted on by
Reply

Whenever the subject of screwball comedy comes up, I usually think of the same handful of titles in this short-lived movie genre which began sometime in the early thirties with such models of the form as Twentieth Century (1934) and It Happened One Night (1934) and ended sometime in the early forties between the time of Preston Sturges’ The Palm Beach Story (1942) and Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).  Like the film noir genre which continues to yield overlooked gems like Crime Wave (1954) and Highway 301 (1950), many lesser known and almost forgotten entries in the screwball comedy category continue to resurface on Turner Classic Movies, reminding us that occasionally you might find a diamond in the rough. Such is the case with If You Could Only Cook (1935).  Continue reading →