Editing Screwball comedy (section)

==History==
Screwball comedy has proved to be a popular and enduring film genre.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sarris |first=Andrew |date=March 1, 1978 |title=THE SEX COMEDY WITHOUT SEX |volume=3 |pages=8–15 |work=American Film |issue=5 |location=New York |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/964099959 |access-date=December 19, 2022|id={{ProQuest|964099959}} }}</ref> ''[[Three-Cornered Moon]]'' (1933), starring [[Claudette Colbert]], is often credited as the first true screwball,<ref name="Three">[https://www.allmovie.com/movie/three-cornered-moon-vm1070978 ''Three-Cornered Moon''] AllMovie review by Craig Butler, accessed October 28, 2023</ref> though ''[[Bombshell (1933 film)|Bombshell]]'' starring [[Jean Harlow]] followed it in the same year. Although many film scholars agree that its classic period had effectively ended by 1942,<ref>
{{cite book 
 | last1 = Byrge
 | first1 = Duane
 | last2  = Miller
 | first2 = Robert Milton
 | title = The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 1934&ndash;1942
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=SK5ZAAAAMAAJ&q=screwball+comedy+1940
 | year = 1991
 | publisher = McFarland
 | isbn = 978-0-89950-539-8
 | page = 104
 | quote = With the explosive exception of His Girl Friday, screwball comedy had calmed considerably by 1940 from its peak of zaniness in 1937–38.
}}</ref> elements of the genre have persisted or have been paid homage to in later films. Other film scholars argue that the screwball comedy lives on.

During the [[Great Depression]], there was a general demand for films with a strong social class critique and hopeful, escapist-oriented themes. The screwball format arose largely due to the major film studios' desire to avoid censorship by the increasingly enforced [[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]]. Filmmakers resorted to handling these elements covertly to incorporate prohibited risqué elements into their plots. The verbal sparring between the sexes served as a stand-in for physical and sexual tension.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/comedy/historicalcontext.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120805215834/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/comedy/historicalcontext.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 5, 2012 |title=Under the Radar: The Hays Code and the Birth of Screwball |publisher=[[University of Virginia]] |website=virginia.edu |access-date=21 March 2018}}</ref> Though some film scholars, such as [[William K. Everson]], argue that "screwball comedies were not so much rebelling against the Production Code as they were attacking{{snd}} and ridiculing{{snd}} the dull, lifeless respectability that the Code insisted on for family viewing."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Hollywood Bedlam: Classic Screwball Comedies |last=Everson |first=William K. |publisher=Carol Publishing Group |year=1994 |location=New York}}</ref>

The screwball comedy has close links with the [[theatre|theatrical]] genre of [[farce]],<ref name=":0">{{cite book |title=Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference |last=Gehring |first=Wes D. |publisher=Scarecrow Press Inc. |year=2008 |location=Lanham |page=186}}</ref> and some comic plays are also described as screwball comedies. Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include [[slapstick]], [[situation comedy]], [[romantic comedy]] and [[bedroom farce]].