screwball comedy

[6] Tom Hanks made the leap from TV star (Bosom Buddies) to film star with this raunchy sex comedy about a soon-to-be-married man who must resist temptation while his friends throw him a bachelor party. Hanks’ all-American boy scout personality shines through in Bachelor Party, so you never have to worry that he would ever betray his fiancée’s wishes and succumb to temptation. But he’s …

[6] Cary Grant plays a widower who remarries seven years after his first wife (Irene Dunne) disappears at sea. While on his honeymoon with wife number two (Gail Patrick), he’s shocked to discover Dunne survived her ordeal and is ready to rejoin her family. This comedy of errors co-written and produced by Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth) sees Grant charged with bigamy and on the …

[8] Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck star in this lively screwball comedy from director Howard Hawks. Cooper is working on a new encyclopedia with seven other scholars when he realizes the group is woefully uneducated in the world of contemporary slang. So he hits the streets to research and stumbles upon a wisecracking lounge singer named Sugarpuss O’Shea, played by Stanwyck. He invites her to …

[8] Irene Dunne and Cary Grant star as a couple who file for divorce, then proceed to thwart each other’s attempts to socialize with new partners. Both are too proud to admit they still have feelings for the other until the divorce proceedings have nearly come to a close. Under the direction of Leo McCarey (Make Way for Tomorrow), Dunne and Grant deliver some of …

[7] A filthy rich, alcoholic man-boy is threatened with disinheritance if he doesn’t immediately marry a well-to-do woman his family has approved for him. Trouble is, the flyboy suddenly finds himself infatuated with a lower-class shoplifter. Will true love triumph over the all-mighty dollar? Arthur, written and directed by Steve Gordon, is a welcome, class-oriented throwback to screwball comedies of the ’30s and ’40s. It’s …

[7] A homemaking writer (Barbara Stanwyck) finds herself in a jam after her magazine editor (Sydney Greenstreet) invites himself and a wounded war hero (Dennis Morgan) to her house for Christmas dinner to experience the life she writes about. Trouble is, she isn’t anything she claims to be in her articles — she’s not married, does not have a baby, doesn’t live on a beautiful …

[8] If you told me I’d enjoy a movie about a unabashed gold-digger and her showgirl best friend traveling to Paris while trying to pull the wool over the eyes of a private detective attempting to catch one of them in an act of infidelity to his client’s son — I’d have said probably not. But it turns out the gold-digger is played by the …

[8] Jack Weston stars in this gay-themed screwball comedy based on a stage play by Terrence McNally (Love! Valour! Compassion!). Weston plays a frumpy, middle-aged man hiding out in a New York bath house from a brother (Jerry Stiller) who plans to kill him so he won’t inherit the family business. At the bath house, Weston meets a handful of bizarre characters who end up …

[8] Bob Hoskins stars as a 1940s Hollywood detective who is reluctantly pulled into a murder investigation in which the prime suspect is a cartoon rabbit. Can he overcome his hatred of ‘toons’ and prove Roger Rabbit’s innocence? Or will the real culprit get away with much more than murder? Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Romancing the Stone) directs this hybrid blend of animation …

[6] Carole Landis and John Hubbard star as a bickering husband and wife who each believes the other has the easier life. They wish upon a statue of Buddha to trade places, and lo and behold, their wish comes true. Husband then has to deal with the house staff and a conniving wives’ group, while wife has to deal with the corporate business environment. A …

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