Romantic Comedy: In Hollywood, from Lubitsch to Sturges » (DA CAPO)

James Harvey is a playwright, essayist, critic, and author several books on the movies. His most recent work has appeared in the New York Review of Books and the Threepenny Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

"In 1934 four movies— It Happened One Night, Twentieth Century, The Thin Man, and The Gay Divorcee —ushered in the golden age of the Hollywood romantic (""screwball"") comedy. Slangy, playful, and ""power"

Library Journal

This 1987 volume follows the screwball comedy from its birth in the late 1920s to its demise at the end of the 1940s. Along with Ernst Lubitsch and Preston Sturges, this also profiles the leading actors and directors who made romantic comedy a fine art. LJ's reviewer wrote, "Harvey succeeds on all fronts by conveying his love for the subject, by meticulous attention to detail, and by quoting liberally from the films themselves. A treasury of good reading and information" (LJ 11/1/87).