Since I don't have cable, I checked JustWatch, and it says "Libeled Lady" is on Criterion. I started to play the movie just to make sure (feel free to delete this post once it's no longer necessary).
At last! Someone else who's seen Libeled Lady and thinks the scene of William Powell (one of my absolute favs from that period) fly fishing is absolutely hilarious. You've made my day.
My daughter (21 at the time) and I saw it (virtually) at the 2021 Sundance festival and I really liked it. She did too, which says something because she normally isn't very adventurous. I think she loved just how weird it was. It was playing at the Brattle (I think) not too long ago and I bet the theater experience would have been even better.
re the screwball comedy list: how do we define screwball these days? as a more boisterous than usual rom-com (still hate the term, but resigned to it…)?
I don’t remember where I got this definition, mighta been Basinger or Wood or who knows who else, but it was where a woman acts as a chaos agent to stay close to and eventually overcome the resistance of her desired fella. it’s too restrictive, and occasionally the gender dynamic is reversed (His Girl Friday), but I confess to liking its geeky specificity. These days “screwball” is often used to indicate a high zaniness score, which does leech away at the sense of screwball as particular romantic madness, love that confounds our sense of identity and breaks through our reserves so we’re willing to do anything to pursue our desired one no matter how dizzy and out-of-character, how far it takes us from who we think we are…
But even outside the narrow confines of that definition I don’t get how To Be or Not to Be fits since there is no courtship involved…. Don’t even see how it fits into the broken marriage/reunion subgenre.
Two lesser cited but lovely ones in the package imo: Theodora Goes Wild and Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.
And an obscure one I discovered last year on TCM, had never heard of it, and it’s a delightful little sleeper: Out of the Blue (1947), with George Brent and Ann Dvorak playing against type and having a swell time. Also a great supporting cast, but Dvorak takes top honors as a really thirsty chaos agent, a real wild woman. It’s on this week, Wednesday I think, and entirely worth the space on your DVR.
Anyway, beg pardon for the little bit of pedantic re screwball definition. The one I offered is impossibly restrictive, but I hate the loosening of the term that pretty much robs it of any meaning at all.
Hey Ty,
Since I don't have cable, I checked JustWatch, and it says "Libeled Lady" is on Criterion. I started to play the movie just to make sure (feel free to delete this post once it's no longer necessary).
At last! Someone else who's seen Libeled Lady and thinks the scene of William Powell (one of my absolute favs from that period) fly fishing is absolutely hilarious. You've made my day.
My daughter (21 at the time) and I saw it (virtually) at the 2021 Sundance festival and I really liked it. She did too, which says something because she normally isn't very adventurous. I think she loved just how weird it was. It was playing at the Brattle (I think) not too long ago and I bet the theater experience would have been even better.
re the screwball comedy list: how do we define screwball these days? as a more boisterous than usual rom-com (still hate the term, but resigned to it…)?
I don’t remember where I got this definition, mighta been Basinger or Wood or who knows who else, but it was where a woman acts as a chaos agent to stay close to and eventually overcome the resistance of her desired fella. it’s too restrictive, and occasionally the gender dynamic is reversed (His Girl Friday), but I confess to liking its geeky specificity. These days “screwball” is often used to indicate a high zaniness score, which does leech away at the sense of screwball as particular romantic madness, love that confounds our sense of identity and breaks through our reserves so we’re willing to do anything to pursue our desired one no matter how dizzy and out-of-character, how far it takes us from who we think we are…
But even outside the narrow confines of that definition I don’t get how To Be or Not to Be fits since there is no courtship involved…. Don’t even see how it fits into the broken marriage/reunion subgenre.
Two lesser cited but lovely ones in the package imo: Theodora Goes Wild and Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.
And an obscure one I discovered last year on TCM, had never heard of it, and it’s a delightful little sleeper: Out of the Blue (1947), with George Brent and Ann Dvorak playing against type and having a swell time. Also a great supporting cast, but Dvorak takes top honors as a really thirsty chaos agent, a real wild woman. It’s on this week, Wednesday I think, and entirely worth the space on your DVR.
Anyway, beg pardon for the little bit of pedantic re screwball definition. The one I offered is impossibly restrictive, but I hate the loosening of the term that pretty much robs it of any meaning at all.