Hollywood S Classic Comedies Featuring Slapstick Romance Music Glamour Or Screwball Fun

200 films reviewed and rated, covering all genres of movie comedy from slapstick to sardonic, from madness to manners. Featured comedians include Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Bob Hope, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Bing Crosby, The Three Stooges, Eddie Cantor, Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati, Sid Field, The Crazy Gang, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Hulbert, Joe E. Brown, Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, Clifton Webb, Red Skelton, Ronald Shiner, Cecil Kellaway, Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, Toto, Arthur Askey, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Joan Davis, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Stanley Holloway, Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.

A complete index to all the films reviewed in all 24 of the "Hollywood Classics" movie books, this massive final volume not only devotes 120 pages to the title index but also contains 212 pages of exhaustive details and comments on an additional 80 must-see films. This additional 80 includes such classics as "A Streetcar Named Desire", the 1937 "Prisoner of Zenda", the multi-award winning "All the King's Men", Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo", Henry King's "Tol'able David", Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments", Byron Haskin's "The War of the Worlds", the Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor "Waterloo Bridge", the Clark Gable and Jean Harlow "Red Dust", Ronald Colman's "If I Were King", the classic noir "Out of the Past", three versions of "Romeo and Juliet", and the delightful Claudette Colbert and James Stewart comedy, "It's a Wonderful World".

A 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Love at first sight, whirlwind marriages, break-ups, divorces, remarriage... What accounts for the enduring success of the Hollywood madcap comedies of the 1930s? Directed by masters of comedy (Hawks, LaCava, Leisen, Ruggles...) and featuring the decade's most iconic stars (Colbert, Dunne, Grant, Hepburn...), these films set romantic comedy standards for decades to come. Screwball comedy embarked on two challenging missions: to poke fun at established social norms and to undermine stereotypical depictions of gender roles, putting forward a discourse that postulated the possibility of equality between men and women. Grégoire Halbout's reexamination of screwball comedy provides a comprehensive overview of this (sub)genre, eschewing the auteurist approach and including “minor” works never before analyzed through the screwball lens. His book explains how these screwball stories met the expectations of a booming American middle class eager for the liberalization of morals, with daring plots, verbal humor and slapstick techniques. Building on the work of Cavell, Altman and Gehring, as well as international and French scholarship, Halbout's investigation unfolds in three parts. He first establishes a definition of Hollywood screwball comedy through a cross-sectional analysis of its socio-historical context and an in-depth examination of the genre. He then situates screwball comedy in relation to its institutional context. An exclusive study of archival material explains the emergence of a screwball aesthetic meant to subvert the prohibitions of the 1934 Hollywood Production Code through a verbal and visual rhetoric of diversion and mitigation. Finally, Halbout explores the social function of the genre's placement of romantic intimacy at the center of the public sphere and the democratic debate, confirming that screwball eccentricity upholds America's founding values: freedom of speech, free consent, and contractual engagement.

The representation of gender in film remains an intensely debated topic, particularly in academic considerations of US mainstream cinema where it is often perceived as perpetuating rigid, binary views of gender, and reinforcing patriarchal, dominant notions of masculinity and femininity. While previous scholarly discussion has focused on visual or narrative portrayals of gender, this book considers the ways that film sound "e; music, voice, sound effects and silence "e; is used to represent gender. Taking a socio-historical approach, Heidi Wilkins investigates a range of popular US genres including screwball comedy, the road movie and chick flicks to explore the ways that film sound can reinforce traditional assumptions about masculinity and femininity, impart ambivalent meanings to them, or even challenge and subvert the notion of gender itself. Case studies include His Girl Friday, Easy Rider and Bridesmaids.

From classic film devotee Jennifer Churchill comes a new history of classic movies ... for kids! Featuring a heartfelt introduction by Ben Mankiewicz, Turner Classic Movies (TCM)'s primetime host. In our fast-moving, media-drenched world, classic movies connect us to the past and help us understand history, the world around us, and ourselves. From vaudeville to the invention of sound and color, this fun and informative jaunt through the history of film will turn your kids into classic movie fans in no time!

When first performed, The Eunuch was a great success. Today, with its larger-than-life characters (particularly the boastful soldier Thraso and the toady Gnatho), its farcical and exaggerated humour and its vigorous action, it strikes the modern reader as the funniest and most Plautine of Terence's six comedies. It is also a play of effective and entertaining contrasts, particularly that between the two brothers Phaedria and Chaerea. Their very different attitudes to love and romance provide one of the play's chief points of interest, while Thais presents yet another picture of love, that of the professional courtesan. The fact that Thais, Thraso and the slave Parmeno are not quite the stereotypes we might expect to find in this type of play adds yet more to an amusing and thought provoking comedy.

For more than two decades, film enthusiasts, trivia buffs, and ordinary movie watchers alike have consulted the pages of Halliwell’s for the most comprehensive information available on their favorite films. Often imitated, but never bettered, Halliwell’s Film, Video & DVD Guide is packed with essential information, from the classics of the Silver Screen to the very latest blockbusters. Contents include plot synopses of every film, casts and credits, critical evaluations and reviews, fascinating insider gossip and facts, pithy quotes and dialogue, Academy Award-winners listed by year, and more. There are also easy-to-spot icons for family viewing suitability, video, DVD, and soundtrack availability, and Oscar awards and nominations.