Harvey's sharp wit meets comedies' humor | Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges

A book for the lover of the screwball comedy | Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges | James Harvey

books:


	• Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges James Harvey Da Capo Press, 1998 - 734 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

A brainy, articulate romp through Hollywood's golden age ...

... Harvey's book brims with the kind of keen, enthusiastic observations that lovers of the screwball genre will embrace with glee. He casts a thoroughly knowing and intelligent eye on the films, the actors, the directors and the millieu that define what, for many film buffs, was Hollywood's real golden age.

For my money, this is THE de facto handbook to that great twenty years' worth of cinematic Americana. I have loved these old movies for a long time, but Harvey deconstructs why it is that these movies worked well and continue to entertain and draw admirers some seventy and eighty years on. Harvey's engaging prose is steeped not only in an obvious love of these movies, but is remarkably fine in and of itself; this man can write, really write, adroitly sidestepping a swathe of cliches in favor of original thinking and insights that will get and keep you reading, hoping the chapter -- and the book -- will never end.

Reading this book is nearly as much fun as watching the films he writes about with such affection and insight. Rare is the book of film study that affords a measure of tangible pleasure anywhere near that of watching the films themselves. The best of film criticism gets readers to re-thinking films seen perhaps dozens of times; Harvey's Romantic Comedy accomplishes not only that, but provides an irresistible impetus to revisit the entire canon of films post haste. And not a moment too soon.

Justly lauded, and terrific stuff. A five star-plus recommendation for this terrific tome!!!

for more information click here

Harvey's sharp wit meets comedies' humor

A natural wit and storyteller himself, Harvey can mine the field for twists and turns that you might miss without his helpful guide. This is the best film criticism book ever. If you never saw the films, you could easily imagine them by reading this book. I wish he had time to write more books on film. Nobody writes with such a masterful voice, perfectly suited to this subject.

A book for the lover of the screwball comedy

Sturges, Lubitsch, Hawks, all the directors of the golden age of the comedy are here. The book we are looking for. It was easy to find books about the film noir or the western but it wasn't so easy to find the same about comedy. This is the book.

for more information click here

One of the best books on film art

Not only is this a comprehensive survey of the genre of romantic comedy (and its profound sub-genre, screwball comedy), but Harvey's digressions offer many wise comments on pre-1950 films in general. I came away convinced that comedy is more profound than tragedy. A good editor won't spoil "Hamlet" by cutting some of its dialogue, but it would be infinitely harder to cut dialogue from any of the great comedies written and directed by Preston Sturges. As a bonus, Harvey provides a glowing appreciation of the comic artistry of Irene Dunne, along with a wonderful interview with her.

for more information click here

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 "powerfully, glamorously in love with love," the films that followed were unique in their combination of swank and slapstick. Here are the directors?Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise), Capra (It Happened One Night), Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday), McCarey (The Awful Truth), La Cava (My Man Godfrey, Stage Door), Sturges (The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle at Morgan's Creek)?and their stars?Carole Lombard, Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, William Powell, Myrna Loy, among others?all described and analyzed in one comprehensive and delightful volume.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

hot