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...
In 1934 four movies--It Happened One Night, Twentieth Century, The Thin Man, and The Gay Divorcee--ushered in the golden age of the Hol...
"What I set out to do is to help you see movies better, to experience them more deeply and sharply and richly," says James Harvey. And his critical method-reading a movie moment by moment, scene by scene-reveals new layers of meaning in even the most familiar films. See how 1940s film noir evolves into 1950s melodrama; how the femme fatale of the 1940s (think Barbara Stanwyck) becomes blander and blonder (think Doris Day) and then younger and sexier (yes, Marilyn); and how the new boy-men-Clift, Brando, Dean-finally steal the show. Harvey also discusses the directors: Hitchcock, Ophuls,...
"What I set out to do is to help you see movies better, to experience them more deeply and sharply and richly," says James Harvey. And his critical me...