| What better complement to spring fever than the heated repartee of classic screwball comedies? After all, this wittiest of film genres kept audiences roaring in the aisles right through the depths of the Great Depression, and in so doing, made stars of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, among many others.
Packed with commentaries, short films and documentaries, The Classic Comedies Collection from Warner Bros. jams six of these rib-ticklers into one little box, including several films that are appearing on DVD for the very first time. While titles like The Philadelphia Story (1937) and Bringing Up Baby (1938) are forever popular with fans of the rat-a-tat dialogue that made these films famous, the collection is most notable for its inclusion of rarities such as George Cukor’s Dinner at Eight (1933), Jack Conway’s Libeled Lady (1936), Gregory La Cava’s Stage Door (1937) and Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be Or Not To Be (1942).
Not to be outdone, or perhaps just to jump on the bandwagon, Columbia/TriStar has countered by issuing the film that many believe started the whole screwy ball rolling. Twentieth Century (1934) boasts direction by Howard Hawks and a screenplay by that most acerbic of writers, Ben Hecht, leaving stars Carole Lombard and John Barrymore little to do but trade barbed witticisms for the duration. |
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