The Hollywood Studio System , part 3 Lecture 20

Screwball Comedy Cycle (mid-1930s-early 1940s) Gained prominence with It happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934) Slapstick, wisecracks, comedy of manners, sexual innuendo Ridiculous situations Fast-paced repartee Mistaken identities Preston Sturges: – The Great McGinty (1939) – Christmas in July (1940) – The Lady Eve (1941)

The Social Problem Film (30s, 40s, 50s) Dramatizes topical social issues like prison life, capital punishment, poverty, capital punishment Conflict centers around the relation between an individual and social institutions Reflected left-liberal political views in line with FDR’s New Deal Populism (“men of good will) Conflict b/t the forces of good and evil Traditional form – Linear narratives – Characters to identify with – Happy ending Frank Capra: – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – Meet John Doe (1941)

The Social Problem Film (cont.) Roffman and Purdy (1981): – “[Social problem films] arouse indignation over some facet of contemporary life, carefully qualifying any criticism so that it can in the end be reduced to simple causes, to a villain whose removal rectified the situation. Allusions to the genuine concerns of the audience play up antisocial feelings only to exorcise them on safe targets contained within a dramatic rather than a social context.”

How would you categorize Sullivan’s Travels generically? Screwball comedy or social problem film or…?

Sullivan’s Implied Criticisms of Standard Hollywood Fare Strengthens communism – Why? Not realistic – Why should films be realistic? Not relevant – Should film be relevant? Betrays film’s proper vocation – What is film’s proper role? People want to see realism

Kracauer, 1928: The critique of current film production is thus by no means directed exclusively against the industry, but focuses just as much on the public sphere which allows this industry to flourish….What is so reprehensible about these is their attitude. In all of the genres that have emerged lately, our social reality is evaporated, petrified, and distorted in a manner that is sometimes idiotically harmless and sometimes pernicious. The very things that should be projected onto the screen have been wiped away, and its surface has been filled with images that cheat us out of the image of our existence…. In order to avoid showing the present at all costs, fiction films stage the most daring escape attempts. Instead of positioning itself on a street-corner, the camera remains in the studio, racing through faraway times and places that are completely irrelevant to us.”

How should we interpret the ending of Sullivan’s Travels? 1)laughing faces montage sequence underlines the point about entertainment and escapism: i.e. entertainment is the best thing you can do for the suffering masses (“There’s a lot to be said for making people laugh. That’s all that some people have.”) OR 2) entertainment and message are not mutually exclusive

Michael Rogin: “Behind Sully’s need to underline the happy moral of his travels lies the visual evidence of desperation. Far from merry enjoyment, the maniacal laughter in the closing montage, like that of the prisoner audience, looks and sounds like hysteria. In contrast with Ants in Your Pants or the carnivalesque denouements of so many screwball comedies, … it is laughter at the death of innocent laughter, the laughter that comes after and with the chain gang, which it cannot wipe away… Sullivan’s Travels is the…ur-American example of comedy turning into horror before our eyes.” (127)

S PECTATING From The Drunkard’s Reformation (1909)From The Crowd (1928)

Spectating From The Crowd (1928)From Sullivan’s Travels (1941)