Icons Of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 1 On DVD

The Screwball Comedy was virtually invented at Columbia Studios, during the height of the depression. Following the huge success of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934). Columbia would make more of these madcap romantic comedies than any other studio. Typical "Screwballs" features marital mix-ups and plenty of opportunities to poke fun at the wealthy, while allowing audiences to dwell in the luxury of the upper-class. These films also offered some of the best roles for actresses in this period, such as working-girls in a man's world (Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday), or socially liberal gals battling restrictive upper-crust society (Katharine Hepburn in Holiday). A breezy approach to male and female roles was a hallmark of the Screwball Comedy. For this collection, the studio digs deep into its vaults for four classics of the genre.

Jean Arthur stars as a down-on-her-luck cook who charms a millionaire (Herbert Marshall) into playing along as her husband so they can get work in IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK, then as a girl who finds herself legally-wedded to two men (Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas) in TOO MANY HUSBANDS. Another screen legend, Rosalind Russell, shines as the "other" sister who's pretty, young sister (Janet Blair) brings a host of eccentrics through their Greenwich Village apartment in the original film version of MY SISTER EILEEN. Russell then battles her patient's (Lee Bowman) impulses while suppressing her own as a button-down psychiatrist in SHE WOULDN'T SAY YES.