The screwball comedy has a unique place in Hollywood history: When times were tough, audiences sought escapism. What was less interesting to audiences during the Great Depression was celebrations of wealth and extravagance, as the purse strings were tighter than ever before. Enter the screwball, comedies that regularly delighted audiences by transporting them with ridiculous and often nonsensical scenarios featuring the brightest stars of the day. Performers like Carole Lombard, Gene Kelly, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur, Irene Dunn, and Gary Cooper regularly lit up the screen.
The genre exploded in the 1930s, and while there's no consensus as to the first screwball, "Twentieth Century" and "It Happened One Night," both released in 1934, are often credited with initiating the genre.
