High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The screwball comedy is
a subgenre of the comedy film genre. It has proven to be one of the
most popular and enduring film genres. It first gained prominence
in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and, although many film
scholars[who?] would agree that its classic period ended sometime
in the early 1940s, elements of the genre have persisted, or have
been paid homage to, in contemporary film. While there is no
authoritative list of the defining characteristics of the screwball
comedy genre, films considered to be definitive of the genre
usually feature farcical situations, a combination of slapstick
with fast-paced repartee, and a plot involving courtship and
marriage or remarriage. The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined
the screwball comedy as "a sex comedy without the sex."
