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2 x Screwball

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)
January 6, 2013 - 7:00 pm

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

"...the precursor and paradigm of almost every important romantic comedy to follow it." - James Harvey, Romantic Comedy in Hollywood

Directed by Richard Boleslawski

A handsome but nosy illustrator (Douglas) gets more than he bargained for when he threatens to reveal to the strait-laced ladies of Lynnfield, Connecticut that their own Theodora Lynn (Dunne) is also, under a pen name, the author of a racy romance novel.  Theodora quickly turns the tables on him, scandalizing both big city and small town in this screwball battle of the sexes.

Columbia Pictures Corp. of California, Ltd. Screenwriter: Sidney Buchman. Cinematographer: Joseph Walker. Editor: Otto Meyer. Cast: Irene Dunne, Melvyn Douglas, Thomas Mitchell, Thurston Hall, Elisabeth Risdon. 

35mm, b/w, 94 min.  

True Confession (1937)

Directed by Wesley Ruggles

Opposites attract despite their differences in this by turns wacky and heartfelt romantic comedy starring Carole Lombard, as well-meaning but incorrigible liar Helen Bartlett, and Fred MacMurray, as her honest lawyer husband. Helen’s fantastical falsehoods turn the Bartletts’ lives upside down, but when she's wrongly accused of murder, she pretends she committed the crime to help her husband’s career.

Paramount Pictures, Inc. Producer: Albert Lewin. Screenwriter: Claude Binyon. Cinematographer: Ted Tetzlaff. Editor: Paul Weatherwax. Cast: Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, John Barrymore, Una Merkel, Porter Hall. 

35mm, b/w, 85 min.