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Bryn Mawr
Film Institute

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Film Education Course Offerings
The Awful Truth (1937)

 

   

January
Cracking Wise and Falling in Love (Again):
The Screwball Comedy

Taught by Andrew J. Douglas, Ph.D.,
Director of Education, Bryn Mawr Film Institute

What do Katharine Hepburn’s wit, Cary Grant’s charm and Claudette Colbert’s glamour all have in common? They are in rare form in the screwball comedy. This course introduces students to the genre, also known as the “comedy of remarriage” because often, when boy meets girl and they fall in love, it is a road the two have gone down before.

But these films, most popular in the 1930s, are not just snappy patter and romantic hijinks. Beneath the surface they address important class, gender and social issues, and do so with subtle aplomb under the watchful eye of the industry’s then new regulatory agency, the Production Code Authority.

A highlight of the course is a 35mm screening of a screwball classic in which you, like Depression-era audiences, will see working-class nobility getting the better of the idle rich, and sassy heiresses winning over wealthy playboys and blue-collar guys alike.

Class meets Wednesdays, January 4, 11, 18, 25, 10am to 1pm
at Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W. Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr

Fee: $100 includes screenings


To register, call 610-527-4008

 

Course Offerings: Currently Scheduled:


Cracking Wise and Falling in Love (Again): The Screwball Comedy

Femmes Fatales and Hard Boiled Patsies: Film Noir and Beyond


Mr. Strangelove: Peter Sellers On Screen and Off


Screenwriting Essentials

Singin' on the Screen: The Musical

The Language of Film


Quiet Beauty: Silent Film



January 2006

December 2005

March 2006

Not currently scheduled

February 2006

Not currently scheduled

Not currently scheduled