I was wondering if this movie was the origin of the term "screwball comedy."
I noticed that Jimmy calls Claudette "screwball" at one point in the movie. Does anybody know if this is where the term originated?
I just watched It’s a Wonderful World last night, for the first time, and I picked up on the reference to “screwball,” too. From what I can tell, though, the term was floating around in the earlier part of the 1930s; at least as far back as 1933, it was being used as synonymous with “oddball”—so, used to describe a kind of strange, foolish, or mad person. As of 1938, though (a year before the film was released, and right around Bringing Up Baby), The New York Times used it to describe another MGM picture, Three Loves Has Nancy, which was called “another one of those screwball comedies.” This is the earliest connection I’ve found between the adjective “screwball” and its specific application to comedy.
In the end, it would appear that It’s a Wonderful World may, then, at least be one of the earliest (if not the) films to mention the term?! Anyone else know anything different?
"I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whomever I'm with."
People seem not to remember the huge popularity in this era of "the American pastime" of baseball.
Coinciding with the arrival of the slang phrase "screwball" to describe a person was the invention and ascendance of the "screwball" pitch in baseball. A screwball is a specifically thrown pitch which goes in the opposite direction expected by batters familiar with a fastball or a curve ball.
I believe "a screwball character" to describe an eccentric person, and "a screwball comedy" to describe a fresh film genre of the period, would naturally arise from the baseball term and relate each to the other.
last 2 dvds: Arven (2003) & Bang (1995)