As much as I liked the Shakespeare episode of Moonlighting, I've always found it hard to like the series as a whole. It always seemed to me that it was too deliberately cribbed from Remington Steele, and that it tended to sacrifice Steele's charm and style in favor of relatively unsubtle slapstick. I'd certainly have pegged Zimbalist and Brosnan as a stronger homage to Nick & Nora than Shepherd and Willis. Castle as well seems more tonally similar to Remington Steele -- at least to me -- than it does to Moonlighting.
It's been way, way too long since I've seen Danny Kaye's The Court Jester, but can we include that in the realm of screwball comedy? The tone seems to me very much in line with what screwball-ness is all about, even though the film is more screwball adventure than screwball romance.
And jumping a very long way forward, I'd put forward the idea that the animated Anastasia is at least in part a screwball comedy, based on the relationship and dialogue between protagonists Anya and Dmitri. (See also, in this context, the degree to which Bartok the bat nods toward the fourth wall via his genre-awareness.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-12-18 04:00 am (UTC)A couple of thoughts, and a couple of questions.
As much as I liked the Shakespeare episode of Moonlighting, I've always found it hard to like the series as a whole. It always seemed to me that it was too deliberately cribbed from Remington Steele, and that it tended to sacrifice Steele's charm and style in favor of relatively unsubtle slapstick. I'd certainly have pegged Zimbalist and Brosnan as a stronger homage to Nick & Nora than Shepherd and Willis. Castle as well seems more tonally similar to Remington Steele -- at least to me -- than it does to Moonlighting.
It's been way, way too long since I've seen Danny Kaye's The Court Jester, but can we include that in the realm of screwball comedy? The tone seems to me very much in line with what screwball-ness is all about, even though the film is more screwball adventure than screwball romance.
And jumping a very long way forward, I'd put forward the idea that the animated Anastasia is at least in part a screwball comedy, based on the relationship and dialogue between protagonists Anya and Dmitri. (See also, in this context, the degree to which Bartok the bat nods toward the fourth wall via his genre-awareness.)