Why modern-day romcoms can’t match the zing of Hollywood screwball romances

For those who want to watch a good Valentine’s Day romance, they must look back towards the screwball films made in Hollywood from the early 1930s to the mid-1940s, says Geoffrey Macnab

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in ‘Bringing Up Baby’ in 1938 (Rex)

Around this time of year, in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, streamers and broadcasters pack their schedules with romantic dramas and comedies. If you want to see Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio kissing on the prow of the ship in Titanic or Renee Zellweger choosing between love rat Hugh Grant and the dashing Colin Firth in Bridget Jones’s Diary, now is the time. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are again conducting their long-distance love affair in Sleepless in Seattle while Richard Gere’s dapper businessman and Julia Roberts’ “working girl” are back having their Cinderella-like trysts in Pretty Woman.

The one characteristic these films share is a very soft centre. They all turn into tearjerkers by the final reel and the schmaltz is laid on very thick. Those who prefer their romcoms with more of an acerbic kick have only one real alternative: they must look back towards the screwball films made in Hollywood from the early 1930s to the mid-1940s.

You won’t hear lachrymose ballads crooned by Celine Dion or Whitney Houston in movies like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, My Man Godfrey, It Happened One Night, or The Lady Eve. These films are anarchic, frequently violent, and very funny. They have strong female protagonists played by formidable stars like Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, and Claudette Colbert. The men who become entangled with them, portrayed by the likes of Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda, look frightened and bewildered in their presence.