With Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) the August 4, 2009 release of the Icons of Screwball Comedy: Volume 1 and Icons of Screwball Comedy: Volume 2  it opens the doors to the Columbia vault of treasured comedies. The two newly-remastered collections include in Vol 1; If You Could Only Cook, Too Many Husbands, My Sister Eileen, and She Wouldn't Say Yes; and Vol 2 features Theodora Goes Wild, Together Again, A Night to Remember and The Doctor Takes a Wife.

The films present a virtual who's who of American comedy of the 30s and 40s, with iconic stars including four-time Academy Award- nominee Rosalind Russell (Best Actress: My Sister Eileen, 1942 Sister Kenny, 1945 Mourning Becomes Electra, 1947 Auntie Mame, 1958, Oscar-nominee Jean Arthur (Best Actress, The More the Merrier, 1943), five-time Academy Award nominee Irene Dunne (Best Actress: Cimarron, 1930 Theodora Goes Wild, 1936 The Awful Truth, 1937 Love Affair, 1939, I Remember Mama, 1949), Fred MacMurray, two-time Oscar winner Melvyn Douglas (Best Supporting Actor, Hud, 1963; Being There, 1979), and Academy Award winner Charles Coburn (Best Supporting Actor, The More the Merrier, 1943), among many others.

Bonus materials include the original trailers and Volume 1 features the short Ain't Love Cuckoo? (1946), a screwball-comedy-in-miniature about two couples, each of whom mistakenly believes a spouse has been killed. The survivors both remarry and end up in adjoining suites on their respective honeymoons. Volume 2 includes the vintage short Mad Hatter (1940), which satirizes women's obsession with fashion. Each two-disc volume will be available separately for $16.25 SRP.

About Screwball Comedy

The screwball comedy was virtually invented at Columbia Studios during the height of the depression. Following the huge success of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), Columbia would make more of these madcap romantic comedies than any other studio. Typical "screwballs" featured marital mix-ups and plenty of opportunities to poke fun at the wealthy, while allowing audiences to dwell in the luxury of the upper-class. These films also offered some of the best roles for actresses in this period, often playing working-girls in a man's world (Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday) or socially liberal gals battling restrictive upper-crust society (Katherine Hepburn in Holiday). A breezy approach to male and female roles was a hallmark of the screwball comedy.

ICONS OF SCREWBALL COMEDY: VOLUME 1 includes:

If You Could Only Cook (1935)

Unemployed Jean Arthur (You Can't Take it With, You, Easy Living) happens to meet Herbert Marshall (Trouble in Paradise, The Letter) sitting on a park bench. Assuming that he needs work too, she asks him to pose with her as husband-and-wife so they can get jobs as a cook-and-butler team at the mansion of a mobster (Leo Carrillo). Charmed by her, Marshall, who's actually the head of an auto firm, goes along with the plan, learning the finer points of butlering from his own butler. In order to sell the deception, the "couple" has to share the servants' quarters, and the comedy complications multiply from there. If You Could Only Cook has a running time of approximately 75 minutes and is not rated.

Too Many Husbands (1940)

Director Wesley Ruggles (I'm No Angel, True Confession) assembled a stellar cast - including Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray (The Gilded Lily, Double Indemnity), and Melvyn Douglas (Ninotchka)  for this fast-paced, Oscar-nominated comedy (Best Sound, 1940). Arthur finds herself in the position of having one excess husband when MacMurray returns one year after he's been declared legally dead, and shortly after she's married his best friend (Douglas). Arthur isn't sure it's such a terrible predicament as two husbands vie for her affections. Too Many Husbands has a running time of 84 minutes and is not rated.

My Sister Eileen (1942)

Rosalind Russell was nominated as Best Actress for her role in My Sister Eileen. She stars with Academy Award-nominee Brian Aherne (Best Supporting Actor, Juarez, 1939) and Janet Blair (Once Upon a Time, Tonight and Every Night) and the trio enliven the all-out farce whose antics were first introduced in the pages of The New Yorker magazine, then in a hit Broadway play. The zippy dialogue is nonstop when two Ohio girls newly arrived in New York settle into a Greenwich Village basement apartment, and are promptly confronted by the neighborhood characters. Russell would later reprise her role in the Broadway musical version "Wonderful Town." My Sister Eileen has a running time of approximately 96 minutes and is not rated.

She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945)

Academy Award nominated director Alexander Hall (Best Director, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, 1941) was reunited with his My Sister Eileen star Rosalind Russell for this comedy about a psychiatrist who ardently believes one should keep one's impulses under control. Lee Bowman (Cover Girl, Tonight and Every Night) plays the cartoonist who's most successful comic creation, "the Nixie," embodies the opposite approach to life. Bowman and Russell are thrown together when a ticket agent, inspired by the Nixie, assigns them to the same train berth-unleashing some of Bowman's own impulses. Russell displays her supreme talent for physical comedy, as she tries to thwart Bowman at every pass. She Wouldn't Say Yes has a running time of approximately 87 minutes and is not rated.

Volume 1 DVD Special Features Include:

Short: Ain't Love Cuckoo?

Original Trailers

ICONS OF SCREWBALL COMEDY: VOLUME 2 includes:

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Under the direction of Richard Boleslawski (Rasputin and the Empress, The Painted Veil), Irene Dunne was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for this zany romantic comedy about a small-town girl (Dunne) who, under a pseudonym, writes a racy best-selling novel that scandalizes her prudish neighbors. On a trip to New York, she falls in love with the sophisticate artist (Melvyn Douglas) who discovers her secret and sets out to free her from the confines of her small-town society. Once unfettered, Theodora takes up the task of liberating him using his own tools: gossip, humiliation, and plenty of humor. Censored for suggestive situations, the film has been newly restored and is uncut. A fine supporting cast, including Oscar winner Thomas Mitchell (Best Supporting Actor, Stagecoach, 1939) and Oscar nominee Spring Byington (Best Supporting Actress, You Can't Take It With You, 1938), keeps this film rolling along splendidly. In addition to Miss Dunne's Academy Award-nomination, Theodora Goes Wild was also nominated for Best Film Editing. Theodora Goes Wild has a running time of approximately 94 minutes and is not rated.

Together Again (1944)

Director Charles Vidor (Cover Girl, Gilda) reunited Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer (Algiers, Gaslight) for their third and last co-starring vehicle (following Love Affair and When Tomorrow Comes, both 1939). Their first comedy together concerned the small town mayor and widow (Dunne) who hires a suave sculptor (Boyer) to immortalize her deceased husband. The New York Times, in an enthusiastic review, declared this picture "suggestive of naughtier things" than censors allowed for the period. Legendary character actor Charles Coburn (The Lady Eve, The More the Merrier) co-stars. Together Again has a running time of 93 minutes and is not rated.

A Night to Remember (1943)

Oscar-nominee Brian Aherne (Best Supporting Actor, Juarez, 1939) and Loretta Young (Man's Castle, The Bishop's Wife) star as a married couple who move to New York's Greenwich Village. Young is concerned that her author husband only writes thrillers and hopes the new surroundings will inspire him to write a love story for a change. However, her plans go quite awry when the building turns out to be filled with shady characters and the body of a dead man is found in their backyard. A Night to Remember has a running time of 91 minutes and is not rated.

The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940)

Academy Award-winner Ray Milland (Best Actor, The Lost Weekend, 1945) and Loretta Young star in this story of a best-selling authoress who expounds the virtues of the single life, and the doctor who is mistaken for her husband. Great performances highlight this sparkling comedy and the supporting cast includes Reginald Gardiner (Christmas in Connecticut), Gail Patrick (My Man Godfrey), and Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street). Oscar ® nominee Alexander Hall (Best Director, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, 1941) directed. The Doctor Takes a Wife has a running time of approximately 88 minutes and is not rated.

Volume 2 DVD Special Features Include:

A Rhapsody Cartoon: Mad Hatter

Original Trailers