Class, Language, and American Film Comedy

Introduction; 1. A troubled paradise: Utopia and transgression in comedies of the early 1930s; 2. Working ladies and forgotten men: class divisions in Romantic comedy, 1934-37; 3. 'The split-pea soup and the Succotash': Frank Capra's 1930s comedies and the subject of class; 4. Is class necessary?: Preston Sturges and Howard Hawks in the early 1940s; 5. Desperately seeking status: class, gender, and social anxiety in postwar Hollywood comedy; 6. Is there a class in this text?: Woody Allen and postmodern comedy; 7. Yuppies and other strangers: class satire and cultural clash in contemporary film comedy.

"...a solid text that should be appealing to most humorists, film critics, linguists, rhetoricians, educators, and a general public interested in the history of film comedy." - Humor, William B. Covey, Slippery Rock University