Summary Laughter can be both healing and liberating, a fact proven by the popularity of screwball comedy after it emerged as a new American art form in movies of the 1930s and early '40s, when the country was enduring the Great Depression and bracing itself for World War II. Each Friday evening in November 2013, talented comedy star Matthew Broderick presented three classic screwball comedies on Turner Classic Movies, featuring traditional Battle of the Sexes storylines and starring some of the genre's greatest practitioners. The king of screwball has to be Cary Grant, who matches wits with Irene Dunne in both "The Awful Truth" (1937) and "My Favorite Wife" (1940), Katharine Hepburn in "Bringing Up Baby" (1938) and Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday" (1940). Carole Lombard delights opposite John Barrymore in "Twentieth Century" (1934) and William Powell in "My Man Godfrey" (1936), while Claudette Colbert sparkles opposite Clark Gable in "It Happened One Night" (1934) and Joel McCrea in "The Palm Beach Story" (1942). Barbara Stanwyck, usually thought of as a dramatic actress, showed off her screwball smarts in two 1941 films, dazzling Henry Fonda in "The Lady Eve" and Gary Cooper in "Ball of Fire." View more details

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