Beginning in the 1930s, the ever-growing number of working women inspired a new type of romantic comedy, where meet-cutes come amid desks and typewriters, and the course of true love is entangled with office politics and professional rivalry. The genre was tailor-made for stars like Jean Arthur, Katharine Hepburn, and Rosalind Russell who could dazzle with brainy repartee and make competence sexy. Elements of these films may be quaintly transgressive (boozy office parties! bosses dating their secretaries!), but they also tackle still-timely topics—work-life balance (HIS GIRL FRIDAY), gender equality (WOMAN OF THE YEAR), and even fears of jobs being eliminated by computers (DEST SET)—with crackling comic irreverence, finding laughter and romance in the nine-to-five.

Featuring:
THE OFFICE WIFE (Lloyd Bacon, 1930)
WORKING GIRLS (Dorothy Arzner, 1931)
MAN WANTED (William Dieterle, 1932)
THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING (John Ford, 1935)
MORE THAN A SECRETARY (Alfred E. Green, 1936)
HIS GIRL FRIDAY (Howard Hawks, 1940)
WOMAN OF THE YEAR (George Stevens, 1942)
DESK SET (Walter Lang, 1957)
THE APARTMENT (Billy Wilder, 1960)