Time After Time

This is from a recent letter to the LA Times, bemoaning the poor state of romantic comedy:

...the films of the '40s made by Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder and Leo McCarey were great.

Right sentiment, wrong decade.

The best era for Hollywood romantic comedy was the 30s, not the 40s. By the time we entered the War, comedy was in dire straits--with the golden exception of Preston Sturges. (I'll give the letter-writer Sturges, who almost singlehandlely kept comedy alive in the 40s.)

Capra made all his great romantic comedies in the 30s. In fact, the only really good film he made after that decade is It's A Wonderful Life from 1946.

Wilder wrote some great comedies in the 30s, and directed some fine ones after that, but more in the 50s and 60s than the 40s.

Leo McCarey's great romantic comedies were made in the 30s. He made some very popular comedies in the 40s, but since they were about priests and nuns, they weren't romantic comedies.

It may seem I'm being picky, except I see this sort of chronological laziness all the time. No one (I hope) would confuse the silent 20s with the talkie 30s, but they seem to figure 30s, 40s, what's the difference.