I'll Have What She's Having: Behind the Scenes at the Great Romantic Comedies

In considering the greatest of these films over time, Mr. Kimmel explains why When Harry Met Sally (1989) was called the greatest movie Woody Allen never made. Or how off-screen relationships helped My Man Godfrey (William Powell and Carole Lombard were divorced but remained friends) but interfered with Sabrina (where Audrey Hepburn was carrying on an off-screen affair with co-star William Holden, though her character was supposed to be falling in love with her other co-star, Humphrey Bogart). From Trouble in Paradise (1932) to There's Something About Mary (1998), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), and Love, Actually (2003), Mr. Kimmel uncovers the idealized and often uproarious images of true love that have grown to become part of our understanding of romance. In I'll Have What She's Having he helps us meet the actors, screenwriters, directors, and producers who accomplished this trick and shows us how they pooled their talents and did it.

Daniel M. Kimmel has been a film critic for more than twenty years, including reporting for Variety. His book The Fourth Network: How FOX Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television (also published by Ivan R. Dee) won the Cable Center Book Award. Mr. Kimmel is a past president of the Boston Society of Film Critics and teaches film at Suffolk University. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.