His Girl Friday
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"A masterpiece of impossibly quick banter, sexual tension, and scathing media satire, His Girl Friday pioneers and one-ups the romantic comedy genre at the same time. Perhaps the greatest of Howard Hawks’s many classics (but who can pick?), and Grant and Russell are to die for."
— MUBI's take
His Girl Friday
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1993.
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His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and featuring Ralph Bellamy and Gene Lockhart. It was released by Columbia Pictures. The plot centers on a newspaper editor named Walter Burns who is about to lose his ace reporter and ex-wife Hildy Johnson, newly engaged to another man. Burns suggests they cover one more story together, getting themselves entangled in the case of murderer Earl Williams as Burns desperately tries to win back his wife. The screenplay was adapted from the 1928 play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. This was the second time the play had been adapted for the screen, the first occasion being the 1931 film which kept the original title The Front Page.
Why It Rocks
- While the film was far from the first screwball comedy, it's screwball comedy at the height of its game. The film marked the beginning of a number of screwball comedies in the 1940s that emphasized the conflict for women in deciding between love/marriage and professional careers. One of the film's core themes is about changing gender roles; about the forces that pull women towards domesticity on one hand and career on the other.
- Top-notched screenwriting by Charles Lederer: Dialogue is everything in this film. Literally. Hardly a moment goes by without chaotic, rapid-fire dialogue courtesy of the film’s stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and the screenwriter. The average word count per minute in the film is 240, almost double the speed of normally paced speech. (For context, there's enough dialogue for a 3-hour film, even though the film has a 92-minute runtime) This remake of The Front Page (1931), was adapted from the 1928 play of the same name written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. While the film's generally faithful to the original material, as Hawks was a fan of the play, he wanted to make some changes. For starters, Hawks wanted to update the character Hildy Johnson, a man, who was played by Pat O’Brien in the 1931 film. After hearing his secretary read Hildy’s lines aloud for another actor’s audition, Hawks liked how it sounded in a woman’s voice and decided to make the character a woman. Also, Hawks wanted new dialogue written to reflect the change in the Hildy character. He sought out Hecht and MacArthur to write the screenplay, but since they were unavailable, he hired Charles Lederer. However, Hecht did assist Lederer with his script. In the original play, there was a lot of overlapping dialogue, which Hawks liked and wanted to keep. In an interview with director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich, Hawks said, “I had noticed that when people talk, they talk over one another, especially people who talk fast or who are arguing or describing something. So we wrote the dialogue in a way that made the beginnings and ends of sentences unnecessary; they were there for overlapping.”
- Back in 1940, women were mostly portrayed as domestic mothers, loyal wives and workers in the kitchen. Having them be proper professionals was pretty much unheard of back then. This is probably another central reason why Hawks got the idea to make Hildy Johnson female in this version of the story, and Walter Burns' ex-wife. Having her be a sharp-talking wisecracker was also extremely rare.
- Speaking of changes made for the 1940 film version from the 1931 version, aside from making Hildy Johnson female and changing the full name from Hildebrand to Hildegard, additional changes in the script involved removing topical references to the 1920s, and jokes about Prohibition, making this version less dated. And in its place are a couple of new characters (such as Hildy's fiancee, Bruce Baldwin) and new scenes (including a lengthy introduction establishing the bickering relationship between Hildy and Burns, and a restaruant scene where Burns evaluates how much of a romantic threat might be). Hawks' changes had the paradoxical effect of making the film truer to the spirit of the play.
- With its plot about a ruthless editor, a marriage renewed by divorce and the threat of re-marriage, a politically corrupt city, and a questionable judicial system, the romantic comedy is both a love story and a sophisticated battle of the sexes (and duel of wits).
- The gender swap brought an entirely new angle to the film, making it more than a satirical view and social commentary on the operation of a newsroom under the management of a hard-boiled, smart-alec managing editor Walter Burns, and providing an additional feminine-romance angle. And as mentioned above, gender roles as a core theme in the film.
- This film's best remembered for its overlapping dialogue and simultaneous conversations, rapid-fire delivery, breakneck speed, word gags, sexual innuendo, plot twists, "in" jokes, mugging, jousting, sarcastic insults, frantic pace and farcical script.
- Another impressive element for modern day viewers is the film's breathtaking cynicism. The politicians, policemen and reporters in the film use crime for their own purposes: to sell papers, to win elections, to thwart the will of the public. The only decent characters in the story, or those who could be trusted, are a naive insurance salesman, a prostitute and an unhinged killer. It's a vision of America more ruthless and hard-hearted than any other film of its time, and the fact that it's delivered as a glib farce only makes it more chilling.
- Amazing performances from Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns.
- Cary Grant's performance as the suave, calculating and exploitative managing editor -- who attempts to lure and maneuver his ex-wife back with the opportunity to write a breaking, front page news-story -- is both supremely comedy and a top notch performance- combining cartoonish faces, silent-film pantomime, slapstick, witty word-play, and irony into one remarkable characterization.
- Likewise, Rosalind Russell's role as the ace news-reporter to her ex-husband and ex-managing editor, who is wooed back from marrying a staid, dull, but devoted insurance salesman, is her greatest comedic portrayal.
- Creative camerawork, as the camera moves freely, but always in the same mid-level medium-shot frame. The plane of action is only switched during a few dramatic highpoints: such as Hildy interviewing Earl Johnson in his isolation cell, or the reports peering out the window at Molly's body below.
The Film
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