His Girl Friday (1940)
Directed by Howard Hawks

Comedy / Romance
aka: Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday

Film Review

Abstract picture representing His Girl Friday (1940)
The fastest, funniest and finest screwball comedy of them all.  From start to finish, His Girl Friday races along at such a pace, somewhere between that of a tornado and an express train, that if you catch half of the jokes in a single viewing you have done well.  With dialogue rattled out at 100 words per minute above the average, this is a veritable test of endurance, as much for the audience as for the actors.  The film may be hard work but it is sublime entertainment and one of the greatest comedies to sneak (or rather sprint) out of Hollywood.

In what is unquestionably his best comedic role, Cary Grant plays a venal newspaper editor of the worst kind, and he does so with such irresistible charm that no matter what his character does (and he does some pretty rotten things) you can't help siding with him.  Of course it helps that he is partnered with the ballsy Rosalind Russell, who belts out lines like a hyperactive machine gun on industrial strength steroids and is the perfect foil for Grant's effortless smarm.  Russell's Hildy is a tough cookie (you can easily envisage her landing killer blows in a boxing ring) but you can't help pitying the poor girl for falling for such an odious schemer as Walter Burns.  It all goes to show that if you have enough charm and a nice smile you can get away with murder, and worse.

Strange as it may seem, His Girl Friday was originally intended to be a straight remake of Lewis Milestone's 1931 film The Front Page, which was based on the popular stage play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.  During the auditions, director Howard Hawks realised that the part of Hildy Johnson sounded better when read by a woman so he requested the entire script to be rewritten with Johnson now a female character.  The rapid-fire, overlapping dialogue was also Hawk's idea - the intention being to imitate how people spoke in real-life, which tends to be much faster than in films (although probably not as fast as the frenetic Grant-Russell exchanges, which are at a pace that most horse race commentators would struggle to beat).

A whirlwind melange of slapstick, satire and farce, His Girl Friday is Hawk's comic masterpiece, a film that exploits the talents of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell to the full and mercilessly assails the spectator with an endless barrage of potentially lethal mirth missiles.  This is screwball at its most unremittingly manic, as fast and exciting as an Olympic marathon, but much, much funnier.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Howard Hawks film:
The Outlaw (1943)

Film Synopsis

Newspaper editor Walter Burns is known for his ruthlessness and cunning but when he learns that he is about to lose his ex-wife and star reporter Hildy Johnson he surpasses himself.  To prevent Hildy from leaving town to get married with her fiancé Bruce Baldwin, he coerces her into interviewing a convicted murderer Earl Williams on  Death Row.   Williams is due to be executed the next morning and so when the governor issues a reprieve, Walter has to act fast to prevent the reprieve from reaching the mayor.  Luckily, the sheriff's ineptitude allows Williams to escape, so what had been a minor news story now becomes a major scoop.  With any luck, Walter will have Hildy on the payroll for another twenty years.  She may even decide to remarry him...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.


Film Credits

  • Director: Howard Hawks
  • Script: Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht (play), Charles MacArthur (play)
  • Cinematographer: Joseph Walker
  • Music: Sidney Cutner, Felix Mills
  • Cast: Cary Grant (Walter Burns), Rosalind Russell (Hildy Johnson), Ralph Bellamy (Bruce Baldwin), Gene Lockhart (Sheriff Hartwell), Porter Hall (Murphy), Ernest Truex (Bensinger), Cliff Edwards (Endicott), Clarence Kolb (Mayor), Roscoe Karns (McCue), Frank Jenks (Wilson), Regis Toomey (Sanders), Abner Biberman (Louie), Frank Orth (Duffy), John Qualen (Earl Williams), Helen Mack (Mollie Malloy), Alma Kruger (Mrs. Baldwin), Billy Gilbert (Joe Pettibone), Pat West (Warden Cooley), Edwin Maxwell (Dr. Egelhoffer), Irving Bacon (Gus - Waiter)
  • Country: USA
  • Language: English / French
  • Support: Black and White
  • Runtime: 92 min
  • Aka: Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday

The best French Films of the 1920s
sb-img-3
In the 1920s French cinema was at its most varied and stylish - witness the achievements of Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Jean Epstein and Jacques Feyder.
The best French films of 2018
sb-img-27
Our round-up of the best French films released in 2018.
The best French films of 2019
sb-img-28
Our round-up of the best French films released in 2019.
The very best of the French New Wave
sb-img-14
A wave of fresh talent in the late 1950s, early 1960s brought about a dramatic renaissance in French cinema, placing the auteur at the core of France's 7th art.
The greatest French Films of all time
sb-img-4
With so many great films to choose from, it's nigh on impossible to compile a short-list of the best 15 French films of all time - but here's our feeble attempt to do just that.
 

Other things to look at


Copyright © filmsdefrance.com 1998-2024
All rights reserved



All content on this page is protected by copyright