Film Review
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.