His Girl Friday (1940)

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Charles Lederer (screenplay)
Ben Hecht (play) ...

Release Date:

18 January 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

She learned about men from him!

Plot:

A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.

Plot Keywords:

False Accusation | Editor | Journalist | Fugitive | Satirical

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Cary Grant	...	Walter Burns
Rosalind Russell	...	Hildegaard 'Hildy' Johnson
Ralph Bellamy	...	Bruce Baldwin
Gene Lockhart	...	Sheriff Peter B.'Pinky' Hartwell
Porter Hall	...	Murphy - Reporter
Ernest Truex	...	Roy V. Bensinger - Reporter
Cliff Edwards	...	Endicott - Reporter
Clarence Kolb	...	Mayor
Roscoe Karns	...	McCue - Reporter
Frank Jenks	...	Wilson - Reporter
Regis Toomey	...	Sanders - Reporter
Abner Biberman	...	Louis 'Diamond Louie 'Palutso
Frank Orth	...	Duffy - Copy Editor
John Qualen	...	Earl Williams
Helen Mack	...	Mollie Malloy

Also Known As:

Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-3 (video rating: 1993) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | France:U | Argentina:Atp | Portugal:M/6 | Australia:G (TV rating) | USA:Approved (PCA #5823) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Germany:12 (DVD rating) | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (video rating) (1994) | West Germany:o.Al. (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Rosalind Russell resented the fact that she wasn't the first choice to play Hildy for director Howard Hawks. She showed up to the audition with her hair wet from swimming.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene after Earl fires the pistol, Hildy turns off the lights and pulls down the window shades in the press room. Then in the next scene the Hildy and Molly are talking to Earl while he is in the desk, the shades are up. The other reporters return to the press room and Hildy unlocks the door and lets them enter. One of the reporters immediately goes to the windows and raises the shades.

Quotes:

Walter Burns: Diabetes! I ought to know better than to hire anybody with a disease.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Deadly Mantis (#9.4)" (1997)

As close to perfection as any film could hope for

As if creating one comedic masterpiece with 1938's BRINGING UP BABY was not enough, director Howard Hawks returned to the same genre a scant two years later - and he somehow managed to rival even his own previous masterwork. Nominally a reworking Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's play THE FRONT PAGE, HIS GIRL Friday manages to surpass it's classic source material and emerge as one of the screen's finest comedies. The film is also perhaps the perfect example of Hawks' trademarked rapid-fire, overlapping dialogue, which has never been as fast nor as furious anywhere else before or since. This is certainly one of the fastest moving comedies ever filmed, and the whole cast never misses a beat.

Walter Burns, the conniving, self-serving newspaper editor, is a character that could have easily come off as a tyrannical jerk. As portrayed by the suave Cary Grant, however, the pompous, arrogant Burns actually becomes (gasp!) likable! It is a difficult balancing act that Grant must perform as teetering between the two extremes of the character, and he is arguably the only actor imaginable with the skill and charisma to pull such a tricky characterization off this successfully. And the one-and-only Rosalind Russell is every bit his match - full of verve and aplomb, Russell's Hildy is an independent career woman, brimming with intelligence and class, that impressively pre-dates the major feminist movement of the mid-sixties by a good 25 years.

The film's supporting cast is no less impressive, with every single role cast to perfection. This is particularly true of Ralph Bellamy, who (along with his Oscar-nominated performance in 1937's THE AWFUL TRUTH) proves once again that he is the ultimate straight man. The film contains some grim subject matter that may seem like unlikely fodder for a screwball comedy (murder, attempted suicide, and public execution are all touched upon), although the film somehow manages to deal with such topics respectfully and without sacrificing any laughs. In the end, HIS GIRL Friday is an absolutely unbeatable romantic comedy that remains wildly hilarious and comes as close to sheer perfection as any motion picture could ever hope to.