His Girl Friday

This brilliant adaption of the stage play The Front page is in fact a remake of Hawk’s 1931 screwball comedy, also titled The Front Page. Thank goodness Hawks decided on this this 1940 version for not only is it superior to the earlier offering but here, the part of ‘Hildy Johnson’ is played by a woman - thus giving the whole schmear a totally different dynamic!

Actually, the title His Girl Friday is somewhat misleading since ‘Girl Friday’ refers to a female assistant, usually an office worker. In the case of Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) we are talking a bona fide and seasoned reporter so valued by her editor and ex-husband Walter Burns (Cary Grant) that he tries everything to sabotage her looming wedding to dull-as-dull-can-be insurance broker Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy)! We only have to watch the tour-de-force that is Hildy for a mere five minutes to know that there is no way she’s ever going to be happy and fulfilled outside the editorial office for more than a few days! Therefore it’s all the more surprising she has decided on leaving her remarkable career at The Morning Post behind for a quiet life in Albany with hubby-to-be, kids and her future-mother-in-law. Madness!
That’s precisely what Walter thinks who coaxes Hildy into covering one last story, which happens to be the upcoming execution of Earl Williams (John Qualen), a man accused of murder though he claims otherwise. Reluctantly, Hildy accepts and her understanding beau Bruce even agrees to board the train to Albany a few hours later so that Hildy may finish her very last story.
Of course, Walter isn’t an editor for nothing and putting the few scruples he has aside (since when did any editor/reporter his or her salt have any scruples anyway?) he sabotages Hildy’s marriage plans by repeatedly laying a trap for the naïve Bruce: at one point he sends a killer blonde to the cab in which Bruce is waiting by telling her, “The man in the cab looks like the actor Ralph Bellamy” and on another occasion he makes sure that the money he receives for buying the train tickets is counterfeit money… in short, Bruce ends up in the local slammer on more than just one occasion while Hildy is way too busy with the sensational ‘Earl Williams Story’ to even notice that Bruce has been set up by Walter…

While Hildy is adamant to prove Williams’ innocence there’s also a parallel story going on involving Sheriff Hartwell (Gene Lockhart) and crooked Mayor Fred (Clarenc Kolb) who rely on the execution as both need he publicity. To cut to the chase, they aren’t exactly happy that Hildy and colleagues try to prove the accused man’s innocence. Meanwhile, Williams escapes from his condemned cell and happens to climb through the window of the press office where he’s hidden by Hildy and Walter in a huge drawer compartment. When a messenger, who carries Williams note of reprieve signed by the governor, attempts to hand the letter to the Sheriff he and the Mayor try to bribe him into getting lost as they can’t afford to miss out on the execution in order to get promoted.
t’s chaos all ‘round but suffice to say by the end of the day Hildy has come back to her senses! Bruce and his irritating Mum (Alma Kruger) travel back to Albany without Hildy in tow, while she and Walter make plans for a second wedding and a honeymoon in Niagara Falls. However, upon learning that there is a major strike in Albany of all places, duty calls and both he and Hildy arrange for a stopover in the Canadian town before descending onto Niagara Falls… Moral of the story: you can take a good reporter away from the desk but you can’t take a good news story away from a reporter!

Both Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are pure dynamite though really this is Russel’s film! How is it possible that she was NOT nominated for an ‘Oscar’ following her portrayal of ‘Hildy Johnson’? The dialogue is delivered at breakneck speed and often the repartee between her, Grant and other editorial co-workers is overlapping in a frenzied manner, as if to reflect on the manic atmosphere in a newspaper office. There is also the famous Archie Leach joke which, of course, is Grant’s birth name.

The bonus disc included the 1931 version The Front Page, with Pat O’Brien in the part of ‘Hildy’, Adolphe Menjou as editor ‘Walter Burns’ and Mary Briant as ‘Peggy Grant’ – the woman Hildy wants to marry and leave his job for. Well acted yes, but on a much slower pace than His Girl Friday and lacking the dynamic chemistry between the leads.