"His Girl Friday" is a comedy that satirizes the newspaper business. It is based on the noted Broadway play "The Front Page", but with a plot twist in that one of the two leads is a woman and is the ex-wife of the other.
The film stars Rosalind Russell as a headstrong woman who plans to marry a milquetoast insurance salesman (Ralph Bellamy). She attempts to quit her job as a reporter working for conniving editor and ex-husband Cary Grant. Although she is fully aware of his schemes, she gets suckered into covering one last story; the pending execution of a mild-mannered man who becomes unstable when carrying a handgun.
One of the running gags of the film is that
clueless Bellamy keeps ending up in jail, an
innocent victim of Grant's machinations. Bellamy
plays the wide-eyed dupe perfectly. When Grant
makes a ridiculous speech about his devotion to
his ex-wife, Bellamy believes it all and can only
say "Gee!" in amazement. "His Girl Friday" makes
heavy use of overlapping dialogue. One scene has
Grant, Russell and Bellamy all talking at once.
This technique works as it makes the film more
dynamic.
Newspapermen are depicted in the film as prone to
cynical moralizing, embellishing the truth for
dramatic impact, and willing to commit crimes in
order to win a "scoop". This image may be more
accurate today, more than a half century later,
than it was when the film was made.
Director Howard Hawks and Cary Grant must have
gotten along well, since they made four other
films together. All but one of these films was a
comedy. Cary Grant was a great comic actor,
usually playing a character who doesn't quite
realize that he is making a fool of himself. "His
Girl Friday" is different in that Bellamy plays
the stooge. Of course, Grant had success in
dramatic roles as well. (88/100)
Considered by many to be the best of Howard Hawks comedies (Bringing Up Baby, I Was A Male War Bride), His Girl Friday was adapted from Ben Hecht and ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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