 |
The film begins as former reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) shows up at her ex-husband and former employer’s office. With her cloddish new fiancé in tow, Hildy is determined on a life of quiet domesticity – but will she really be happy away from the high-speed world of journalism? Meanwhile, her devious ex-husband Walter (Cary Grant) is pulling out all the stops. He has a few hours to secure the news story of his life, get back his prize reporter Hildy, and persuade her to give their tumultuous relationship another chance. As Walter unscrupulously manipulates everyone in sight, hilarious chaos ensues.
His Girl Friday was one of the first films to use overlapping
dialogue, where the characters talk over each other and have multiple
conversations at once, just as people do in real life. This realistic technique,
combined with the almost complete lack of a musical score and the breakneck
speed of every line, creates a realistic auditory chaos, with some of the
fastest dialogue ever put to film. A contemporary review in the New York Times commented, a little
sourly, “Before it's over you don't know whether you have been laughing
or having your ears boxed.”
The film
script was adapted from a 1930s stage play, The
Front Page, in which Walter Burns, a hard-boiled newpaper man, does all
sorts of under-handed tricks to get back his prize reporter. For the film, the junior
reporter was changed from a man to a woman – an inspired twist that transforms
the story into a battle of the sexes. This is where the film really gets its
spark, with the crazy, slightly twisted romance playing out not in swoony love
scenes but in breakneck repartee, endless jibes, gags, and in-jokes. His Girl
Friday is a political satire too, and it’s this part especially that hasn’t
aged a bit – the biting, humorous critique of news journalism it delivers is
still relevant today. There’s a dark side too – Walter’s newspaper must save a
crazy jobless guy who’s about to end up on death row thanks to the local
mayor’s ruthless electioneering. This serious element balances out the laughs
to make a mature and well-rounded film with a pertinent message. But ultimately
it’s one of Hollywood’s definitive screwball comedies, with all the requisite
elements – everyone in the film is slightly crazy; ludicrous situations and farcical
plot twists abound; and it all centres around a meant-to-be couple who bicker
and scrap all the way to happily-ever-after.
The acting in His Girl Friday is sublime.
This film shows Cary Grant, the king of romantic comedy, at his finest. It’s
one of his very best screwball comedy outings, and the energy, agile grace, sly
charm, and above all, the unbelievably fast dialogue, has to be witnessed to be
believed. Grant is charmingly ruthless, but despite the underhanded tricks his
character plays, it’s impossible not to like him. And Rosalind Russell is no
less impressive as the determined and street-smart Hildy. In an age where
female actors were usually valued for swoony feminine grace over gritty
intelligence, Hildy is energetic, ambitious, and almost as career-obsessed as
her crazy ex-husband. She has that astute twinkle in her eye that tells us that
she is the only person who doesn’t fall for Walter’s tricks. “Scram, Svengali,”
she says when he tries to bribe her into returning to her job. Russell’s
performance would be outstanding if the only thing she did was keep up with
Grant – I can’t think of another actress who can actually talk as fast as him, but she does, and the result is hilarious
verbal warfare that has never been matched by a romantic comedy since.
Grant and
Russell didn’t just try to out-talk each other, though – they also engaged in
intense off-screen rivalry as they tried to beat each other for the wittiest
on-screen lines. Grant was a master of hilarious ad-libs. (His spontaneous line
in Bringing Up Baby, “Because I just
went gay all of a sudden!” is sheer comic genius and,
incidentally, marks the first time the word “gay” was used uncensored on-screen
with its modern meaning). But Russell was so determined to keep up that she
hired someone to assist her in thinking up clever lines to drop while the
cameras were rolling. Grant caught on to this, and thereafter would meet her
every morning on the set with the sly greeting, “So, what do you have today?” However, the rivalry must have
been ultimately good-natured because they both look as if they’re enjoying
themselves immensely. And His Girl Friday is romantic, in its own quirky way. This
is due in part to Grant’s ability to convey his attraction to his co-star while
putting her through hell at the same time. Grant is an expert at making us
believe he’s attracted not just to his co-star’s visible charms but to her
personality – and the more quirky, idiosyncratic and even a little bit crazy
she is, the more he loves it.
His Girl
Friday is famous
for its in-jokes. The most well-known is when Walter refers to Bruce as “he
looks like that actor, uh, Ralph Bellamy” (Ralph Bellamy is the actor’s real
name). Grant also pokes fun at himself several times. Grant’s birth name was
Archibald Leach – he changed his name when he began acting in films. In
the film Walter hides an escaped criminal inside a huge wooden desk. Seeing the
fugitive poking his head out of the desk, he barks “Get back in there, you mock
turtle!” This was a reference to a part Grant had played as the Mock Turtle in
the 1932 film of Alice in Wonderland. When the town mayor assures Walter that
he’ll soon be behind bars for obstructing justice, Grant remarks, “The last man
who told me that was Archie Leach, just a week before he cut his throat.” And
in response to Walter’s blustering, Hildy retorts, “Oh Walter, get off that
trapeze” – a reference to Grant’s teenage years as a performer in a traveling
circus.
The more I
watch His Girl Friday, the more I
enjoy it for its feminist element. This is surprising for a film of its day –
as much as I love Old Hollywood films, and I really do, they’re not exactly
famous for a diverse and egalitarian representation of female roles. But in His Girl Friday, Hildy’s competency at
her job is taken for granted. The film’s title is ironic – Hildy is anything
but Walter’s pliant sidekick – she’s fiercely ambitious, competitive, and is
his valued counterpart in the cut-throat world of journalism. Reading between
the lines, it’s plain that Walter loves her because she’s the only person who
sees through his deviousness; she loves him because in his own ruthless way he extends
her the respect of an equal – he believes she’s too intelligent to be thrown
away on a dull domestic life with the cloddish Bruce. Bruce wants to protect
her; Walter knows she can take care of herself. His Girl Friday is a great example of screwball comedy as the
chaotic romance of two equal people; it allows us to step away from the
stereotypical story paradigm of active male and passive female to see two
autonomous people engaging in spirited combat - an idiosyncratic war of
equals with a happy ending.
So there we
are. Go pour yourself a double espresso and sit down for an hour and a half of
the quickest, funniest comedy out there. You won’t regret it.
I give His Girl Friday a score of 9 out of 10.
It’s pretty much as close to comedy perfection as you’ll find.
---
Film details:
His Girl Friday (1940)
Directed by Howard Hawks
Actors: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy
Screenplay: Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur
---
Sources:
-http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F00E1D8103EE23ABC4A52DFB766838B659EDE&partner=Rotten%2520Tomatoes
