Week Twenty-Two: His Girl Friday (1940)
Producer: Howard Hawks
Writers: Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht, and Charles MacArthur
Cinematographer: Joseph Walker
Music: Sidney Cutner and Felix Mills
Studio: Columbia
Starring: Cary Grant (Walter Burns), Rosalind Russell (Hildy Johnson), Ralph Bellamy (Bruce Baldwin), Alma Kruger (Mrs. Baldwin), Gene Lockhart (Sheriff Peter B. Hartwell), Clarence Kolb (Mayor Fred), Abener Biberman (Diamond Louie), John Qualen (Earl Williams), Helen Mack (Mollie Malloy), Porter Hall (Murphy), Ernest Truex (Bensinger), Cliff Edwards (Endicott), Roscoe Karns (McCue), Frank Jenks (Wilson), Regis Toomey (Sanders), Frank Orth (Duff), Billy Gilbert (Joe Pettibone), Edwin Maxwell (Dr. Max J. Eggelhoffer)
You can watch His Girl Friday for free on YouTube
You can watch His Girl Friday for free on YouTube
The screwball comedy had been the dominant form of comedy from 1934 through the end of the decade. It seeped into other genres, especially musicals, and most comedians, including silent stars like Harold Lloyd, adapted their style to fit into the genre. The elements of screwball comedy that were established with films like It Happened One Night and Twentieth Century – rapid-fire witty dialogue, battles of the sexes, screwy characters and situations – was only magnified as the genre progressed. Characters got crazier, romantic entanglements more convoluted, dialogue more clever, and the speed at which it was delivered even more frantic. In all these aspects, but especially the last two, His Girl Friday reigns supreme. Howard Hawks had always been known for quick pacing and dialogue delivery in his films, and his Twentieth Century was the first film that really pushed this to the limits. Six years later, His Girl Friday would push that to an even greater extreme, not just having characters speak fast but all having them talk over and through one another, something people do in real life but not in the movies. In fact, in order to maintain consistently fast dialogue, lines were written with this overlapping in mind, with inconsequential beginnings and endings. Even if a line was spoken over at the beginning and the end, the middle part – which contained the important dialogue – would still be heard. This is accentuated even further through gesticulation, movement of both actor and camera, and editing. Like many of Hawks films, overt stylization camera stylization is downplayed and instead these subtle elements are included to serve the story. There are no establishing shots in the film and with a few rare exceptions, the camera jumps straight into the action of the scene, heightening the pace even more.
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| One of the very few times in the film that characters aren't on the screen talking |
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| The camera moving back and forth with Hildy adds to the frantic pace of the film |
The speed matches the fast-paced world of newspaper reporters and emphasizes the moral grey areas that many of the main characters inhabit as both professionals and essentially con artists. The “honest,” normal characters – the squares – talk slowly and deliberately, sometimes even stuttering. On the other hand, the reporters, seeking to trip up or fool those they talk to, speak quickly, overwhelming their conversation partner. The main effect of the overlapping dialogue and speed of His Girl Friday, however, is to make an already hysterical film even funnier.
One of the reasons that His Girl Friday is able to succeed so completely in what it tries to do is the quality of the leads: both Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell were two of Hollywood’s finest comedic actors. Never do they trip over their lines or over act while still managing to sustain the manic energy of the film from start to finish. The film is a dictionary definition of a battle of the sexes, as both Grant and Russell go back and forth at each constantly, trading barbs and innuendos from their first scene together on. The cadre of reporters, a screwball Greek chorus, is there whenever a smart remark is needed and add additional layering of dialogue.
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| The fast talkers: Hildy, Walter, and the rest of the newspaper reporters |
All this craziness needs straight-men to bounce off of; the Zeppo Marx/Margaret Dumont roles in the film are mostly fulfilled by Ralph Bellamy, an actor who played the third wheel in a love triangle multiple times in film. Bellamy’s Bruce Baldwin, Alma Kruger’s Mrs. Baldwin, and Helen Mack’s Mollie Malloy are representations of normality, they make the zaniness of the other characters stand out even more.
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| The slow talkers: Bruce, his mother, Mollie, and even Earl Williams make the reporters look even crazier in comparison |
His Girl Friday is a remake of The Front Page (1931), which in turn is an adaptation of a 1928 stage play of the same name. What His Girl Friday does, which was unusual for the time but happens often now, is change one of the major characters, Hildy Johnson, from a man to a woman. The gender-swapping not only unlocks a battle-of-the-sexes element and love triangle, but it is also what gives the film its special quality.
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| By changing Walter Burn's star reporter from a man to a woman, His Girl Friday topped its already excellent source material |
After You Watch the Movie (Spoilers Below)
His Girl Friday falls into a subset of screwball comedy known as a comedy of remarriage, in which at the start of the story the characters are either already divorced or get divorced early in the film. This allows the main characters to have romantic relationships with characters other than their spouse in the film – often the man has a new girl and the woman a new boy – without running afoul of the censors, who would demand that adulterers be harshly punished. This narrative device also allows for, often in hilarious detail, a rehashing of all the couples marital problems, usually in the reflection of the new romantic partner. In His Girl Friday, both Walter and Hildy are frank about the problems they had in their marriage and Hildy constantly compares him to Bruce, how he treats her like a lady, is going to give her a family and normal life. Ironically, it is exactly these things that Walter uses right back at her, measuring himself up to Bruce and surmising that he and the newspaper game gave Hildy what she really wanted all along. Not the boring domestic life of an Albany housewife but the fast-paced world of newspaper reporting.
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| Comedy of remarriage: Walter and Hildy, now divorced, debate their marriage and introduce the complications of new romantic entanglements |
And it is here that His Girl Friday stands out from films of this era. Screwball comedies were often more progressive with gender issues than other genres, with women giving as good as they got, but even compared to them His Girl Friday is more advanced. First of all, Hildy Johnson doesn’t just hold her own among the other reporters, all men, she exceeds them all in both talent and guile. Female characters in contemporary films were rarely even involved in male-dominated professions, let alone excelling.
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| Hildy's male colleagues are envious of her talent |
However, Hildy desires to be treated as a woman, settle down, and raise a family. This, on the other hand, was extremely common in films of this era, in which women were expected to be domesticated housewives, not have careers. In 1942’s Woman of the Year, two reporters who fall in love and marry but run into trouble when the woman’s career gets in the way of her wifely duties. In the original ending of the film, the man and the woman meet at a sporting event and reconcile but studio heads thought that audiences wouldn’t accept the woman not getting her comeuppance for daring to have a career. So a new ending was shot in which the woman is humiliated by her lack of domestic skills. On the other hand, Walter encourages Hildy’s career and, along with the film itself, disparages her domestication.
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| Walter continuously denigrates the boring domestic life |
He is trying to regain not just her love but her reporting talent, seeing her not as a woman to be possessed and made submissive but as a woman who can keep doing what she is great at first and foremost and in his arms second.
Both men love her and she loves both men, but Bruce, the boring option, represents the repression of her talents and independence, while Walter, the exciting choice, means the opposite for Hildy.
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| The allure of the newspaper game is too much for Hildy to resist |
The fact that His Girl Friday makes it completely obvious that Walter is the only choice for Hildy is a rarity in this era of films and is still not as common as you might imagine. This stands out even nearly eighty years later, where channels like Lifetime and Hallmark make countless made-for-TV movies every year where a successful city woman returns to her hometown and realize that she needs to give up her career and get married to be happy. The fact that His Girl Friday can wrap this progressive stance in one of the funniest movies ever made is a testament to the filmmakers and their talent.
See Also
The Awful Truth (1937) dir. Leo McCarey
Another comedy of remarriage starring Cary Grant, this time opposite Irene Dunne and once again featuring Ralph Bellamy as a third wheel. The film often credited with Grant’s comedic breakout and is one of the standout screwball comedies of the thirties.
The Philadelphia Story (1940) dir. George Cukor
Yet another remarriage comedy with Cary Grant and also featuring an all-star cast of Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, and Ruth Hussey. More a classy romantic-comedy with screwball elements but still one of the best comedies ever made.
Bringing Up Baby (1938) dir. Howard Hawks
Rivals His Girl Friday for funniest screwball comedy. Stars Grant and Hepburn as two of the craziest characters in movies and a supporting cast that rivals them.
Ball of Fire (1941) dir. Howard Hawks
Another Hawks screwball gem, this update of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves fairy tale was written by future award-winning writer-director Billy Wilder and stars Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.
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