HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940)
Updated: Nov 24, 2022
A Hilarious Fast-Talking Comedy
Grade: A
The phrase “Show, don’t tell” is very popular, especially when it comes to a visual medium like film. But sometimes, "telling" more than "showing" is the key to making a movie work. And in Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday, the characters "tell" at a hundred miles per hour. The furious pace at which they communicate with each other is only appropriate since they work in the newspaper business, where stories must be put out fast. Despite revolving around an industry that has largely faded into the background in the modern age, the sheer amount of humor in His Girl Friday helps it to stand the test of time and remain just as delightful today.
At its core, the film is about a man’s efforts to keep his ex-wife from remarrying. The opening scene perfectly sets the tone as Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) and her fiancée Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) enter the building for The Morning Post. Hildy confronts her ex-husband and former employer, Walter Burns (Cary Grant), the editor of the paper, and they start reminiscing about the old days and why they got divorced. Hildy wants a normal married life, while Walter is practically married to the newspaper. Grant and Russell immediately come across as believable and engaging as they spar verbally, debating their past and future and whether Hildy should return to the paper. “This’ll bring us back together again,” says Walter about a potential story, “Just the way it used to be!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” says Hildy. “Anytime, anyplace, anywhere!”
“Don’t mock me, this is bigger than anything that ever happened to us!” says Walter. “Don’t do it for me, do it for the paper!”
This conversation, like much of the dialogue in the film, is incredibly fast, yet director Hawks and the cast make it feel perfectly natural. Characters in any given scene are often talking over each other, sometimes about different things, and often very loudly and frantically. This creates a hectic pace and atmosphere that one cannot help but laugh at.
Despite Hildy’s resistance, she is still a reporter at heart. When she learns about a man sentenced to be hanged for killing a police officer, she cannot resist the urge to interview him, even as the time for her and Bruce to leave for Albany draws near. She sways back and forth (often in a single scene) between her impending marriage and her journalist’s appetite. Walter does many underhanded things to keep them from catching their train, including planting a watch on Bruce, landing him in jail several times. While this does make Walter look like a cad, it is really hard to hate him. Especially since, as the movie makes clear, he and Hildy really do make a great team.
The condemned criminal subplot provides much of the film’s greater subtext, as well as its suspense. Earl Williams’s (John Qualen) impending execution is the biggest story in town, and everyone is trying to take advantage of it, including the sheriff (Gene Lockhart) to the mayor (Clarence Kolb), both of whom are hoping it will boost their votes in an upcoming election. The reporters will do anything short of murder to get “that story,” as the opening text tells us, yet are the mayor and sheriff are willing to do anything, especially murder, to get what they want.
This, coupled with the fact that several papers are exaggerating and lying about Williams’s relationship with a distraught woman named Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack) lend a dark and satirical edge to the movie. But it doesn’t detract from the humor, which grows more and more as these and other subplots crash hilariously together.
His Girl Friday was a major inspiration for director Quentin Tarantino, whose movies thrive on dialogue like that in Hawks’s film. In fact, Tarantino’s screenplay for what would ultimately become Natural Born Killers (1994) contains a few segments where characters are described as talking quickly like the ones in the classic film. The fact that His Girl Friday influenced other movies so many years later is a testament to how timeless its humor is, and no review can ever really do justice it. There are a few moments that feel somewhat out of place, such as the severity of Mollie's plight, but these pale before the overall experience. His Girl Friday proves you don’t always have to tell intricate jokes or hurt yourself to make people laugh. Sometimes you just have to talk really fast and look convincing while doing it.
Director: Howard Hawks
Screenplay: Charles Lederer, Bill Hecht (Uncredited) (Based on the play "The Front Page" by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur)
Producer: Howard Hawks
Cast: Cary Grant (Walter Burns), Rosalind Russell (Hildy Johnson), Ralph Bellamy (Bruce Baldwin), Gene Lockhart (Sheriff Hartwell), Porter Hall (Murphy), Ernest Truex (Bensinger), Cliff Edwards (Endicott), Clarence Kolb (Mayor), Roscoe Karns (McCue), Frank Jenks (Wilson), John Qualen (Earl Willams), Helen Mack (Mollie Malloy), Regis Toomey (Sanders), Abner Biberman (Louie), Frank Orth (Duffy), Alma Krueger (Mrs. Baldwin), Billy Gilbert (Joe Pettibone)
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