132. His Girl Friday (1940)

Running Time: 92 minutes

Directed By: Howard Hawks

Written By: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur

Main Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart

...HELLO FORTIES

Yes, it's true, I've finally returned to the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" film watching project. When I last left you, I had just finished watching all of the movies from the decade of the thirties and was ready to make a leap into the forties. Today, I had some free time, so I decided to knock out the very first movie from the forties, "His Girl Friday".

The movie stars Cary Grant as cutthroat newspaperman, Walter Burns, a man who will do ANYTHING to get the scoop and get it first. When his ex-wife and former star reporter, Hildy Johnson (Russell), shows up at the office one day, to inform him that she's engaged, she's leaving the newspaper business and she plans to settle down in a nice, quiet life with insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Bellamy). Burns immediately schemes up a plan to get Hildy back to what he feels she was born to do, work for the newspaper. Eventually a deal is made between Walter and Hildy, that if Hildy will come back to the paper to write up one last major story, the upcoming execution of Earl Williams, that he'll take out a large insurance policy with Bruce and he and Hildy can go off to Albany with their loot and their new life.

However, once Hildy agrees to the deal, Walter has his own plans and that doesn't include letting Hildy go. Walter puts his best buddy and conman Diamond Louie on the case and through a series of trumped up charges has the tame and slow witted Bruce Baldwin arrested numerous times. While all of these games are going on, the backdrop of the movie sees the final hours of Earl Williams, as he's set to be executed the following morning, unless he receives a reprieve from the Governor. It all leads up to the escape of Earl Williams from custody and the antics really start to fly, with all of the characters getting involved and turning "His Girl Friday" into a true screwball comedy.

Before I get into my likes and dislikes regarding this movie, I want to address something real quick: I used to be one of those people who wouldn't watch old movies, for the simple reason that they were old movies. I just didn't want any part of them and so I stayed away from them and associated myself with newer films. Later in my life, that changed and I eventually started to watch the occasional classic film, and then I started the "1001" book and I saw a lot of old movies and I loved a lot of them. When it came time to restart the project and watch "His Girl Friday", I couldn't wait to get back to watching some classics and when the music started and the Columbia Pictures logo popped up in front of my eyes, I got a big smile on my face, as I was 100% ready for some more old films. Now then....on to the business at hand.

When I last left the project Cary Grant was seemingly becoming a staple in the book, with tons of the movies being Cary Grant films and tons of my opinions expressing the fact that Grant was overrated. However, maybe it was just Cary overload, because I really enjoyed him in this picture. This is probably one of the funniest movies I've watched thus far and Grant is a big part of why this film is so funny. I especially loved the segment where Grant was asked what Bruce Baldwin looked like and he replied "He looks like that fella in the movies...uhh...Ralph Bellamy". It was just so unexpected to hear them refer to Bellamy, who was actually playing the part of Bruce Baldwin, maybe because back then, everything seemed to be very "down to business" when it came to films. Russell played the tough newspaperman brilliantly and really showed some hard nosed personality and stayed right in line with Grant when delivering speedy and concise dialogue. As far as my dislikes go, and I'm sure I'll take some heat for this, but I didn't care for the fast, snappy dialogue, as it seemed to contrived and phony, whereas a slowed down delivery would've given the viewer more time to savor the script and hear the words that were being delivered. That's just a bit of nitpicking though, as all in all this was a good movie.

RATING: 6/10 Not great, but good and something that repeat viewings could definitely do wonders for.

NEXT UP: Rebecca...I take a hiatus from the book and Hitchcock takes a 30+ film hiatus from appearing in the book...but we're both back!

June 23, 2010 2:43pm