His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday is a 1940 screwball comedy, a remake of the 1931 film The Front Page, which is an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of their play of the same name. The "twist" to His Girl Friday is that the one of the lead roles was converted from a man to a woman.

The film stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and features Ralph Bellamy. It was directed by Howard Hawks and is noted for the rapid-fire pace of its dialogue.

The film was #19 on American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Laughs" and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Today the film is in the public domain(even though the 1928 play it is based on is still under copyright), which hasn't prevented Columbia Pictures from issuing official video releases of the film.


Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is a hard-boiled editor for The Morning Post whose ex-wife and former star reporter, Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is about to marry bland insurance man Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) and settle down to a quiet life as a wife and mother in Albany, New York – but Burns has other ideas. He entices the reluctant Johnson into covering one last story: the upcoming execution of convicted murderer Earl Williams (John Qualen).

Walter does everything he can to keep Hildy from leaving, including setting Bruce up so he gets arrested over and over again on trumped-up charges. He even kidnaps Hildy's stern mother-in-law-to-be (Alma Kruger). When Williams escapes from the bumbling sheriff (Gene Lockhart) and practically falls into Hildy's lap, the lure of a big scoop proves to be too much for her. She is so consumed with writing the story that she hardly notices as Bruce realizes his cause is hopeless and leaves to return to Albany.

The crooked mayor (Clarence Kolb) and sheriff need the publicity from the execution to keep their jobs in an upcoming election, so when a messenger (Billy Gilbert) brings them a reprieve from the governor, they try to bribe the man to go away and return later, when it will be too late. Walter and Hildy find out just in time to save Walter from being arrested for kidnapping.

Afterwards, Walter offers to remarry Hildy, promising to take her on the honeymoon they never had in Niagara Falls, but then Walter learns that there is a newsworthy strike in Albany, which is on the way to Niagara Falls by train.

Cast
Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Bellamy

* Cary Grant as Walter Burns
* Rosalind Russell as Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson
* Ralph Bellamy as Bruce Baldwin
* Alma Kruger as Mrs. Baldwin, Bruce's mother
* Gene Lockhart as Sheriff Peter B. Hartwell
* Clarence Kolb as Mayor Fred
* Abner Biberman as Louis "Diamond Louie" Palutso
* John Qualen as Earl Williams
* Helen Mack as Molly Malloy, Earl's girlfriend
* Porter Hall as Reporter Murphy
* Ernest Truex as Reporter Roy V. Bensinger
* Cliff Edwards as Reporter Endicott
* Roscoe Karns as Reporter McCue
* Frank Jenks as Reporter Wilson
* Regis Toomey as Reporter Sanders
* Frank Orth as Duffy, Walter's copy editor
* Billy Gilbert as Joe Pettibone
* Pat West as Warden Cooley
* Edwin Maxwell as Dr. Max J. Eggelhoffer

Production

His Girl Friday was originally supposed to be a straightforward retelling of The Front Page, with both the editor and reporter being men, however during auditions, Howard Hawks' secretary read reporter Hildy Johnson's lines. Hawks liked the way the dialogue sounded coming from a woman, so the script was rewritten to make Hildy female, and the ex-wife of editor Walter Burns. Most of the original dialogue and all of the characters' names (with the exception of Bruce Baldwin, Hildy's fiance, who was of course a woman in the play) were left the same.

Hawks had a very difficult time casting this film. While Cary Grant's casting was almost immediate, the character of Hildy was a far more complicated process. At first, Hawks wanted Carole Lombard for the role, whom he had directed in the screwball comedy Twentieth Century, but the cost of hiring Lombard in her new status as a freelancer proved to be far too expensive, and Columbia could not afford her. Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Margaret Sullavan, Ginger Rogers and Irene Dunne were offered the role, but turned it down, Dunne because she felt the part was too small and needed to be expanded. Jean Arthur was offered the part, and was suspended by the studio when she refused to take it. Joan Crawford was reportedly also considered for the part.

Hawks then turned to Rosalind Russell, who was annoyed by the fact that she had not been his first choice, even arriving at her audition with wet hair. During filming, Russell noticed that Hawks treated her like an also-ran, so she confronted him: "You don't want me, do you? Well, you're stuck with me, so you might as well make the most of it." In her autobiography, Life Is A Banquet, Russell wrote that she thought that her character did not have as many good lines as Cary Grant's did, so she hired her own writer to "punch up" her dialogue. With Hawks encouraging ad-libbing on the set, Russell was able to slip her writers' work into the movie. Only Grant was wise to this tactic and greeted her each morning, saying, "What have you got today?"

The film had the working title of The Bigger They Are, and was in production from 27 September to 21 November 1939. It premiered in New York City on 11 January 1940. It went into general American release on 18 January.

His Girl Friday is noted for the rapid-fire pace of the repartee, using overlapping dialogue to make conversations sound more realistic, with one character speaking before another was finished. Hawks told Peter Bogdanovich, "I had noticed that when people talk, they talk over one another, especially people who talk fast or who are arguing or describing something. So we wrote the dialogue in a way that made the beginnings and ends of sentences unnecessary; they were there for overlapping." To get the effect he wanted, Hawks had the sound mixer on the set turn the various overhead microphones on and off as required for the scene, as many as 35 times.

Cary Grant's character describes Ralph Bellamy's character by saying "He looks like that actor...Ralph Bellamy!" According to Bellamy, the remark was ad libbed by Grant. Columbia studio head Harry Cohn thought it was too cheeky and ordered it removed, but Hawks insisted that it stay. Grant also makes several "inside" remarks in the film. When his character is arrested for kidnapping, he describes the horrendous fate suffered by the last person who crossed him: Archie Leach (Grant's real name). When Earl Williams attempts to get out of the roll-top desk he's been hiding in, Grant says, "Get back in there, you Mock Turtle." The line is in the original version of The Front Page and Grant also played "The Mock Turtle" in the 1933 film version of Alice in Wonderland.

His Girl Friday
Feature Film|1:31:43|
Editor tries to keep ace reporter from remarrying