His Girl Friday
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| His Girl Friday | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Howard Hawks |
| Produced by | Howard Hawks |
| Written by | Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur (play The Front Page) Charles Lederer (screenplay) |
| Starring | Cary Grant Rosalind Russell |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 11, 1940 |
| Running time | 92 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
His Girl Friday is a 1940 screwball comedy, a remake of the 1931 film The Front Page, itself an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of their play of the same name. It was directed by Howard Hawks and is noted for the rapid-fire wit and extremely fast pace of the dialogue.
The film 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, and 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.
The title is an inversion of the expression "Man Friday".
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, which hasn't stopped Columbia from issuing official video releases of the film.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Cary Grant plays Walter Burns, a hard-boiled editor for The Morning Post, and Rosalind Russell co-stars as his ex-wife and former star reporter, Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson. She wants to marry 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. Burns entices the reluctant Johnson into covering one last story: the upcoming execution of convicted murderer Earl Williams (John Qualen). When Williams escapes from the bumbling sheriff (Gene Lockhart), the fun really begins.
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 escapee Williams 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 it is hopeless and leaves.
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 brings them a reprieve from the governor, they try to bribe the man to come back 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 (they did not have one the first time because Hildy was trapped inside a coal mine while working on a story). But then the phone rings; it seems there is a newsworthy strike in Albany, which is on the way to Niagara Falls by train (with Walter commenting that perhaps Bruce can put them up while they're there).
[edit] Cast
- Cary Grant as Walter Burns. Grant had fun dropping the names of real actors. His character Walter tells a partner in crime that Bruce looks a lot like the actor, Ralph Bellamy. Later, he also mentions someone called Archie Leach (Grant's real name).
- Rosalind Russell as Hildegard 'Hildy' Johnson. In her autobiography, Life Is A Banquet, Russell stated that after getting this part, she was annoyed that Grant had many of the best lines, so she hired a writer to 'punch up' her dialog. Hawks encouraged both Grant and Russell to improvise and did not know that many of the best wisecracks were provided by Russell's own writer.
- 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, Walter's pickpocket accomplice
- 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
[edit] Adaptation
The film itself and Hecht and MacArthur's play were later adapted into another stage play, His Girl Friday, by John Guare. This was put on at the National Theatre, London, from May to November 2003, with Alex Jennings as Burns and Zoe Wanamaker as Hildy.
[edit] Trivia
- 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 delicate process. Hawks had originally wanted Carole Lombard for the role, whom he had directed in the screwball comedy Twentieth Century. Lombard's payment clause in her contract under her new role as a freelancer, however, proved to be far too expensive, and Columbia could not afford her. Afterwards, Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Margaret Sullavan, Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne, and Jean Arthur were offered the role. All six actresses turned it down. Hawks then turned to Rosalind Russell, who was slightly miffed by the fact that she had not been his first choice (even arriving at her audition with wet hair), but she knew the role was genius and starred in one of the epitomizing comedy films that came from Hollywood's Golden Era. (Courtesy TCM).
- Russell knew that she was not Hawks' first choice for Hildy, and when they were on the set, she noticed that he treated her like an also-ran. She asked him, "You don't want me, do you? Well, you're stuck with me, so you might as well make the most of it." (Courtesy TCM).
- The film was the first to use overlapping dialogue to make the character's conversation sound far more realistic than the movies that had previously followed, with one character finishing their line before the other could begin. Hawks had said to 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." (Courtesy TCM)
- One of the biggest laughs in the film has always been when Cary Grant's character is describing the appearance of Ralph Bellamy's character, Bruce Baldwin. Grant finally gives up and says, "He looks like that actor...Ralph Bellamy!" Studio head Harry Cohn thought the line was too cheeky and ordered it to be removed from the final product. Hawks insisted it stay in, and, obviously, Cohn relented. (Courtesy IMDB)
- Rosalind Russell originally thought she did not have as many good lines as Cary Grant did, and therefore hired her own writer to punch up her dialogue. With Hawks encouraging ad-libbing on the set, Russell took this into effect and began to punch up her dialogue with improvisation. Only Grant was wise to this tactic and greeted her every morning, saying, "What have you got today?" (Courtesy IMDB)
- The part of Hildy Johnson had originally been written for a man in the play upon which the movie was based on, "The Front Page." Hawks intended casting the part for a man, but when he heard the dialogue coming from his secretary who read it to audition other men for their roles, he loved the lines coming from a woman so much that he rewrote the dialogue to fit a woman. (Courtesy IMDB)
- Grant makes a famous reference to his real name, Archibald Leach, in this film. He describes some horrendous fate suffered by the last person who crossed him: Archie Leach. (Courtesy TCM).
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||||||||
