#849: HAWKS, Howard: His Girl Friday (1940)

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HAWKS, Howard (United States)
His Girl Friday [1940]
Spine #849
Blu-ray


One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, His Girl Friday stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema's powerful women. Hildy is matched in force only by her conniving but charismatic editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (played by the peerless Cary Grant), who dangles the chance for her to scoop her fellow news writers with the story of an impending execution in order to keep her from hopping the train that's supposed to take her to Albany and a new life as a housewife. When adapting Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's smash hit play The Front Page, director Howard Hawks had the inspired idea of turning star reporter Hildy Johnson into a woman, and the result is an immortal mix of hard-boiled newsroom setting with ebullient remarriage comedy. Also presented here is a brand-new restoration of the 1931 film The Front Page, Lewis Milestone's famous pre-Code adaptation of the same material.

92 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2017
Director/Writers


The Front Page (1931)

Written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
Lewis Milestone was 36 when he directed The Front Page.

His Girl Friday (1940)

From the original play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur.
Screenplay by Charles Lederer.
Howard Hawks was 44 when he directed His Girl Friday.

Other Hawks films in the Collection:

#1239: Scarface (1932)
#1085: Bringing Up Baby (1938)
#806: Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
#709: Red River (1948)

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

 The Booklet

Two eight-panel foldouts featuring essays on His Girl Friday and The Front Page by film critics Farran Smith Nehme and Michael Sragow.

Commentary

None.

Interview

With film scholar David Bordwell about His Girl Friday.

Archival interviews

With His Girl Friday director Hawks.

Featurettes

From 1999 and 2006 about Hawks, actor Russell, and the making of His Girl Friday.

Radio adaptation

Of the play The Front Page from 1937 and 1946.

His Girl Friday trailers

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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