DVD: His Girl Friday | reviews, news & interviews
DVD: His Girl Friday
DVD: His Girl Friday
Screwball comedy with an intelligent slant remains daisy-fresh
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
The sexes battle it out in fine style in 'His Girl Friday': Cary Grant as Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson
His Girl Friday is funny. Very, very funny. It is also crammed with cutting verbiage as sharply delivered as the moves of a complex pas de deux. Yet another no-frills appearance of the 1940 film on home video is not a surprise as – despite being a Hollywood product – it fell out of copyright and has been just-about endlessly reissued. Nonetheless, anyone looking to enjoy a laugh riot with an intelligent slant should seek it out.
Despite being over 60 years old, this screwball comedy still feels daisy-fresh.
The plot of this dazzlingly fast-moving film is as wafer-thin as that of a farce or a vaudeville caper. Cary Grant’s Walter Burns is a newspaper editor trying to keep on the sweet side of his ex-wife Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) so she keeps delivering stories. Learning of her plan to marry square-peg, bland-out Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) and take on the sedate life of a mother, Burns does all he can to divert her from this ambition while assorted oddball characters and absurd set pieces help him on his way. The slender scenario drew from a play where Russell’s character was originally male.
With such a banal foundation, His Girl Friday succeeded due to its terrifically assured direction and the interaction between its characters. The third of a series of three-in-row Howard Hawks directed as vehicles for Cary Grant, it followed Bringing up Baby (1938) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Kathrine Hepburn, Grant’s foil in Bringing up Baby, turned down the role of the speed-talking Johnson while Russell was keen to take it on as it would help her stop being typecast as a sophisticate. The on-screen chemistry between her and Grant is obvious, and both are magnetic. Not only was the film a commercial success, but Grant set Russell up with her future husband during the filming.
Presumably, she did not take any of Johnson’s choice descriptions of Burns into real-life matrimony. To her, in the film, he was a “big bubble-headed baboon” and a “double-crossing chimpanzee”, but “wonderful, in a loathsome sort of way”. And the latter is what His Girl Friday is. But without the loathsome.
Overleaf: watch the trailer for His Girl Friday
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more Film
Blu-ray: Pharaoh
Dazzling historical epic from the Polish New Wave
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat review - jazz-themed documentary on the 1960s Congo Crisis
Musicians played different roles in the struggles of the newly independent African country
Gladiator II review - can lightning strike twice?
Sir Ridley Scott makes a big, bold return to the Roman Empire
ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime
Despite anticipating disaster, this mesmerising voyage is full of hope
Joy review - the birth pangs of in vitro fertilisation
Subtle drama about the quest to give women a childbearing choice
Blu-ray: The Oblong Box
Vincent Price and Christopher Lee in 'Witchfinder General''s phantom follow-up
Bird review - travails of an unseen English tween
Andrea Arnold gives a hyperreal spin to her latest story of a neglected girl
The Problem With People review - local zero
Hardly a Forsyth saga, this unfunny Oirish comedy is a homage to catatonia
Anora review - life lesson for a kick-ass sex worker
Sean Baker's bracing Palme d'Or winner twists, turns, and makes a star of Mikey Madison
Blitz review - racism persists as bombs batter London
Steve McQueen's overwought World War Two boy's adventure film delivers its message
Small Things Like These review - less is more in stirring Irish drama
Cillian Murphy is exceptional as a man wrestling with his church and conscience
The Room Next Door review - Almodóvar out of his comfort zone
The Spanish director's meditation on mortality is a beautiful misfire
Add comment