Rating: NR
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 11/27/2001
Run Time: 92 Minutes
Flags: Adult Situations
Distributor/Studio: Alpha Video
The second screen version of the
Ben Hecht/
Charles MacArthur play
The Front Page,
His Girl Friday changed hard-driving newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson from a man to a woman, transforming the story into a scintillating battle of the sexes.
Rosalind Russell plays Hildy, about to foresake journalism for marriage to cloddish Bruce Baldwin (
Ralph Bellamy).
Cary Grant plays Walter Burns, Hildy's editor and ex-husband, who feigns happiness about her impending marriage as a ploy to win her back. The ace up Walter's sleeve is a late-breaking news story concerning the impending execution of anarchist Earl Williams (
John Qualen), a blatant example of political chicanery that Hildy can't pass up. The story gets hotter when Williams escapes and is hidden from the cops by Hildy and Walter--right in the prison pressroom.
His Girl Friday may well be the fastest comedy of the 1930s, with kaleidoscope action, instantaneous plot twists, and overlapping dialogue. And if you listen closely, you'll hear a couple of "in" jokes, one concerning
Cary Grant's real name (Archie Leach), and another poking fun at Ralph Bellamy's patented "poor sap" screen image. Subsequent versions of
The Front Page included
Billy Wilder's 1974 adaptation, which restored Hildy Johnson's manhood in the form of
Jack Lemmon, and 1988's
Switching Channels, which cast
Burt Reynolds in the Walter Burns role and
Kathleen Turner as the Hildy Johnson counterpart.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
