Review of His Girl Friday (1940) by Byron B — 17 Jul 2016

Prolific Howard Hawks turns The Front Page into a fast-paced Romantic Screwball Comedy. This version especially inserts brand new dialogue into the exposition where we find out that Burns (Grant) and Hildy (Russell) are exes and that Hildy is remarrying a stiff in the insurance business named Bruce (Bellamy).

Rather than waiting for the end, the final clincher to prevent Hildy's marriage, Burns manipulates the situation repeatedly to get Bruce delayed by the police. There are major chunks of dialogue from the original play cut and rearranged.

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are in top form as the bickering former husband and wife and co-workers. The leading pair's charisma and timing makes for lots of laughs and it is quite original, only minimally based on the story structure of The Front Page, but when all is said and done I had to reduce my rating by a half star after a recent re-watch on Hulu.