His Girl Friday
1940  NR  COMEDY  1h 32min
CAST— Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Helen Mack, Ernest Truex, Clarence Kolb, Porter Hall, Roscoe Karns, Abner Biberman, Cliff Edwards, John Qualen, Frank Jenks, Billy Gilbert
MUSIC— Sidney Cutner, Felix Mills  DIRECTOR— Howard Hawks

     A film with a fast pace, fast wit and sharp tongues is the only way to describe His Girl Friday. Never will you see a film that is harder to keep track of the dialogue. As the story goes, a high profile newspaperman, well, woman actually, decides to resign and marry. But first she must tell her boss… who just happens to be her ex-husband (who is still in love with her). Complications ensue when he tries to get her to put off her resignation and her marriage by covering one last case, a case involving the soon to be executed killer of a policeman. She gets the story, but can never leave town because her ex keeps having her fiancée arrested. With a premise as good as this, it’s a shame, but it just doesn’t seem to gel. Sure, there are a few laughs, but it doesn’t seem like the all-time classic that its reputation demands it to be. Deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.
OUR RATING— **
ORIGINAL— The Front Page (1931)
REMADE AS— The Front Page (1974), Switching Channels (1988)