His Girl Friday

If you’re already acquainted with the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, you’ll know there’s no greater joy than those starring Cary Grant; if you’re not, these are the original “romantic comedies.” Before 10 Things I Hate About You in 1999 with Julia Styles and Heath Ledger, Cary Grant starred alongside Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth and Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story  (also starring a young Jimmy Stewart). His Girl Friday, also starring Grant and Rosalind Russell, is a major standout in this crowded field. 

Cary Grant plays Walter Burns, a charming and scheming newspaper publisher in Manhattan; his ex-wife, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), was also the star reporter for his paper. Upon meeting Hildy and her husband-to-be, Burns tries to both win both the love of his life and his paper’s best reporter back. He baits this trap with an irresistible scoop: they’re both convinced that a convicted murderer, set to be executed that day, is really innocent. Hildy’s natural talent and curiosity for nailing down the news lead her away from her better impulses and away from her new life with her new man, living (with his mother) in Albany. 

If you’re not familiar with director Howard Hawks, his movies are famous for their razor-sharp, fast-paced dialogue. This was an important feature of his dramas and film noirs like The Big Sleep (starring Humphrey Bogart) but his most iconic works are comedy films like Bringing Up Baby (starring Grant and Hepburn) or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe). His Girl Friday actually set a record for the fastest words spoken per minute in a feature film. It certainly feels like it as Cary Grant smooth-talks everyone around him into his schemes, while Rosalind Russell puts the kibosh on him while simultaneously barking the details of a newspaper story into an old candlestick phone. 

January first of every year marks “Public Domain Day,” as a treasure trove of works lose their copyright protection under United States law. Copyright laws dictate that films have a maximum copyright of 96 years if the owners extend the copyright, which means that the corpus of work in the American public domain has now finally caught up to the year 1930. For example, one great novel now in the public domain is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and Animal Crackers, starring the Marx brothers, is a great movie now free to watch and download. His Girl Friday was released in 1940, but its owners failed to extend the copyright. However, the film is based on a play, which limited the availability of the film in turn. In 2024, that play (The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur) lost its copyright, finally releasing the film to be viewed and downloaded by all for free on the internet. However, HCLS offers a lovingly crafted Criterion Collection DVD, full of interviews, commentaries, special features, and a beautiful insert full of essays and pictures. 

His Girl Friday is available on DVD and to stream on Kanopy for free with your library card. 

Alex Pyryt is an IT Systems Support Specialist at tHCLS Administrative Branch.