Media in the Movies: a journalism series presented by VTIFF and Seven Days in celebration of Seven Days’ 30th anniversary

Introduced by Sasha Goldstein, Seven Days deputy news editor

Definitely on the shortlist for Funniest Movie to Ever Come out of Hollywood, His Girl Friday reached a pinnacle in screwball comedy that other films have approached but never bettered. Star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosaldind Russell) is leaving the news biz to get married, but her ruthless editor (and ex-husband) Walter Burns (Cary Grant) isn’t having it. Hildy agrees to cover one more story—the execution of murderer Ear Williams—and the dominoes start falling.

In a genre that put a premium on fast-paced, wisecracking dialog, no movie ever cracked wiser at a faster pace. The blistering dialog is both heavily stylized yet perfectly on point (clearly a huge influence on filmmakers like the Coen Brothers and, well, dozens of others). Scriptwriter Charles Lederer ingeniously updated Ben Hecht’s 1928 play The Front Page, recasting Hildy as a woman—originally written for a man, film versions have seen Hildy played by Pat O’Brien and Jack Lemmon—while the great Hawks pushes the pace like an out-of-control locomotive.

Russell is fabulous as Hildy, but Grant, never funnier, frequently steals the show as the conniving, vicious, amoral Burns.

In addition to being utterly hilarious, His Girl Friday also has some things to say about the fourth estate. Balancing Hildy’s basic decency and quest for the truth with an otherwise pretty scandalous view of the newspaper world, His Girl Friday manages to satirize journalistic practices while also upholding the institution.