The Front Page 1928 play by Ben Hecht Charles MacArthur
Produced by
Howard Hawks
Starring
Cary Grant
Rosalind Russell
Cinematography
Joseph Walker
Edited by
Gene Havlick
Production company
Columbia Pictures
Distributed by
Columbia Pictures
Release date
January 18, 1940 (1940-01-18)
Running time
92 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and featuring Ralph Bellamy and Gene Lockhart. It was released by Columbia Pictures. The plot centers on a newspaper editor named Walter Burns who is about to lose his ace reporter and ex-wife, Hildy Johnson, newly engaged to another man. Burns suggests they cover one more story together, getting themselves entangled in the case of murderer Earl Williams as Burns desperately tries to win back his wife. The screenplay was adapted from the 1928 play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. This was the second time the play had been adapted for the screen, the first occasion being the 1931 film which kept the original title The Front Page.
The script for His Girl Friday was written by Charles Lederer and Ben Hecht, the latter of whom is not credited for his contributions. The major change in this version, introduced by Hawks, is that the role of Hildy Johnson is a woman. Filming began in September 1939 and finished in November, seven days behind schedule. Production was delayed because the frequent improvisation and numerous ensemble scenes required many retakes. Hawks encouraged his actors to be aggressive and spontaneous. His Girl Friday has been noted for its surprises, comedy, and rapid, overlapping dialogue. Hawks was determined to break the record for the fastest film dialogue, at the time held by The Front Page. He used a sound mixer on the set to increase the speed of dialogue and held a showing of the two films next to each other to prove how fast his film was.
His Girl Friday was #19 on American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs and was selected in 1993 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[2][3] The film is in the public domain because the copyright was not renewed; the play it was based on remained under copyright for several decades until it expired in 2024, fully releasing the film from remaining copyright.[4]
^Mankiewicz, Ben and Muller, Eddie (July 23, 2020) Intro to the Turner Classic Movies presentation of the film
^"Librarian Announces National Film Registry Selections (March 7, 1994) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin". www.loc.gov. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
^"Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
^Jackson, Matthew (March 6, 2017). "11 Classic Films in the Public Domain". mentalfloss.com. Retrieved January 4, 2019.
HisGirlFriday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and featuring Ralph Bellamy...
girlFriday in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. GirlFriday may refer to: GirlFriday (idiom), a feminine variation of the phrase "Man Friday" Girl Friday...
Radio Theatre. In 1940, Grant appeared opposite Rosalind Russell in HisGirlFriday. Grant was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor in...
newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy HisGirlFriday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her portrayals of Mame...
gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), HisGirlFriday (1940), and The...
play Howard Katz at the National Theatre. He also performed in HisGirlFriday and His Dark Materials there. In 2004, he took the role of Rudge in Alan...
"About a Girl". Alex Suarez (Cobra Starship) – additional vocals on "HisGirlFriday". Blake Healy (Metro Station) – piano on "HisGirlFriday" and "Summer...
(Douglas W. Schmidt). John Guare's theatrical adaptation of the film HisGirlFriday was produced at The La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California, in...
(uncredited) Calling All Marines (1939) as Judy Fox HisGirlFriday (1940) as Mollie Malloy Girls of the Road (1940) as Mickey Power Dive (1941) as Betty...
wisecracking dame role that owes something, perhaps, to Rosalind Russell in HisGirlFriday." In 2003, Hunt returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's Life x 3, and...
the Hole, Blade Runner, HisGirlFriday, The Night of the Hunter, This Is Spinal Tap, and the work of the Coen brothers as his favourite films. He speaks...
comedy". Among his notable screenplays which he wrote or co-wrote, were The Front Page (1931), the critically acclaimed HisGirlFriday (1940), Gentlemen...
Riggs's phrase "Sold, American!", which made its way into the 1940 film HisGirlFriday. The auction chant was explored in the 1976 documentary How Much Wood...
Tiger. Sills played Walter Burns in La Jolla Playhouse's production of HisGirlFriday from May 28 to June 30, 2013. Sills appeared on Broadway beginning...
The Front Page, the 1931 film of the same name, and the 1940 film HisGirlFriday. It stars Kathleen Turner as Christy Colleran, Burt Reynolds as John...
include City Lights, A Night at the Opera, It Happened One Night, HisGirlFriday, My Wife's Goblin, The Philadelphia Story, Intolerable Cruelty, Roman...
Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), HisGirlFriday (1940), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941); more recent examples include What's...
(1931), a male newspaper editor tries to keep his male star reporter from quitting; in the remake HisGirlFriday (1940), the reporter is female and the editor's...
Global Information