His Girl Friday (1940) One of the finest comedies ever directed (Review)

As Howard Hawk’s His Girl Friday opens, we are graced with a silent film style inter-title that announces that the following takes place in a world where Journalists have become an unscrupulous kind who care little of the people around them. What now reads as on-the-nose satire, back in 1934 the journalist was a far more respected figure and they featured in films that painted them as champions of the people, a more righteous version of the police. It wasn’t for a few decades, with the likes of Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole, that this whiter than white image began to lose its lustre.

Rosalind Russell stars as Hildy Johnson, recent divorcee to Walter Burns (Cary Grant), at the top of the film she visits his office to tell him that she is engaged to another man and that they are to be married the next day – furthermore she wants to get out of the journalism world to be a real person again. Burns isn’t the kind of man who’ll let that happen as he takes it upon himself to frame his rival for a litany of crimes while endeavouring to get Hildy to write for his newspaper and back in his life. The story that Burns wants to cover is one that will decide the upcoming mayoral election with a murderer who may or may not be insane, an interview which only Hildy is fit for.

Credited as one of the all-time great comedies and one of the finest screwball films tells of only half a picture. Screwball can only be described under the terms of a dead genre, its idiosyncratic machine-gun dialogue is a unique trait of the 1930s and 40s of British and American film. Even at a meagre 90 minutes, it is directed and performed with such fevered energy that it makes action cinema appear sedate – an astonishing feat for a film so dense and dialogue-driven. The classic rule of script-writing is that “one page equals one minute on-screen” – that just can’t be true here, it’s just too fast-moving. That same energy is why any and all attempts to revitalise this style have ended in catastrophic failure, with only Shane Black capturing some degree of the essence of what made Screwball tick.

Howard Hawks’ direction is more than a mere procession of heady dialogue scenes, in fact, the word direction may not be enough to effectively communicate how good behind the camera he is here. Choreography would be a much more apt word. First, there is the dialogue, often overlapping between multiple characters, there is a vast cast, a plot of double-crosses and more, and to ensure that all these moving parts integrate so smoothly is one of the most graceful displays of choreography that cinema may have ever enjoyed – especially in the final 20 minutes. One false move and the entire house of cards falls. Whether screwball can be appreciated by modern eyes remains to be seen and as exhausting as it can be to keep up, just to stop and appreciate what is unfolding boggles the mind – few films have been directed as perfectly as His Girl Friday.

While being one of the finest examples of Screwball, there is more to His Girl Friday thanks to the core story that Burns and Hildy are chasing so fiercely. Between the duo and the press room that much of the film finds itself in, we are subject to the journalistic standards of this newspaper that amount human life and its value to circulation numbers. Lies are fine and if people are kidnapped or killed it only makes the story that comes from all it the juicier. Whether prescient or the work of comedic exaggeration, Ben Hecht’s and Charles MacArthur’s adaptation of their play “The Front Page” goes to some surprisingly dark places whilst never losing that chirpy disposition and endlessly quotable whip-smart dialogue.

As unexpected as the film can be, its quietest legend is Rosalind Russell. Her performance as the intelligent, strong-willed Hildy Johnson is putting most female roles in modern Hollywood to shame an amazing 77 years later. As amazing as that sounds on paper, just process that idea for a moment. Female roles in Hollywood have remained stagnant, and in some cases regressed, over the course of the last 3 quarters of a century. Depressing that thought might be, please don’t let it take anything away from how good Russell is.

It’s no small wonder that the Criterion Collection’s latest is counted among the greatest comedy films of all time. Whether it is funny or not is entirely in the eye of the beholder, and even if it’s not there is a command of the English language spirited enough to ensure that a smile will never be too far away from even the stoniest of faces. With Cary Grant at his charming best playing opposite an unparalleled Rosalind Russell and that’s before Howard Hawks’ matchless direction, His Girl Friday is a thing of true beauty. Package this with a collection of extra features, interviews, and additions from a brand as legendary as the Criterion Collection and you have 2017’s first must-have disc.

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