Walter Burns is an irresistibly conniving newspaper publisher desperate to woo back his paper’s star reporter, who also happens to be his estranged wife. She’s threatening to quit and settle down with a new beau, but, as Walter knows, she has a weakness: she can’t resist a juicy scoop.
EN
“The perilousness of Hawks’ world, the sense of a cosmic (and comic) disequilibrium, comes from the problematic nature of sexual differentiation, an issue that is never completely resolved. But there is an evolution: the “feminine” side that is viewed by the young man as dangerous or debilitating (the “weakening” effect of the emotions) is gradually welcomed as a crucial element in adult men’s lives; and the aggressive side of woman becomes less and less incompatible with femininity.”
Molly Haskell1
“Over the years, Hawks had developed a refined understanding of how romantic comedy works. The audience must be convinced that the central couple are made for each other; a screwball comedy’s own particular cleverness lies in keeping the lovers apart for as long and in as crazily creative a way as possible. Remarriage plots are the most grown-up variation, because these are the movies that say two people can be perfectly suited and still louse it up. Matching (or, if you will, marrying) this device to The Front Page, so famous for its bite and cynicism, resulted in the most bracingly adult screwball comedy (and romance) of them all. Hawks and Lederer found a fresh spin on the remarriage comedy, making the question not how the wandering spouse will find her way home but how she’ll get back to work.”
Farran Smith Nehme2
“His Girl Friday (1940) is one of the fastest of all movies, from line to line and gag to gag. Besides the dynamic, highly assertive pace, this Front Page remake with Rosalind Russell playing Pat O’Brien’s role is a tour de force of choreographed action: bravado posturings with body, lucid Cubistic composing with natty lapels and hat brims, as well as a very stylized discourse of short replies based on the idea of topping, out-maneuvering the other person with wit, cynicism and verbal bravado. A line is never allowed to reverberate, but is quickly attached to another, funnier, line in a very underrated comedy that champions the sardonic and quick-witted over the plodding, sober citizens.”
Manny Farber3
- 1
Molly Haskell, “Howard Hawks: Masculine Feminine”, Film Comment, March 1974.
- 2
Farran Smith Nehme, “His Girl Friday: The Perfect Remarriage”, The Criterion Collection, January 2017.
- 3
Manny Farber, “Howard Hawks, Only Angels, His Girl Friday, Tender Is the Night, Scarface, and Red River”, Artforum, April 1969.
