Family Matinee

His Girl Friday

Heralded for its innovative, wiseacre dialogue, His Girl Friday follows smarmy newspaper editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) as he tries to win back Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), his best reporter and soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife, in this elaborate, high stakes screwball comedy from Howard Hawks. For this film, he re-cast Ben Hecht’s popular play, The Front Page, for a man and a woman, transposing a witty romance onto the snappy back-and-forth’s among tabloid journalists. This out-of-control story on the wildest news day ever harnesses Grant and Russell’s whip crack chemistry, not to mention the rest of the cast’s, and spins an unforgettable, laugh-a-minute yarn that is pure Hawks.