132: His Girl Friday

US  90m  Dir: Howard Hawks  Key Cast: Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell

His Girl Friday set the record in 1940 for the fastest words spoken per minute in a movie. The dialogue is breath-takingly fast and often characters talk over each other, something which of course is very natural but not easy to record in the days before you could record multiple soundtracks- director Howard Hawks had the sound mixer turn the microphones off and on as needed, as many as thirty-five times in a single scene. 

The plot sees Hildy (Rosalind Russell) return to the officed of The Morning Post which she used to write for to say a final farewell to her ex-husband and editor of the newspaper Walter Burns (Cary Grant) before going off to marry her straight-laced fiancée Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Walter does everything he can to get Hildy to stay and persuades her to perform one final interview of a man accused of murder which leads to the biggest story of their careers. 

The fast-paced dialogue here is just superb. There's line after line of zingers that come thick and fast- most films would be happy to have ten good lines in the whole film, this happily throw out at least that in a minute. Whilst the script is great there's also quite a lot of improvisation which Cary Grant especially was superb at. There's even a few brilliant fourth wall breaks, my favourtie being where Walter describes Brian as 'looking like that actor Ralph Bellamy'.

The characters are also great here. Walter manages to be really likeable despite being of questionable moral character- it's clear he will do anything for a story. It's Hilda who is perhaps the best character here though, believing she wants a quiet life when actually she loves the adventure of her journalism work and her time with Walter. The ending is inevitable from the minute the film starts but that doesn't mean it's not immensely satisfying when it comes. 

Howard Hawks was perhaps the best director of his day. Few could pull of the frantic energy of this film, from recording the overlapping dialogue to filming improvised scenes where no-one knew where the actors would move next. His best trick here is the way he contrasts Brian and Walter. Whenever Brian is on screen or Hilda is imagining her life with him the camera is very static and lethargic but when she's in the world of journalism it's much more dynamic with more movement in the camera and shorter shots. 

I've not really loved many screwball comedies but this one I just adored. Cary Grant at his finest, a brilliant turn from Rosalind Russell too and expertly directed by Howard Hawks.