His Girl Friday

media release: USA | 1940 | 35mm | 92 min.

Director: Howard Hawks; Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

In a gender-bending version of Hecht and MacArthur’s comedy The Front Page, Russell plays a whiz of a reporter determined to give up her typewriter for a wedding ring from Bellamy. But her editor and ex-husband Grant makes it hard for her to leave. The breathlessly delivered gags and dialogue are a signature of master comedy director Hawks. David Bordwell’s personal 35mm print will be screened, courtesy of the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research. Of His Girl Friday, Bordwell wrote, “I fell in love with its heedless energy. It seemed to me a perfect example of what Hollywood could do.”