The ultimate rapid-fire screwball comedy and my personal all-time favorite movie. Cary Grant, in his greatest performance, is the searingly charismatic big city newspaper editor who connives to win back Hildy (Rosalind Russell), the journalist ex-wife whom he still loves. She’s about to give up the career and marry her way to white-picket-fence normalcy via her new man, a dopey milquetoast insurance salesman (Ralph Bellamy). Cary Grant knows the truth about her, though—Hildy’s a newspaper reporter through and through, a tough lady and a powerful writer made to live on the edge. This film is all about how he jumps through hoops of fire to get her to recognize who she really is.
This was made at a time when the job of newspaper journalist seemed seedy to a lot of people. Many reporters then weren’t college educated. They were often seen as sneaky, untrustworthy types who fraternized with crooks and lived crazy lives unsuitable for raising a family. But, of course, that’s extremely romantic, too. This film makes being a newspaper reporter look as fun as running away with the circus.
In the original stage play, The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Hildy is a man. The story goes that, in pre-production, His Girl Friday director Howard Hawks did a reading of the script with his female secretary, which lead to a lightning bolt moment of inspiration when he noticed how much juicier Hecht and MacArthur’s story would be if Hildy was a woman. Hawks was right. File His Girl Friday among that small number of films that improve on its source material.