His Girl Friday

Rating:
Summary: VINTAGE SCREWBALL SPARKLES ON DVD FROM COLUMBIA
Review: "His Girl Friday" is Howard Hawk's inspired remake of the award-winning Broadway play and previous movie release of "The Front Page". It's the story of a rapid fire newspaper editor, Walter (Cary Grant) and his star reporter and ex-wife, Hildie Johnston. Hildie has decided to retire to the country with her soon to be new husband (Ralph Belamy). But when a prison break captures the imagination of a troupe of cutthroat reporters, all rabid for the real scoop, Hildie sets aside marital bliss for one last hurrah behind the desk as a cub reporter.
THE TRANSFER: BEWARE OF THIS DVD! There are no less than 12 bootlegged versions of this film being sold through various vendors on DVD. In all but one case the image quality looks as though the entire print had been fed through a meat grinder. The version you want is the one from Columbia Tri-Star Home Video. Its packaging features a disclaimer that reads "mastered from the original camera negative." This version of "His Girl Friday" exhibits - in short - exemplary video quality. The B&W picture has been completely restored. Age related artifacts are nonexistent. The gray scale, black and contrast levels are perfectly realized. Fine detail will astound. There are no digital anomalies. The audio is mono but very nicely cleaned up.
EXTRAS: This version also includes some very nice - if all too brief - featurettes on the careers of stars Rosiland Russell and Cary Grant and the making of the film. There's also the original theatrical trailer.
BOTTOM LINE: This girl is worth seeking out!

Rating:
Summary: THE funniest movie ever made!
Review: 'His Girl Friday' was released in 1940 (Actually, it was released on January 18th to be exact, which was Cary Grant's birthday). It was based on the play 'The Front Page' by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. 'The Front Page' was actually first made into a movie in 1931 (keeping the title of the play). It has a big change. The Character played by Rosalind Russell in 'His Girl Friday', was actually a man in the original story. The film is directed by Howard Hawks, and it has a very fast-paced story, which is hilarious, all the way through.

The basic plot of the story, is that Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) has just recently divorced Walter Burns (Cary Grant), and she tells him that she will no longer be working with his newspaper. So as to she can get married again, to another man, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy, in a great role), and live a much more peaceful life than the one she has been living in the newspaper reporter business. Before she leaves, she agrees to covering one more story. But Walter does everything he can to make sure this isnt her last story, and that she doesnt re-marry.

The DVD presents the movie to us, in a very good looking print, with good sound aswell. It comes with some nice extras, such as a few featurettes (although short) of the lead stars. With other little things too.

Easily, in my opinion (and I know a lot of others) the funniest movie ever made. Maybe Howard Hawks' best movie, with a great, great cast. Very highly recommended.

PLEASE NOTE: Living in the UK, I obviously own the Region 2 release from Columbia. Checking through, it appears to be the same as this Region 1 release.

Rating:
Summary: A Hawks comedy masterpiece
Review: Cary Grant plays a newspaper editor and Rosalind Russell plays his ex-wife and fellow reporter who is about to quit her job and remarry. Grant doesn't want to lose one of his star reporters, and he is unscrupulous enough to do just about anything to stop the marriage going ahead, including having her prospective husband framed and thrown in prison- not once, but twice. Russell is desperate to leave journalism behind her and start a family and a home, but her journalistic instincts flair up when she hears of a man about to be unfairly executed and she thinks she can stop it. Watching her facilitate between her desire to be a journalist and a housewife is genuinely funny.

The film is gripping and Howard Hawks, one of Hollywood's greatest directors, handles the direction with real flair, never letting the pace slacken. Cary Grant is a master of comic timing and both he and Russell make a great double act. The rest of the cast put in a sterling performance. This is a much better film than the more famous Billy Wilder remake.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant film--dreadful DVD
Review: Don't buy this DVD. The sound quality is terrible--a loud hissing noise overshadows the film's trademark fast, witty dialog. $5 seemed a small investment at the time, but I should have saved my money. Surely someday those who own the rights to "His Girl Friday" will release a DVD worthy of this wonderful classic.

Rating:
Summary: That's what Archie Leach said before he cut his throat !
Review: Virtuoso performances by Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell highlight this screwball comedy masterpiece. Studio heads were appalled at the ad-libs they heard in the dailies "He looks like er...that fellow in the movies, Ralph Bellamy." They wondered if there was a madman in charge.

(There was. His name was Howard Hawks)

Adapted from the 1928 play and film "The Front Page", the madman realized that it would be much funnier if Hildy was female and, for good measure, about to leave not only the newspaper but also her dashing but um...slightly unethical ex-husband to marry a dullish Mama's boy (played to perfection by Bellamy) in order to finally lead a 'normal life.'

Of course she's leaving on the 3 o'clock train so there's still time for Walter to concoct some insane scheme to stop Hildy from making a terrible mistake and win her back.

Now if you're wondering how one can leave an EX-husband, or how hanging an innocent man to win an election, kidnapping old ladies, or framing a sweet simpleton for 'mashing' with the help of a blonde bombshell albino could possibly be funny

"She ain't no Albino, she was born right here in this country!"

Or if you simply want to roll on the floor laughing, watch this film.

In an age where film schools tell their students to turn off the sound and only watch the images to judge if the director has done his job (In what? Ignoring the writer?), where words are considered 'barriers', wit a 'defense mechanism' and intelligence in cinema feared as a turn off to the 'demogragraphics' of modern audiences

---Watch this film!

And leave the sound on. You won't want to miss a moment of Cary (born Archie Leach) Grant.