His Girl Friday (1940)

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92 min – view video trailer

Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

IMDB 8.1 / Amazon 4.6 / MRQE 88% / Decent Films C

Oscars: none

Ranked #80 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying. IMDB 8.1 rating from over 27,421 users

His Girl Friday is one of the, oh, five greatest dialogue comedies ever made; Hawks had his cast play it at breakneck speed, and audiences hyperventilate trying to finish with one laugh so they can do justice to the four that have accumulated in the meantime. Amazon 4.6 stars from over 47 users

Despite its blistering dialogue and wacky plot swings, His Girl Friday doesn’t work for me on one crucial level: I just don’t care whether or not Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell wind up together, largely because neither character is particularly likable or sympathetic. In fact, if anything, I think Russell might be better off with Ralph Bellamy, and that’s never a good thing. Decent Films C, a bit above mediocre.

The second screen version of the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, His Girl Friday changed hard-driving newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson from a man to a woman, transforming the story into a scintillating battle of the sexes. Rosalind Russell plays Hildy, about to foresake journalism for marriage to cloddish Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Cary Grant plays Walter Burns, Hildy’s editor and ex-husband, who feigns happiness about her impending marriage as a ploy to win her back. Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 97% Audience 88%

MRQE 88% from over 51 reviews

Madison Public Library

The Awful Truth (1937)

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91 min – view video trailer

Director: Leo McCarey
Starring: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy

Genres: Comedy, Romance

IMDB 7.9 / Amazon 4.2 / Tomatometer 91%

Oscars: nominated for 6, won 1 (Best Director)

Included in the New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and Time Magazine-All-TIME 100 Movies

Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other’s attempts to find new romance. IMDB 7.9 rating from over 8,982 users

One of the top five screwball comedies of the ’30s, this helped to cement a genre that waxed golden until the end of WWII. Amazon 4.2 stars from over 83 users

Grant is sharp and shrewd, manipulating the situation to get his wife back while ostensibly professing that he doesn’t deserve her, that Bellamy will do much better by her, etc., though in fact he’s out to make Bellamy look ridiculous. By the film’s end, Bellamy, disillusioned with the heroine, goes home with his mother, leaving Grant with the girl. Decent Films C+

Leo McCarey directed this classic screwball comedy in which Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a couple whose marriage is starting to fall apart. Jerry informs Lucy that he’s taking a vacation alone in Florida; instead, he holes up with his buddies and plays poker for a week (while sitting under a sun lamp so he’ll have an appropriate tan).  Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 91% Audience 86%

MRQE has over 34 reviews linked

Madison Public Library

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0-euBr_vRU]