His Girl Friday

I’m not going to lie: I was spent after watching “His Girl Friday”. The moving parts, the rattled-off, locomotive dialogue, speedy pace, and developments constantly shifting before anything can stop and breathe; “His Girl Friday” is a brisk 100 minutes that barely ever halts long enough to give us time to marinate on anything. And that is what is remarkable about it. To be able to perform under that sort of breakneck, not just remembering the lines but to have all these characters in and out, weaved through, articulating in such a fashion that never affords time to exhale before the next newsworthy item writes itself in real time. She just wanted to tell her ex, an editor and chief at “The Post”, that she was leaving the business and particularly him for good, for Albany with an insurance salesman. But he wasn’t about to just let her get away without a fight. Of course his fight was by using tactics (counterfeit money, a curvy blonde, an insurance policy) and tools (a pickpocket, minor criminal who basically does whatever he says, not to mention, his stream of underlings at the paper) to depose this poor salesman so he (and her) couldn’t get away on the train to Albany. Although, you think “His Girl Friday” is about a love triangle, it gets mighty messy with this murderer on death row, the woman who feels sorry for him and is made a fool by the press, and a prepared hanging to happen the next evening. Weaving in and out of the film are members of the press arranged in their special office near where the prison and outside hanging are to take place, the salesman’s mother (arriving from Albany with a bone to pick with her son’s fiancé), the criminal with special chores to do for the boss in order to see that the salesman is preoccupied (either arrested erroneously or held in jail for setups that weren’t of his doing), the murderer (his mental state and reason for killing an African-American cop the topic of death penalty debate), and a mayor up for potential election and the sheriff he keeps under his thumb who is up for reelection.

What pushes this story—besides editor of the Post, Walter Burns (Cary Grant), sabotaging salesman, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), so that he can’t get that train ride back home with fiancé, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell)—is the political intrigue involving the sheriff (Gene Lockhart) and his “boss”, the mayor (Clarence Kolb), trying their best to get a death sentenced murderer executed, while Burns successfully nudges the governor to grant a reprieve. This guy (John Qualen), a tiny nebbish with a wilting countenance, easily-manipulated (see his conversation with Hildy, who easily convinces him that his getting a gun and firing it based on something someone said in a park was “production for use”, as an example) and highly sensitive, remains in a cage on death row while this soft-hearted, frustrated friend, Molly (Helen Mack), dubbed by the press who interviewed her as his girlfriend just because she sympathizes with his plight tries to talk with anyone that will listen about his situation, perhaps offering a why to the shooting that has landed him a death sentence.

There is a powerful scene to me that perhaps often gets lost in the back-and-forth between Grant and Russell and that involves Molly arriving at the press room trying to just talk sense to these newspaper reporters during their card game around a table. Russell is also in the room, trying to avoid the inevitable draw back into getting the story, eventually noticing that Molly was ripping into these guys who were systematically dismissing and mocking her. It left me personally repulsed at them and often being considered one of the ‘boys’ seemed to know how to talk to them and interact. Molly herself never had a prayer getting them to understand her point of view regarding Earl Williams. They just talked amongst themselves as if ignoring her or reminding her that Earl would be dying soon. I like the silence when Hildy escorts the shaken Molly out of the room in order to diffuse the situation and the press guys think among themselves about their treatment of her. That is before Earl gets the sheriff’s gun, handed to him at the request of one final therapist (whose idea it was to recreate the event to see how he acts in that moment!), and breaks for it, eventually winding up in the press room (a great deal of the film is featured in this itty bitty room with a table and these phones that often never stay left alone very long). The film does give us Grant using his genius (and his tone is stern, unpersuasive, tactful, and driven without very little interfering with each and every decision he makes) to sort of drive the narrative in whatever direction he sees fit, his Burns not often anything but successful when he sets his mind to something. It is no surprise that, by film’s end, Burns not only has Hildy back as a reporter but committed to him again. I think the film does poor Bellamy a disservice, but I never felt any of us watching figured Hildy would ever give up the news life. That rush and thrill to get the story down and out to the public quickly, beating out her peers at other papers, and Burns’ ability to wield his magic all over the place, including Bruce’s consistent arrests (while these were built for laughs, I was kind of taken aback by how Bruce is often treated, a patsy and naïve nincompoop that serves as a plaything to be kept out of the picture) is really pointedly reflected by Hawks in madcap, rat-a-tat-tat presentation. It was just non-stop. Not one person, besides Earl Williams, seems to talk or move at steady.

Keeping up with the zingers and trying to not just focus on what one person is trying to get accomplished while multiple characters are also involved in the main story arc of Williams’ escaping and using the gun given to him by the sheriff is not an easy task. No doubt, this is all fun, though. It is very active, for sure, and ADD on steroids, but never boring. No way is this boring. And when you move through The Post’s headquarters, ladies at switchboards and papered desks and walls (and cornerposts holding the building up, seemingly no space not covered by some item with words on it) of busy human bots on phones or tackling whatever items are hopefully destined for the pages of the newspaper in some capacity, it reflects the acting and direction. On the go, movement never ceasing for very long, exciting with plenty of running around and talking, the film is very much a machine constantly pressing forward. 

I was disappointed in Hildy just sort of falling back into the life with Burns, although I get why she just couldn’t resist the lure of the news. It brings the best (and we see with Burns, worst) out of those in that industry who are very good at it. She had a way of talking to people, those in the news and those involved in the news. She can build a good writeup for the paper, dole it out off the typewriter as it all formulates and spills out of her brilliant mind, and move to whatever the next story might be. Her activities, including harboring an escaped fugitive in the press room, agreeing to keep mum when Burns arrives to sort of navigate the next steps and hoping to eventually get back to Albany with Bruce not incarcerated, keep her moving from one comic drama to the next…mostly orchestrated by Burns in order to keep her in his life and at his paper. I just felt that the Paper was always first and foremost of importance to Burns while Hildy, sure enough an obsession but perhaps for complicating reasons, would sadly be second fiddle. Nothing by that ending, including the scheduled remarriage and honeymoon, tells me this will ever change. Bruce, yes boring and not very exciting, never indicates that he wouldn’t adore and worship her. But the news has a pull about it. She couldn’t resist that. 5/5

*The point about the pacing is never more evident than when newsworthy situations like Molly leaping out the press room window, Earl holding a gun on Hildy, Earl hiding in a desk, the mayor and sheriff hoping to bribe a courier into keeping the governor's reprieve quiet, Bruce's mother possibly dying in a car wreck because Burns wanted her it of the way, and Hildy avoiding and ignoring Bruce's question about coming with him to Albany while Burns wishes he'd go away come and go when any of them could make for an entire film!