His Girl Friday Is A Charming Screwball Comedy Up Until Its Crummy Ending

Though there are a large amount of comedy sequels out there, especially in the modern-day cinematic landscape, for much of history, when a comedy has ended up being successful, Hollywood's de riguer was to simply assemble the leading actor of that comedy and possibly also it's direct and have them pair off again for another separate adventure that was similar in tone and style to what had come before it. Thus, Howard Hawks & Cary Grant re-teamed for another screwball comedy called His Girl Friday in 1940 after their 1938 effort Bringing Up Baby, which didn't perform as well at the box office as producers wanted but it had definitely proved that Hawks & Grant were a combo that worked well together.


For His Girl Friday, Grant is now playing Walter Burns, a ruthless newspaper editor who will do anything to nab a juicy scoop. His most prized employee, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), is also his ex-wife, with their crumbling romantic life leading her to have recently left the newspaper. Now, Johnson has reappeared in Burns life to let him know she's officially dropping the newspaper life once and for all in order to get married to an insurance salesman named Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Burns is determined to make sure Johnson gets back into both the newspaper business and his love life and a crime involving a man who shot a police officer could be just the sensational story that keeps Johnson around.

Johnson being assigned to cover this crime is the sort of situation that leads to all sorts of madcap situations fixated on misunderstood turns of phrases and physical comedy. This is, after all, a screwball comedy, a type of comedy that Howard Hawks showed an incredible amount of skill in executing in Bringing Up Baby. His Girl Friday is certainly a step down from that film, but it's still plenty humorous, even if the fact that it's trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle comedic magic of a past movie so heavily means the ways it's inferior to that past movie stand out all the more. In other words, think of it as Bringing Up Baby & His Girl Friday was to Howard Hawks as Anchorman & Talladega Nights were to Adam McKay.

All of that being said, His Girl Friday is still a delightful motion picture on its own terms. This is especially true regarding Rosalind Russell, she's a hoot in the lead role, all confidence and go-get-em attitude that enables her to go toe-to-toe with Cary Grant's character in an entertaining fashion. Writer Charles Lederer finds plenty of creative antics for Russell and Grant's characters to get entangled into as they get swept up in a scandalous crime that may involve a larger conspiracy at play, particularly once the criminal at the heart of the whole thing comes to Hildy Johnson for assistance and she has to hide him. Lots of humor to be found here as she tries to keep him hidden and also attempts to figure out how to covertly get him to safety.

Lederer's writing, in addition to generating humor in exaggerated physical & situational comedy, also finds comedy in the dialogue exchanges between the characters. That rapid-fire type of dialogue delivery common in films of this era is put to good use here as Grant and Russell find themselves intentionally running over each other's lines in a recurring instance of frantic chaos that's highly humorous to watch while also reinforcing the individual steadfast personalities of these two characters. It's no wonder His Girl Friday finds so many yuks in its runtime given what kind of creative writing Lederer is delivering here, which makes it a crying shame that the ending found in his screenplay ends the whole endeavor on such a disappointing note.

The whole movie ends with Hildy Johnson learning her fiancee's been falsely imprisoned, the third time in the span of an evening that Bruce Baldwin has been pointlessly incarcerated due to Walter Burns, who keeps framing Baldwin so that he can have a chance to win back Johnson. After this, Johnson abruptly decides she really loves Walter Burns after all and decides to go on an elaborate honeymoon with Burns. It's an ending played like a happy & sweet conclusion, but it just left a sour taste in my mouth. Johnson's individuality as a human being has been surrendered so she can be a victory present for Watler Burns, a guy whose heavily manipulative tendencies make him seem like a prime candidate to be an abusive spouse. Trying to force an unearned happily ever after ending for these two characters just ends His Girl Friday on a dismal note, a pity given that the preceeding film was thoroughly charming and funny.