Charles MacArthur (1895–1956)

It's a highly rated film from the 1940s, in black-and-white. Rosalind Russell is good as the hard-working, confident Hildy, but Cary Grant's character Walter is so smarmy, narcissistic and manipulative that we didn't like him at all.

Lots of very fast-paced action and talking which we couldn't hear as characters were talking at the same time as each other. But the plot itself was easy enough to grasp. All increasingly surreal, implying widespread and severe corruption in US newsrooms and show more society in general in the 1940s, and we didn't like the ending.

Not one we're likely to see again.

Longer review here: https://suesdvdreviews.blogspot.com/2024/05/his-girl-friday-rosalind-russell.htm... show less

A thoroughly nasty piece of work; I say that with complete admiration. To steal and change a line from "The Sweet Smell of Success": "It's like a bratwurst laced with arsenic."

Hit comedy about Chicago journalists, filmed in 1931 with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien, remade by Howard Hawks as the 1940 classic His Girl Friday with Cary Grant and Rosiland Russell., remade again in 1974 by Billy Wilder with Walter Matthau (as Cary Grant) and Jack Lemmon (as Rosalind Russell). I think it's about time for another go-around.

THE FRONT PAGE ('31) was the first film version of the 1928 Broadway hit written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Pat O'Brien stars as enterprising star reporter Hildy Johnson.
Nice copy of Hecht and MacArthur's popular play set in Chicago, centered around newspaper reporters on the police beat. It ran for 278 performances on Broadway between August 14, 1928 - April, 1929, and served as the basis for three film adaptations: Lewis Milestone's The Front Page (1931), starring Adolphe Menjou show more and Pat O'Brien, Howard Hawks's His Girl Friday (1940), starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and Billy Wilder's 1974 adaptation The Front Page, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. show less