I had the chance to see His Girl Friday yesterday. Starring one of my all time favorite actors, Cary Grant.
Grant plays a charismatic and conniving newspaper editor Walter Johnson, who uses almost every trick in his book to stop his ex-wife, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), from remarrying. Of couse hilarity ensues. Hildy tries to stick to her guns and quit the newspaper business so she can move to Albany and "restore her humanity"; but Walter cons her into staying to work on a death row case, while making sure that her fiancee (Ralph Bellamy) runs into trouble.
The story relies heavily on the dialogue, which is quick and witty. It is often times hard to keep up with the non-stop dialogue and multiple conversations happening at once, but Grant and Russell play very well off one another.
My only complaint would be the subtle sexism and racism prevalent in this, and many older films
However, minus these elements, I started wishing, while watching this movie, that films coming out now would be more like this one (and others of the 40s and 50s). This movie was classy, funny and a little bit naughty. Who knew there was blatant sexual innuendo in films back then? I kept thinking how this movie would play out if it was remade now. There would be more onscreen violence and perhaps a sex scene, or at least more outward sexuality. People may think that movies without these elements are boring, but after watching His Girl I was glad that for once these elements were missing.
No comments:
Post a Comment