His Girl Friday (1940)

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell star in this fast-talking, wisecracking, newsroom-set screwball comedy classic from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

At the behest of Hawks, screenwriter Charles Lederer changed the gender of Hildy Johnson’s character from both the original play and subsequent film of The Front Page, setting this version firmly in the lineage of Hawks’ own Bringing Up Baby (1938).  Pace was key to this genre: on His Girl Friday, Hawks set himself the challenge of achieving the fastest dialogue ever recorded on film – and succeeded.

Lederer’s screenplay is regarded as the finest example of its kind, while Rosalind Russell’s Hildy Johnson proved to be a mould-breaker whose influence was felt down the generations, even inspiring Margot Kidder’s interpretation of Lois Lane in the 1978 version of Superman. Chris Chibnall

USA, 1940. Director Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Charles Lederer from the 1928 play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. With Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy. 92 mins. U

Introduced by Chris Chibnall.

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BFI programme notes

380758