Sunday, January 3, 2010

#5 His Girl Friday: Tear out the whole front page!

1940. dir. Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy.

Seen it before? Nope.

Aargh, screwball comedy. Not my favorite genre. The entire movie was people shouting into telephones. I know, I know, it's supposed to be "witty" and "rapid fire" but I just found it grating. It looks like it was fun to be a newspaper man back in the '40s... it seemed like whenever they weren't yelling their dialogue or hammering on a typewriter, they sat around smoking and playing cards. And the waiter asks them if they want rum in their coffee during lunch, they're all "Sure, why not?"

Performances were fine; I liked Rosalind Russell, and usually I can't stand Cary Grant in a non-Hitchcock movie but he was fine here. Ralph Bellamy was kind of funny as the "decoy" guy. You know, the loser guy the herione is with at the beginning so there's an obstacle to her hooking up with the dashing lead. Hey, screenwriters! This movie came out 70 years ago! Stop using that plot device! It's played!

Position in the list: 241
Other genres I'm not looking forward to: Musicals, westerns, and "prestige" period dramas made after 1980

1 comment:

  1. First, Cary Grant is the epitome of the Hollywood leading man. he is just so cool and debonair. more important is that although he is totally unique you can see his essence in today's hot list: clooney, damon, pitt, washington, etc. but i wrote this to comment more on patricia's point about watching a film that is 70 years old. when you get to It Happened One Night you will be floored. talk about influence. i am excited to hear what you two will have to say about it.

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