VHS : His Girl Friday [1940]

Rating: - Pitter patter
In terms of picture quality there are some unsatisfactory DVD versions of `His Girl Friday' but there is nothing wrong with this particular item (Columbia Classics CDR 19838). The film remains fresher than many old comedies and stands up to repeated viewings. It is sharply written, briskly directed, superbly cast and well played from top to bottom. Watching this is a great way to stay cheerful on a rainy evening indoors.

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Rating: - His Girl Friday
In the best traditions of American black and white film comedy but too outdated to watch in this day and age even for an oldie like me. Excellent picture quality.

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Rating: - One of the most extraordinary comedies of all time
With Howard Hawks in the director's chair and Cary Grant in the lead role, you're pretty much guaranteed to have a good time. His Girl Friday isn't the first or last film adaptation of the 1928 play The Front Page, but it is easily the best. This thing comes at you a mile a minute, with dialogue that starts out at break-neck speed and never slows down and more humorous moments than you can find time to laugh at. It's an unusual romantic comedy, given the fact that Cary Grant's character is a little less than noble (he is a rather ruthless newspaper man, after all) and the nice guy in the picture is lucky to finish at all, but there's still something endearing about the whole relationship between Walter Burns (Grant) and his former ace reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), who also happens to be his ex-wife (in earlier adaptations of the story, Hildy was just a darn good male reporter). Hildy is due to get married in less than 24 hours, and Burns is desperate to win her back - for the newspaper as well as himself. The big city proves most cooperative in his endeavors, with a corrupt sheriff and mayor getting set to hang a "dangerous" little man for murder in order to bolster their bids for reelection in three days. And that's only the beginning of this screwball comedy story. This battle of the sexes turns into one of the most impressive battles of wits the big screen has ever seen, and the whole wild and crazy story makes for an extraordinary experience.

Grant and Russell demonstrate remarkable chemistry together, which is a necessity given the fact that their characters are divorced and know each other's ways so well. Poor Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), Hildy's mild-manner fiancé, is overwhelmed by the charm and manipulations of the remarkable Walter Burns. Even Hildy falls prey to his spontaneously elaborate schemes, finding herself agreeing to do one last story before leaving the newspaper business for good. That story, about a timid little man guilty of shooting a policeman whose forthcoming execution is being exploited as a triumph of law and order over anarchists and Reds, explodes in the hours leading up to the scheduled hanging, as the murderer escapes and ultimately provides the paper with a scoop that even the imaginative Burns could hardly have engineered on his own.

I could try to describe the story in more detail, but there's little purpose in doing so. His Girl Friday is all about the dialogue. There are more words spoken during this ninety-minute film than you will find in any handful of other motion pictures. Grant and Russell really are remarkable, as most scenes go on for many minutes without either actor breaking stride. All of the minor characters jump in and out at the same unstoppable pace, and many are the times multiple characters are speaking to different people simultaneously. This is nothing less than an elaborate circus of vocalization, and it is all you as the viewer can do to keep up with everything that is going on. Burns and Hildy may have little time to think, but that doesn't stop them from unleashing words of great wit, innuendo, sarcasm, comic genius, and even a couple of in-jokes one on top of the other. Meanwhile, the script becomes much more complicated than I expected, as the murderer awaiting the gallows escapes, the corruption of the police and local government is made manifest, a woman tries to kill herself, and Hildy's husband-to-be and his mother find themselves victimized by Burns' ruthless schemes to keep Hildy right where she belongs.

His Girl Friday is an inspired example of moviemaking at its best, a classic that demands multiple viewings and loses none of its edge over the ensuing decades since its 1940 release. Not only is the film a real hoot to watch, it's a strange sort of pleasure to sit back and enjoy a host of extraordinary actors performing at the very tops of their games. It takes accomplished actors to handle the intensity and sheer volume of dialogue that defines this film. His Girl Friday truly is one of the most impressive and extraordinary comedies ever made.

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Rating: - Don't bother!
Of course the original movie is a terrific piece of work but this version is very, very disappointing. The picture quality is poor - out of focus and too much contrast, and the sound quality isn't much better. Also a considerable portion of the image at the sides simply isn't there at all. Overall it looks like a bad pirated version or a copy of a copy of a copy.

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Rating: - crap
I wanted to give this edition of HGF zero stars, but 1 seems to be the minimum.
This is the worst DVD I ever bought. No extras, no subtitles, no scene selection, no nothing. And on top of that, the image quality is horrible. I couldn't watch it for more than just a few minutes.

Just stay away from this edition.