His Girl Friday (1940)

Based on the classic play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur I think this actually does the play one better by changing one of the characters from a man to a woman. Rumor has it that it was Howard Hawks, the director, who noticed that the relationship between the two lead characters in The Front Page was like a love story and had the idea of adding that element to the play. The result is this brilliant fast paced comedy with a little romance thrown in for good measure.

Synopsis:

The movie begins with former reporter and ex-wife Hildy Johnson Rosalind Russell, calling on her ex-husband Walter Burns, Cary Grant, to tell him she's going to get married again. Her intended is an insurance salesman from Albany named Bruce Baldwin, Ralph Bellamy. Burns clearly has no intention of letting her go, though whether he will miss her more as a wife or as a reporter is not clear. He lures her back in by agreeing to buy a large insurance policy if she will do one final interview with a prisoner scheduled to be hung the next day for having shot a policeman. Hildy gets the interview but then tears it up when Walter has Bruce robbed and unfairly thrown in jail. Just when Hildy is leaving her colleagues in the press-room for good, Earl Williams escapes and she is pulled back in by her love of the story. She is alone in the room when Earl Williams shows up at the window. She hides him in a desk, calls Burns and that's when the action really begins.

The pace of this movie is what everyone talks about. The conversation comes so fast and furious that you really have to listen closely to keep up and get all the joke. In fact, one viewing is really inadequate, you will notice lines you never noticed before each time you see it. Most of this comes directly from the play by the famous team of Hecht and MacArhur. In addition to The Front Page the team wrote several other plays including Billy Rose's Jumbo and 20th Century, separately and together they wrote dozens of screenplays, including Wuthering Heights, Scarface, Nothing Sacred and Angels with Dirty Faces. As fast paced as the play is, Hawks managed to speed it up a little. Howard Hawks is one of the best directors of romantic comedies ever to work in Hollywood, having directed Twentieth Century, the quintessential screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire, To Have and Have Not and dozens of others. Add to this the brilliant performers. Bellamy does such a good job playing the milquetoast insurance salesman that the straw man third party in romantic comedies became referred to as the Ralph Bellamy role. Gene Lockhart plays the crooked Sheriff, and the men in the newsroom is a collection of character actors that any director would kill for. The combination is positively combustible and makes for a truly unique movie experience.

Director ...............................................................Howard Hawks

Writers ................................................................Charles MacAruthur (Play)
               .............................................................Ben Hecht (Play)
              ..............................................................Charles Lederer (Screenplay)

Walter Burns .......................................................Cary Grant
Hildy Johnson ......................................................Rosalind Russell
Bruce Baldwin .....................................................Ralph Bellamy
Gene Lockhart .....................................................Sheriff Hartwell
Porter Hall ...........................................................Murphy
Ernest Truex ........................................................Bensinger
Cliff Edwards ......................................................Endicott
Clarence Colb .....................................................Mayor
Roscoe Carns .....................................................McCue
Frank Jenks ........................................................Wilson
Regis Toomey .....................................................Sanders
Abner Biberman .................................................Louie
Frank Orth .........................................................Duffy
John Qualen .......................................................Earl Williams
Helen Mack .......................................................Molly Malloy
Alma Kruger ......................................................Mrs. Baldwin
Billy Gilbert ........................................................Joe Pettibone