HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940) **1/2 Wildly (over) celebrated comedy is ahead of its time in postulating (tongue-in-cheek? It's not clear, there's at least "plausible deniability" against either accusation) the "red menace" as a far greater threat than Hitler to decency and so on. The machine-gun paced dialogue that cluster critics worship would have been far less effective if delivered more deliberately, for reasons including that there aren't too many really good lines. Cary Grant makes the most of them, though, and slows things down briefly to make sure that no one misses them. I think that among the things that Howard Hawks is trying to do here is make an anti-death penalty statement (perhaps to mollify the left in light of all the red-baiting; along with his well realized denunciation of the media that would appeal to politicos of every stripe), but if that was one of his goals it got swept right out the window in the current of dialogue. Newspaper offices are like this, sure, but the idea that reporters never shut up is ridiculous: even the crazier offices aren't nearly so bad as a computer repair room when new software comes out. Rosalind Russell is more entertaining than lovable, but not all that much of either. To tell the truth I think she might have been better off staying with the Ralph Bellamy character. Vintage Grant, but also enough to knock you over the edge into a headache.
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