Review - His Girl Friday

IMDB, Wikipedia
Score: 3/5
Language: English

Summary: Comedy about a former ace reporter (Rosalind Russell) who decides to marry a normal man (an insurance salesman played by Ralph Bellamy) and become a "normal person", living the quiet life. Her ex-husband (Cary Grant) who is also her ex-editor pulls every trick out of the book to try and get his ace reporter back.

Comments: The movie opened with some words stating that it happens in the "dark Ages" of reporting, when they'd do anything to get a story. If how the reporters are portrayed in the movie was considered the Dark Ages, I suspect they'd think a lot of reporters of this day and age to be even worse.

I quite enjoyed the film and the way they portrayed the interaction between the characters. They would actually talk over each other or finish each other's sentences like people do in real life. Some of the concepts unfortunately have dated, the main one being that for Rosalind Russell's character to be a normal person she needed to be married and a homekeeper. At the end of the film I felt sorry for Ralph Bellamy's character and didn't particularly like Cary Grant's character. I'm not sure if that was the intention when the film was made. Having said that Cary's and Rosalind's characters bounced off each other really well.


The film is based on a play called The Front Page that was first produced in the 1920's. There have been several films made based on the play, His Girl Friday not the first nor the last.