His Girl Friday (1940): watch the full film free, legally

Walter Burns’s last assignment

Howard Hawks directed His Girl Friday, a 1940 American screwball comedy released by Columbia Pictures. Cary Grant plays hard-boiled newspaper editor Walter Burns, with Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson, his former star reporter and ex-wife. Ralph Bellamy and Gene Lockhart are featured. The film adapts The Front Page, the 1928 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and was the second screen adaptation of that play after the 1931 film The Front Page.

Walter learns that Hildy plans to marry insurance man Bruce Baldwin and leave newspaper work for life as a housewife in Albany. He is determined to stop her. Walter persuades a reluctant Hildy to take one final assignment, interviewing Earl Williams before his execution for the murder of a policeman. He argues that Williams is innocent and that the city fathers want the execution to win voters’ favor.

Hildy agrees if Walter buys a large life-insurance policy through Bruce, giving Bruce a substantial commission. She has Bruce hold her $500 for safekeeping and hide a $2,500 certified check for the premium in his hat, hoping to keep it from Walter’s associate Louie. While Hildy writes a sympathetic story about Williams and an insanity defense, Walter works to prevent Bruce from taking her away.

A reporter drawn back to the story

Louie plants a watch on Bruce, who is arrested for theft. Hildy must bail him out, only to find that his wallet and other personal items are gone. Angry at Walter, she quits. Yet when Williams escapes during a psychiatric reenactment of the crime, her instincts as a reporter return.

Williams escapes after shooting Sheriff Hartwell with Hartwell’s gun. Hildy spends $450 of Bruce’s money to buy the story from Warden Cooley, while Walter promises repayment and sends Louie with counterfeit money. Walter then has Bruce framed for “mashing” Evangeline, an associate who fakes a dizzy spell, and Bruce is sent back to jail.

A messenger reaches the mayor’s office with a reprieve from the governor for Williams. The mayor, wanting the execution to proceed, bribes the messenger to delay it and orders that Williams be shot on sight. Williams enters the press room through a window while Hildy is working, holds her at gunpoint, and is hidden by Hildy in a rolltop desk. Molly, Williams’s girlfriend, arrives and helps distract those searching for him.

Changing Hildy and accelerating the dialogue

Hawks initially planned a straightforward adaptation with male editor and reporter. During auditions, his secretary read Hildy’s lines, and Hawks liked the effect of the dialogue spoken by a woman. The script was changed so Hildy became Walter’s ex-wife, making Walter’s effort to win her back central to the story. Charles Lederer wrote the screenplay, though Hecht assisted him without credit. Morrie Ryskind later revised dialogue through the summer of 1939.

Hawks said he considered the play’s dialogue “the finest modern dialogue that had been written,” though more than half was replaced. Cary Grant was cast almost immediately. Carole Lombard was Hawks’s first choice for Hildy, but Columbia could not afford her. Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Margaret Tallichet, Margaret Sullavan, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner and Irene Dunne turned down the part. Rosalind Russell, who had recently completed The Women, was eventually cast.

Filming ran from 27 September 1939 until November and finished seven days behind schedule. Its working title was The Bigger They Are. Improvisation and large ensemble scenes led to many retakes. Hawks encouraged aggressive, spontaneous performances and used overlapping dialogue, with speakers beginning before another person had finished. Since multi-track sound recording was unavailable, the sound mixer switched overhead microphones on and off during scenes, sometimes as many as 35 times. The restaurant scene took four days instead of its intended two.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “His Girl Friday”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.