Film – His Girl Friday

With an idealized Albany, NY as her destination, Ace reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is eager to leave NYC and begin a new life of upstate domestic bliss with her sweet-but-bland husband-to-be (Ralph Bellamy). Her ex-husband, Walter Burns (Cary Grant)—who also serves as Hildy’s big city newspaper editor—isn’t so keen on that idea, however. He prefers to keep her close by (and maybe win her back), asking that she stay on at the paper and work with him on one last story that he feels sure she’ll find impossible to resist. The great Howard Hawks directed the furiously funny battle of wonderful wits.

1940. Not rated. 92 minutes.
Location: Addy Theatre

“(This) 82-year-old comedy offers a more hopeful depiction of workplace gender relations than most movies today. Hildy Johnson is a star news reporter with a soaring career and unrivaled professional respect. A woman who has always had the gumption, self-belief and tenacity to do whatever she wants, Hildy’s secret weapon is her ability to listen better than her bullish peers…though she can also get down and dirty with the lowest of muckrakers.” – Time Out

“Hildy is intelligent, independent, and wickedly funny. She thrives in the boys’ club atmosphere of the newsroom, which is unsurprising, considering this character was originally written as male in “The Front Page,” the film adaptation of the play that “His Girl Friday” is based on.” – Molly Fitzpatrick, splinternews.com