Howard Hawks HIS GIRL FRIDAY (Comedy 1940) Stars... Cary Grant Rosalind Russell Ralph Bellamy Walter Burns (Cary Grant), editor of a major Chicago newspaper, is about to lose his ace reporter and former wife, Hildy Johnson (Rossalind RUssell), to insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin, but not without a fight! The crafty editor uses every trick in his fedora to get Hildy to write one last big story, about murderer Earl Williams and the inept Sheriff Hartwell. The comedy snowballs as William's friend, Molly Malloy, the crooked Mayor, and Bruce's mother all get tied up in Walter's web. This film was remade in 1974 as THE FRONT PAGE starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon and Carol Burnett. The original film version of His Girl Friday was director Lewis Milestone's big hit THE FRONT PAGE (1931), produced by Howard Hughes and released by United Artists. [Milestone had won the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards for the previous year's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).] This second screen version's screenplay, again by Charles Lederer, brilliantly transformed Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's newspaper classic - the George S. Kaufman-directed 1928 Broadway smash-hit play The Front Page, with a major script change. In the version, HIS GIRL FRIDAY the main change was that of a gender swap. The male part of Hildebrand 'Hildy' Johnson was changed to a female part with actress Rossalind RUssell to play opposite the handsome male lead by Cary Grant. Howard Hawks' speedy and hysterically funny, modern-style screwball comedy, and one of the best examples of its kind in film history. Although it has an 92-minute running time, the breath-taking, fast-paced film has more than enough dialogue for a 3-hour movie. The film marked the beginning of a number of screwball comedies in the 1940s that emphasized the conflict for women in deciding between love/marriage and professional careers. A great comedy that can be enjoyed by all.