Film
His Girl Friday
Howard Hawks took a hit stage comedy about newspapermen and cast a woman as the ace reporter, then had everyone talk over each other as fast as humanly possible. The result is a marriage comedy disguised as a workplace comedy disguised as a screwball chase, and it moves like it's late for a deadline. Ninety-two minutes, not one of them wasted.
If you liked this
Bringing Up Baby1938
Same director, same star, same appetite for chaos — Hawks and Grant two years earlier, with a leopard standing in for a divorce settlement. If you liked the rhythm, this is the rhythm turned up further.
But It's even more relentlessly silly, with no newsroom cynicism to ground it — pure farce, and farce isn't for everyone.
The Philadelphia Story1940
Grant again, same year, same basic shape — a sharp-tongued ex-wife, a fiancé who doesn't stand a chance, dialogue that never slows down for you to catch your breath.
But Cooler and more glamorous than warm; the class comedy of manners can feel starchier than Hildy and Walter's newsroom scrap.
Broadcast News1987
The same triangle updated to a TV newsroom decades later — a brilliant woman, a decent man, and the wrong man she can't quite stop wanting, all talking a mile a minute.
But It trades screwball speed for something more melancholy and self-aware; the laughs land softer and the ending doesn't wrap up neatly.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Notorious1946
Both put Cary Grant opposite a woman he wants to control through affection rather than force. His Girl Friday plays that dynamic as delight — the chase is the fun. Notorious plays the identical dynamic straight, as dread. Same actor, same era, same question about love as leverage, entirely different genre and temperature.
Six years later, same star, same charm — but Hitchcock strips the jokes away and shows you what Walter Burns's manipulation looks like when it isn't funny. Grant plays a man who uses a woman's love as an instrument, coldly, and it's terrifying.
But There's no banter to soften it and no comic reset button; it's a slow, suspicious, genuinely unsettling romance rather than a screwball one.
People
Cast
Cary GrantWalter Burns
Rosalind RussellHildy Johnson
Ralph BellamyBruce Baldwin
Gene LockhartSheriff Hartwell
Porter HallMurphy
Ernest TruexBensinger
Cliff EdwardsEndicott
Clarence KolbMayor
Roscoe KarnsMcCue
Frank JenksWilson
Regis ToomeySanders
Abner BibermanLouie
Directing
- Cliff P. BroughtonAssistant Director
- Paul HelmickAssistant Director
- Howard HawksDirector
Writing
- Ben HechtScreenplay
- Charles LedererScreenplay
- Ben HechtTheatre Play
- Charles MacArthurTheatre Play
Production
- Howard HawksProducer
Recommended by
Working Girl, Some Like It Hot, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, It Happened One Night, The Post, The Philadelphia Story, Under Fire, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Newsroom, Gilmore Girls, Murphy Brown, Broadcast News, Deadline - U.S.A., Bringing Up Baby, Adam's Rib, My Man Godfrey, Arsenic and Old Lace, Ball of Fire, When Harry Met Sally..., The Lady Eve, The Awful Truth, The Thin Man, Destry Rides Again, Press Gang, Sports Night, Sweet Smell of Success, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, Ace in the Hole, Bombshell, Chicago, Much Ado About Nothing, Designing Women, Woman of the Year, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War?, Trouble in Paradise, Set It Up, The Women, I Was a Male War Bride, The Palm Beach Story, You've Got Mail, Pat and Mike, Design for Living, Being the Ricardos, A Night at the Opera, Miss Scarlet