His Girl Friday Howard Hawks

Story

The title His Girl Friday is an ironic title, because a girl "Friday" represents a servant of a master, but Hildy is not a servant in the film, but rather the equal to Walter. The world in this film is not determined by gender, but rather by intelligence and capability. At the beginning of the film, Hildy says that she wants to be "treated like a woman", but her return to her profession reveals her true desire to live a different life.[38] In His Girl Friday, even though the characters remarry, Hawks displays an aversion to marriage, home, and family through his approach to the film. Specific, exclusionary camera work and character control of the frame and the dialogue portray a subtle criticism of domesticity. [39] The subject of domesticity is fairly absent throughout the film. Even among the relationships between Grant and Russell and Bellamy and Russell, the relationships are positioned within a larger frame of the male-dominated newsroom.[39] The film, like many comedies, celebrates difficult, tumultuous love rather than secure, suburban love through its preference for movement and argument rather than silent poise.[40] Film critic Molly Haskell wrote that the scene near the end of the film when Hildy sheds tears was not included to expose her femininity, but to express the confusion she felt due to the collision of her professional and feminine natures. The feminine side of Hildy desires to be subservient and sexually desirable to men, while the other side of Hildy desires assertion and to forfeit the stereotypical duties of a woman. Her tears represent her emotional helplessness and inability to express anger to a male authority figure.[41]

A commonality in many Howard Hawks films is the revelation of the amorality of the main character and a failure of that character to change or develop. In His Girl Friday, Walter Burns manipulates, acts selfishly, frames his ex-wife's fiancé, and orchestrates the kidnapping of an elderly woman. Even at the end of the film, Burns convinces Hildy Johnson to remarry him despite how much she loathes him and his questionable actions. Upon the resumption of their relationship, there is no romance visible between them. They do not kiss, embrace, or even gaze at each other. It is evident that Burns is still the same person he was in their previous relationship as he quickly waves off the plans for the honeymoon that they never had in pursuit of a new story. Additionally, he walks in front of her when exiting the room, forcing her to carry her own suitcase despite Johnson already having criticized this at the beginning of the film. This hints that the marriage is fated to face the same problems that ended it previously.[42]

Hawks is known for his use of repeated or intentional gestures in his films. In His Girl Friday, the cigarette in the scene between Hildy and Earl Williams serves several symbolic roles in the film. First, the cigarette establishes a link between the characters when Williams accepts the cigarette even though he does not smoke. However, the fact that he doesn't smoke, and they don't share the cigarette shows the difference between and separation of the worlds in which the two characters live.[43]

The film contains two main plots: the personal and the professional. Walter induces Hildy to get back in the beat in the paper’s attempt to scoop the story of murderer Earl Williams; the concurrent plot is Walter attempting to scuttle Hildy’s upcoming marriage. [44] The speed of the film results in snappy and overlapping dialogue among interruptions and rapid speech. Gesture, character and camera movement, as well as editing, serve to complement the dialogue in increasing the pace of the film. There is a clear contrast between the fast-talking Hildy and Walter and slow-talking Bruce and Earl. The average word per minute count of the film is 240 while the average American speech is around 140 words per minute. There are nine scenes with at least four words per second and at least two with more than five words per second.[45] Hawks attached verbal tags before and after specific script lines so the actors would be able to interrupt and talk over each other without making the necessary dialogue incomprehensible.[46]

Film theorist and historian David Bordwell explained the ending of His Girl Friday as a "closure effect" rather than a closure. The ending of the film is rather circular, and there is no development of characters, specifically Walter Burns, and the film ends similarly to the way in which it starts. Additionally, the film ends with a brief epilogue in which Walter announces their remarriage and reveals their intention to go cover a strike in Albany on the way to their honeymoon. The fates of the main characters and even some of the minor characters such as Earl Williams are revealed, although there are minor flaws in the resolution. For example, they do not discuss what happened to Molly Malloy after the conflict is resolved. However, the main characters’ endings were wrapped up so neatly that it overshadows the need for the minor characters' endings to be wrapped up. This creates a "closure effect" or an appearance of closure.[47]

Editing style

His Girl Friday is a movie intentioned for speed: it set the record on fastest words spoken per minute in a movie.[48] A second to appreciate the moment is a foregone luxury in the whirlwind nature of the publishing business. Dissecting one of the scenes from the movie to best display the editing style, consider the specific scene where Earl Williams escapes. Howard Hawks emphasizes the pace difference between Hildy’s two possible lives, by having plot elements and staging mirror the editing, where slow and languid moments are interspersed with sub-second shots of newsworthy freneticism. To emphasize the contrast of rhythm between Hildy’s domestic life with Bruce versus her dynamic life with Walter, the director mirrors with editing techniques like lengthier contemplative shots versus rapid fire shots, matches on action versus elliptical shots with continuous diegetic sound, and scenes with one element of focus versus several different objects and sounds splitting our attention.[49]

The scene opens with two lengthy (10 second) shots of Hildy describing her life outside the newsroom—the shots reinforce the idea that the life with Bruce will be predictable and slowly paced. As Hildy looks off away from the camera for the first time, literally turning her back on the newspaper life for just an instant, her attention is snapped back to newsroom as shots are fired. Immediately, the editing reflects the newfound fast pace: from slow pans to static shots with the only movement as Hildy’s slow walking, the movie immediately shifts to dynamic shots with several people’s movements on the street, as well as gunshots, ducking, spotlight-exaggerated lighting shifts, and shouting with the men in the window. The medium shots of the frantic news reporters are in contrast with a now obscured long shot of Hildy—while previously she was the main character and source of sound, the director makes it clear that she will be suddenly relegated to the background when the action is happening: her background presence is obscured by a frosted window, and her sounds obscured by the frenzy of the gunshots and shouting.[50]

Upon hearing Earl Williams escaped, the movie then shifts from multi-second shots to sub-second shots as the news editors enter maximum monkey mode. As gunshots provide a diegetic backdrop of time, ellipses shots become more obvious; the first reporter immediately cuts from reaching the table to talking on the phone. The next 5 shots are also sub-second close-ups of newsmen yelling into phones. As she is slowly drawn into this world again, Hildy begins to occupy more of the frame—going from a long shot to a medium shot as the newsmen stream past her. Once the men are gone, the longest shot of the sequence ensues: 16 seconds as she closes the distance she created from her old life, shedding her coat, symbolizing her chilly life in Albany, to reveal the reporter-ready dress underneath, the person she truly is. She fully reunites with it as she picks up the phone to talk to Walter, then rushes out of the room with the same fervor as the news folk. The camera cements this final switch as the dolly moves out, and a crossfade ensues on her running out, unlike all the prior cuts.[51]

Finally it concludes on shots of gates opening, cars streaming out, and people running. Here, Hawks’ shots are not just fast—they are explicit about being faster than time. A diegetic siren delineates unit seconds as cars screech, but the film shows the abbreviated ellipses shot of the gate closing, skipping the time with a shot of guards running. This sequence is faster than real time, and the contrast with the siren shows how time in the news reporters world is faster paced than the world around them. Hildy joins the chaos shouting ‘HEY!’, providing a final contrast to the start of the scene where she described the idyllic and calm city life she was originally headed for.[52]

Throughout this sequence, Hawks is explicit about the passage of time and focus of characters through his edits and mocks the slow Albany life Hildy begins with by showcasing the romantic frenzy of news life through shot timing, continuity of action, and shifting attention-grabbing elements.[53]

Women reporters

According to Pauline Kael, all female reporters in newspaper films are based on Adela Rogers St. Johns.[54]