His Girl Friday

We can't bury the lede while reviewing the new Criterion Collection release of "His Girl Friday," because the film itself stands against subtle reporting of any kind. So we'll give our conclusion up front: This is a definitive presentation of one of the defining American comedies, and it's one of the rare "special edition" releases that lives up to the pedigree of the film it's presenting.

That's apparent from the very first page. In place of their customary fold-out booklet, this release includes an edition of "The Morning Post" -- the very paper seen in the film, where it's edited by Walter Burns (Cary Grant) and contributed to by star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell). This "newspaper" includes sidebars and quotes from the script itself, alongside newly-written articles (including a critical essay by Farran Smith Nehme, and extensive notes on the film's latest preservation). Before the disc has even begun playing, this release has accomplished what few others ever do: It doesn't merely transfer the original movie-it also reports on it.

And "His Girl Friday" isn't the only movie that this release is reporting on. Inside of the faux-"Post" is an extra section dedicated to "The Front Page," which was first produced as a play in 1928, and then as a film (directed by Lewis Milestone) in 1931, before it was reshaped and remade as "His Girl Friday" in 1940. This section includes photos of an original "Front Page" stage production, as well as an essay and other notes on Milestone's filmed adaptation. And these aren't teasers or samplers, but preludes to a complete presentation: Criterion's release of "Friday" includes a second disc that's also dedicated to "The Front Page," featuring a newly-restored version of the 1931 feature (which includes alternative takes and footage that was absent from prior home video releases), as well as two radio-play adaptations of the original text, and a short biographical feature on writer Ben Hecht.

The Milestone-directed feature (which stars stars Adolph Menjou as Burns and Pat O'Brien as Hildy) is no mere curiosity, either. It's said by one expert that professional reporters considered Milestone's "Front Page" to be the finest to ever depict their profession -- and the unrelenting "speed" of the picture is what attracted them, according to more than one of the historians interviewed for this release. The original script for the stage play, written by Hecht and Charles McArthur, is marked by dialogue that moves so fast it seems meant to overlap.

In directing "His Girl Friday," Hollywood legend Howard Hawks enacted numerous changes. One of them was rewriting Hildy as a female character, transforming a mostly sexless farce into a romantically-inclined screwball comedy; yet another was making that dialogue overlap literal. Watching the films in close proximity, you can see the possibilities of cinematic dialogue advancing forward: One director implies the notion of incoherent speed, the other actually manages to capture it.

All the other elements of Hawks' craft help to accentuate that sped-up rhythm. The blocking often accommodates five or more bodies in the same frame, thus allowing the repartee to go uninterrupted by editing; camera movements are lateral and motivated by the movement of the characters, as if we're always trying to catch up. And when the editing does attain a fast pace of its own -- such as when we see a rush of close-ups on reporters in just a few seconds, while all of them are forwarding the same news to their editors via phone -- it's typically for the sake of overwhelming us with information (even more overlap).

The "Friday" disc includes special features of its own. Criterion has bundled together multiple trailers, a third radio play adaptation, and four short featurettes (which are mostly of the biographical-slash-behind-the-scenes variety, with background given on figures like Russell and Hawks). Rounding out the disc is an interview/video essay/lecture given by David Bordwell, who illustrates the oft-"invisible" craft of Hawks.

That craft is elaborated on in the last extra feature, "Hawks on Hawks." In fact, that rush of close-ups on the reporters is used as an example. Hawks recalls that journalists enthralled by the original "Front Page" testified to him, directly, that "Friday" had slowed the material down. The director, now challenged, set up two projectors and played both films side by side, at which point "His Girl Friday" clearly outsprinted its forebear. The critics were quite literally proven wrong. How's that for a headline?

"His Girl Friday"
Blu-ray (2 Discs)
$39.95
Criterion.com