His Girl Friday (1940)

[Plain Old Tele]

Discuss.

[Plain Old Tele]

One of the greatest screwball comedies ever made.

[luna]

a highly satiric comedy on media superficiality. i think i like this style of ridiculously fast dialogue. truly hilarious with a fantastic assortment of mildly sociopathic characters. i suppose i might have appreciatde this more given i was slightly tipsy, but whatever.

 

A

[Jake Gittes]

I watched this last winter and, to my own surprise, couldn't stand it. Didn't feel like a movie as much as an attempt to just cram as many spoken words as humanly possible into 90 minutes of screentime. The result is a high-speed train of a movie that rushes right past you without giving you any chance to actually get on it. That's how I saw it, at least - but maybe me being half-drunk while watching had more to do with it than I thought. I mean, I understood all that was going on, except that after about 15 minutes I already couldn't give any less of a damn.

[luna]

i imagine the style of dialogue would polarise quite a few

[Lazer]

I watched this last winter and, to my own surprise, couldn't stand it. Didn't feel like a movie as much as an attempt to just cram as many spoken words as humanly possible into 90 minutes of screentime. The result is a high-speed train of a movie that rushes right past you without giving you any chance to actually get on it. That's how I saw it, at least - but maybe me being half-drunk while watching had more to do with it than I thought. I mean, I understood all that was going on, except that after about 15 minutes I already couldn't give any less of a damn.

Howard Hawks just rolled over in his grave.

[DAR]

I read somewhere there was enough dialogue to fill a 2 1/2 hour film

[JohnnyGossamer]

"Where the average rate of human speech is 100-150 words per minute, the dialogue in His Girl Friday has been timed at 240 words per minute." Trivia - His Girl Friday - TCM

 

All of 'em are well-placed, spoken with a snap, a crackle and a pop and it's clever as hell. Great, great comedy. Up there with My Man Godfrey, The Thin Man, Bringing Up Baby and The Lady Eve for me.

[bartonfink]

It's so frenetically funny! Loved it.

[Blankments]

Very funny; the ending is particularly fantastic. I really enjoyed it A+