His Girl Friday. 1940. USA. Directed by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Charles Lederer, based on the play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. With Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart. 92 min.
Howard Hawks's transformation of Hecht and MacArthur's Broadway hit "The Front Page" into a quintessential screwball comedy hinged on one glorious decision: changing reporter Hildy Johnson from male to female. Hawks's inspiration turned this story of professional camaraderie and journalistic misbehavior into a sexually charged battle of wits between ex-spouses. Cary Grant's manipulative editor Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell's ambitious reporter Hildy create one of cinema's most electric comic duos, with Ralph Bellamy perfectly cast as Hildy's respectable but dull fiancé.
The film's revolutionary sound design captures overlapping dialogue at an unprecedented rate---240 words per minute compared to the standard 90---creating a giddy energy that mirrors the relentless pace of tabloid newspapering. Hawks and sound engineer Ed Costigan developed new techniques to record multiple voices simultaneously, establishing an audio texture that influenced generations of filmmakers.