(no subject)

[oyceter]

His Girl Friday is awesome ^_^. I want to watch more old movies now. I wish people still made romantic comedies like this, in which there's not much action going on physically, but the dialogue is just wonderful.

Cary Grant's character is a total sleaze, but somehow still lovable, and I really, really love the first dialogue/argument/talk between him and Hildy. And it's not actually that romantic -- it definitely falls more heavily on the comedy side of the scale, but I really do wish that the romantic comedies they have now were remotely like this.

I loved the verbal sparring and how completely Hildy knew Walter (Cary Grant) so she kept trying to spoil his little schemes.

I hate doing the whole "everything in the past was so much better!" route, but from what I've seen of the older romantic comedies, it kind of seems true. I don't know. I think it's because they somehow show that the people falling in love are smart and have some knowledge about themselves, and they're funny because the people who made them understood that no matter how smart a person is, love makes them do incredibly stupid things. It's almost more about the wonderful folly of love than about love itself.

I think that's where a lot of the romantic comedies today (esp. the teenage ones) go wrong -- it's almost as though the people making them assume only stupid people fall in love! Either that, or they don't show falling in love as this crazy, fun thing in which you lose all control. And yes, it cuts both ways, but still. For some, it's as though they go through so much trouble trying to prove that the love in question makes sense and is rational (demonstrating the sharing of the same interests, demonstrating that the guy is as feminist as the girl, etc.) that they forget that most of the time, it doesn't make any sense, and it just happens. I think some current romance novels forget about that too in the interest of trying to show why the two people would fall in love.

Maybe that's a bit of a backlash from all the why would she fall for him? He's an abusive bastard! type things.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Watching old movies is always a good idea; I love them, too. Just to play advocatus diaboli a bit (because basically, I agree with you):

Cary Grant's character is a total sleaze, but somehow still lovable, and I really, really love the first dialogue/argument/talk between him and Hildy. And it's not actually that romantic -- it definitely falls more heavily on the comedy side of the scale, but I really do wish that the romantic comedies they have now were remotely like this.

Are you aware that in The Front Page, the play by Ben Hecht which was the basis for this film, Hildy is a man? In the first film version, he was too, as well as in the Billy Wilder remake. Now while this might have contributed to making Female!Hildy's dialogue with Walter less stereotypical and their dynamic the same, it also removes a rather biting implication from the original. Walter, purposely sabotaging Female!Hildy's engagement, can be somewhat excused by the viewer as being motivated by love, not just profession. Walter, purposely sabotaging Male!Hildy's engagement, appears a lot more ruthless and just plain selfish.

[oyceter]

I had no idea! That's very interesting. And it does look much more like sabotage.

I think His Girl Friday also manages to alleviate that by having Cary Grant play Walter and having him charm the socks off everyone. And while Hildy points out in the beginning that he is loathesome, because he really is sometimes, he's played as too good-natured or something for it to have too much of an audience impact.

Btw, do you know if the film came up with the term "his girl Friday"?

[fearlesstemp.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind me dropping in -- I found this via friends friends. I had to comment because His Girl Friday is one of my very favorite movies, and I agree with a lot of what you said about it and romantic comedies then and now. I love how the screwball comedy vibe of the 1930s/early 1940s emphasizes the fun, ridiculous side of love and romance, so that when the movie ends you feel like the characters are just getting started on having fun.

There are a lot of great movies from the period -- I really like Bringing Up Baby and Holiday, both starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby is particularly funny). The Lady Eve is fun too, with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. And then of course there's the Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire movies, which I've been rewatching lately -- Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Follow the Fleet, and Top Hat are my personal faves of the ones I've seen.

All this just my opinion, of course! But I had to share because I'm always excited to see someone else expressing affection for old school romantic comedies!

[oyceter]

No prob!

I've been getting more into them the past few years -- Audrey Hepburn movies, then Philadelphia Story, Singin' in the Rain, etc.

And thanks for the recs! I really really really have to dig up the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers ones because of the dancing!

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I have to say I think that the main reason is the total ban on nudity and sex scenes in Hollywood films that was active at that point. One can accept the relaxation of the Hays Code as a good thing from the point of view of artistic freedom while recognising that the Code forced filmakers to develop much higher standards of imagination and wit in the portrayal of sexual attraction.

But I love Howard Hawks in general - the romantic relationships in his films come off very well in comparison to some of today's directors in not requiring the woman to be in some way reduced to make her more comfortable to the man.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Do you think this applies to books also?

In relation to explicitness?

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I haven't read enough really romantic fiction from the days of rigid obscenity laws to comment. But I think that it's a likely phenomenon.

Re: In relation to explicitness?

[oyceter]

Hrm. I do know that the comics code basically killed the then-growing genre of romantic comics in the fifties. At that time they had mostly been written by men for the female audience, but I think that given enough time, it would have matured to the point in which America would have had a shojo manga type thing (the Japanese girls' comics).

This is mostly conjecture because I don't read that many American comics, but maybe the comics code made it easier for writers to have girlfriends-of-the-week for their heroes instead of portraying a single relationship with continuity -- it's hard to avoid the question of sex and kissing after a while.

I do know in Japan, they've got censorship of the drawing of genitals -- so you end up with a sort of code in manga much like the code for homosexuality in Hayes codes movies. They have naked men holding baseball bats and other phallic objects in front of their legs, or sudden cuts to speeding trains and the like during sex scenes, and an entire visual symbology built around the fact that they can't draw genitals. Of course, it also leads to really weird pictures in which you have girls fellating a blank space between a guy's legs as well.

[oyceter]

*nods* I was very surprised by how assertive Hildy got to be and how interesting it was that the film in the end supported her decision to return to her profession and to the man who shared her interest in the profession, and how much it was obvious that she wasn't suited to the housewife role.

Ah yes, how could I have forgotten the Hayes code! It's like the comics code...

[oursin.livejournal.com]

There is a wonderful book by Maria DiBattista, Fast-Talking Dames, about screwball comedy in general, and the way it celebrated female verbal competence and wit, which made me want to rush out and see all the films she mentioned. Maybe some day, when I actually have time, I'll do this (some of them must be out on DVD).

[oyceter]

I've got to check that out sometime... thanks!

I really do love how the heroines talk, and how smart they are when they talk, as opposed to a lot of the teen comedies today (ok, not really comparable) in which so much of the talk sounds like the feisty romance novel heroine who asserts her independence and feminism but never really acts on it -- as though the simple saying so makes it so, despite all acts to the contrary.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Bringing Up Baby! Watch Bringing Up Baby! It is my favorite movie ever, and it's one of my great sorrows that it's not out on DVD. It's on VHS, though, and you can rent it.

[oyceter]

It's not on DVD?! Argh! It was next on my list!

Hrm. May have to see if the boy can hook up his VCR.

[rahael.livejournal.com]

I *love* His Girl Friday....

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

In regard to the idea that they don't make movies like that anymore (and they don't), it should be pointed out that the Coen brothers have reinterpreted His Girl Friday twice, once in The Hudsucker Proxy and again in Intolerable Cruelty. The first is much more obvious in its homage, the second much more successful. I think that the failings of both might cast some light on the demise of the screwball comedy. The classic screwballs were largely about romance between equals -- Cary Grant's character in His Girl Friday may be a fast-talking, amoral bastard, but so is Rosalind Russell's, and Grant's main attack is to reawaken this in her. It Happened One Night is a contest of wits between Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, and Bringing Up Baby a contest of witlessness between Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Hudsucker, on the other hand, pairs a fast-talking, amoral bastard Rosalind Russell character with a sweet-hearted not-too-bright naif as Jimmy Stewart might have played. Intolerable Cruelty is much better with this, presenting the characters played by George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones as equally avaricious, self-centered and manipulative, but I didn't like that they softened (and made goofy) Clooney long before they softened Jones.

Wait, that didn't cast light on anything. I don't know why they stopped making movies like that.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Some Frank Capra movies had tough cookies with softer men-Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe for example, but they weren't really screwballs. Oh, Preston Sturgis-his were wonderful, Sullivan's Travels, Palm Beach Story (an after-the-screwball-comedy comedy), The Lady Eve, and most especially Miracle at Morgan's Creek, the screwiest one of all. I was so lucky to see these in a movie theater.

[oyceter]

Huh, never though of Intolerable Cruelty as His Girl Friday remixed!

I liked it a lot though, even though I felt it was a little more -- I don't know, cruel? than His Girl Friday felt.

Down With Love I also liked (remake of Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies), but I think it also has the sort of self-congratulatory homage thing that Intolerable Cruelty sort of does.