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Sat, Apr. 3rd, 2004 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterHis 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.
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.
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Sat, Apr. 3rd, 2004 10:27 pm (UTC)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.
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Sun, Apr. 4th, 2004 04:46 pm (UTC)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"?