His Girl Friday (1940)

The perfect romantic screwball. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are NYC journalists with the love they have for getting the latest story surpassed only by their love for each other. Odd then that they -– Grant is editor Walter Burns, Russell is reporter Hildy Johnson -– cannot stand each other and were quite recently married. Not enough room in a marriage when the third and fourth partners are outsize egos. The plot is beside the point against dialogue that demands instant replay as every rounded machine-gunned line pops one after the other and on top of one another, leaving the viewer spellbound. But here goes: Hildy returns to the newsroom that is her church and busts in on Burns’ office, declaring her intent to quit and marry an insurance salesman from Albany (Ralph Bellamy), which in newspeak equals marrying a scarecrow from Kansas. Burns has one ace up his sleeve: A sizzling murder trail he knows Johnson won’t refuse. The rest is marvelous. The puns and name drops (“Archie Leech!”) crash the fourth wall, a shout to the audience that no matter how much fun they’re having watching, the actors had more fun playing it. A+

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