NR | 1 h 32 min | Drama, Comedy | 1940
Howard Hawks’s opening screen text about “the newspaper game” bears a cheeky qualifier: “You will see in this picture no resemblance to the men and women of the Press of today.”
As editor of The Morning Post, Walter Burns (Cary Grant) will stop at nothing to sell crime reporting as journalism. He’ll even hook his ex-wife and former star reporter, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), on to the next story to keep her from marrying another man, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy).
Hawks’s Message
Tragically, too many critics misread Hawks’s film. He’s not trashing marriage, family, or faithful relationships. He’s not showing how things should be, but how they shouldn’t. Read the print, but be aware of the spaces between the lines. Amid all the sound that his characters generate, watch for a moment when a shaming silence shrouds their newsroom.Much has been written on Hawks’s epoch-defining use of quick-fire dialogue to mirror the impatience of real-life people who claim to not have the time to wait for others to start or stop speaking. His characters rattle off dialogue at around 240 words per minute (wpm), twice the average rate of speech of around 100 wpm.
Hawks matches that audio speed with a visual speed that’s no less breakneck. His camera tracks a newsroom like it’s being dragged in one direction while trying to gaze in another: reporters yelling into phones, typists typing copy, subeditors checking headlines and editors rechecking them, operators plying switchboards, men hastening down elevators, women hastening up them—all criss-crossing each other in the madhouse of the media business. They’re barely seeing, let alone hearing, each other.
As Bruce accompanies Hildy, a newsboy recognizes her, stops what he’s doing, and smiles, “Morning, Hildy!” Hildy smiles back, “Oh, hi, Skinny.”
As Hildy rushes away, Bruce whispers to show how much he cares for her. She stops; the camera’s forced to stop with her. She swivels, cocks her head, smiles, walks back as if in slow motion, stilling her line delivery almost to a standstill, “What did you say?”
Bruce flushes, falters. Hildy waits until he regains composure, then prompts him—not once, but twice—to repeat himself. Then, she glows: “I heard you the first time, I like it. That’s why I asked you to say it again.”
False Choices
Commentators often taunt people with false choices, such as job or marriage, promotion or family, career or children, as if one path guarantees the happiness that the other denies.Hawks is saying that choice doesn’t ensure happiness, only a good choice does. Real choices, the ones we have greater control over, are the ones we ignore: Do we care enough to listen to and be sensitive to those we claim to care about? If we care enough, the choices will take care of themselves, and we’ll be happy. But if we don’t care, our choices, whatever they are, won’t matter; we’ll be, and stay, unhappy.
Walter does care and so does Hildy, but more for themselves than for each other. It’s why they settle for a middle ground, a tempered togetherness. Hawks is saying the opposite of what many think his characters are saying. He’s saying that you can’t have it both ways; you must sacrifice something to have something else.
Expertly, Hawks meditates on managed mediocrity, but we should be in no doubt about where his model lies.
