His Girl Friday - Definition and Overview

His Girl Friday is a 1940 screwball comedy film which tells the story of a divorced couple of journalists who become involved in the escape of a convicted killer. It stars Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy and Gene Lockhart.

The film is a remake of the 1931 film The Front Page and was adapted by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur from their play by the same title. His Girl Friday was directed by Howard Hawks.

The film is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films, was #19 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Laughs, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Some memorable moments of the film come when real life is incorporated into fiction: Cary Grant's character tells a callgirl that Ralph Bellamy's character looks a lot like Ralph Bellamy; later in the film Grant's character notes that the last person who crossed him and lived to regret it was Archie Leach - Cary Grant's real name.