Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday gets the Criterion treatment - January 2017

[CarlosAlberto]

One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, His Girl Friday stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema’s powerful women. Hildy is matched in force only by her conniving but charismatic editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (played by the peerless Cary Grant), who dangles the chance for her to scoop her fellow newswriters with the story of an impending execution in order to keep her from hopping the train that’s supposed to take her to Albany and a new life as a housewife. When adapting Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s smash hit play The Front Page, director Howard Hawks had the inspired idea of turning star reporter Hildy Johnson into a woman, and the result is an immortal mix of hard-boiled newsroom setting with remarriage comedy. Also presented here is a brand-new restoration of the 1931 The Front Page, the famous pre-Code adaptation of the same material, directed by Lewis Milestone.

AVAILABLE JANUARY 10, 2017

 

[MichelleCraig]

We'll finally be able to own a perfect copy. One of my favorites...

[hork]

Finally, a restored version of the '31 Front Page. The current version on DVD and Blu-ray is unwatchable, the sound is so bad (and it mysteriously doesn't have captions).

[PalJoey]

 

I'm excited to have this and the '31 version restored. The dialogue comes so fast and furious in both versions, especially the Howard Hawks, that if the sound quality is not perfect, it's hard to understand everything. I was in the play in high school (as a drunken Irving Pincus) and have loved it ever since.

 

[Roscoe]

Very exciting news.  Dare I hope they do the same for the magnificent TWENTIETH CENTURY?