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His Girl Friday Review



What I liked: This is apparently a classic movie. I had never heard of it before but Netflix kept telling me that I should watch it because it was classic. Ok fine Netflix you win. So as classics go this is pretty good. It comes in well ahead of Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and Dr. Zhivago. When it comes to black and white movies I am more of a Hitchcock girl liking things like 39 steps, The Lady Vanishes, and Charade. As you can infer from the title and poster it is an early romantic comedy which works out fine until they guy finally gets the girl. The premise is the couple is divorced and the girl is about to get remarried, they guy still loves her so keeps trying to sabotage her leaving. I thought the antics were ridiculous and funny. The backstory of the couple’s relationship is also absurd and entertaining. The girl was feisty and saw through the guy’s plans. I also liked the portrayal of the reporters and their different versions of the same newspaper story. The lady interviews a man on death row in a scene that reminded me strikingly of Rita Skeeter from the Harry Potter books.
What I didn’t: Much like My Fair Lady the girl ends up with the wrong guy, again you can infer this from the poster so I don't think I'm giving anything away. I guess I am jumping to conclusions. They do understand each other incredibly well and seem to enjoy consorting with criminals and undertaking questionably legal and questionably logical approaches to reporting. Maybe they were made for each other. But let us consider for a moment what that would mean for everyone else in New York. Nothing too serious; people being kidnapped willynilly, pickpocketing, false job offers. and suspicious railroad activity. It seems like on the whole the rest of the city would suffer. Clearly, for the greater good we should demand that they break it off. But I guess they only have two accomplices so once people learned to recognize them everything would be back to normal. Except for the uncannily short tenures of the mayors.
Who should watch this: Well, Netflix thought I should, so maybe you should too.
Would I watch it again? It was fun once.

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