Friday, October 05, 2007

My favorite screen couple

Keep your Bogey & Becall, Tracy & Hepburn, Affleck & Lopez. For sheer sexual chemistry, charm, and comic timing there has never been a better screen couple than Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in HIS GIRL FRIDAY. If you've never seen this comic masterpiece you MUST check it out. In the meantime, here's a ten minute sample. Hold your breath.

16 comments :

  1. This is one of the best screwball romantic comedies ever to not feature me! (And Roz never thanked me for turning it down and suggesting her.) Pacing, people, PACING! They were walking and talking years before Sorkin, and at twice the speed of his characters. Hawks was one of the greatest masters.

    Everybody thinks Jack Lemmon was so great (Merely because he was), but he wasn't nearly as feminine and sexy as Roz when he played her role in the remake. (Although he was as feminine and sexy in SOME LIKE IT HOT.) For that matter, as much (and as often) as I loved Walter Matthau, he wasn't nearly as hot as Cary Grant.

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  2. I agree. This is one of those movies like "Miracle on 34th Street" where the WGA should retire the screenplay, nail the cover up on the wall of the guild lobby and declare that it can never be made again because it will never be improved.

    (Yes, I know "His Girl Friday" is a remake of the 1941 "The Front Page")

    I always think of "His Girl Friday" whenever I watch the under rated "The Hudsucker Proxy". It seems like Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance is almost a homage to Russell's Hildy.

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  3. And of course, there's poor ol' Ralph Bellamy in the Ralph Bellamy role...

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  4. Oh, man, I haven't seen this movie in ages. This is the movie that, as a child, started my slightly creepy man-crush on Cary Grant.

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  5. Geoduck said...
    and of course, there's poor ol' Ralph Bellamy in the Ralph Bellamy role...

    Thanks, I was wondering who that was with Ralph Bellamy’s voice. (Embarrassingly, really -- for the first 3-4 seconds.)

    Having spent much of the week on the phone and net with Hungary – and how many of us can say that – I’m am just catching up on the past Levine week (which is 7 in dog weeks). Really enjoyed the Grant/Russell clip – but for some reason our monitor wouldn’t pick up the color.

    Just one minor quibble, Ken. I think it’s “Bacall” and pronounced “BACK-al” like in backal nudity, the pg alternative to frontal nudity. Except on Tuesday Morning’s when it is acceptable to pronounce Lauren Bacall “Suzanne Somers.”

    Sincerely,
    A. Buck Short
    Siphon High, class of ’82.

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  6. ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!’ Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. And Bogey & Becall...let’s see--backal nudity, frontal nudity, testicular nudity, left buttocks nudity...BTW, I had to miss Ken’s tele-seminar last week, can I borrow someone’s notes and give it back after the test?

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  7. I'm not so sure on that one. I reckon that Rosalind gets beaten out quite a bit when the testosterone gangs up together. For an alternative best couple where the woman holds her ground a lot better, how about the Thin Man films with Myrna Loy and William Powell. The lines aren't always as zingy as in His Girl Friday but they just seem to make a better couple. Watch a collection of bits here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG3NZjRv2nM

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  8. Worst thing ever said to me by a girl:

    "You're not Cary Grant. Hell, you're not even Ralph Bellamy."

    Yup, still hurts.

    And for a second I thought we'd really hit it off because we both loved old movies.

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  9. Hey, look at this way JPF, you got sent packing on a great line.

    I always liked the way Rosalind Russell talked to that nervous sweaty prisoner all calmly while smoking her cigarette. A surprise change from the fast pace of the film in general.

    As for chemistry, I love the way Katherine Hepburn manages it with two men in The Philadelphia Story. Ah, a woman never had such great options in men in any film since.

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  10. And for a second I thought we'd really hit it off because we both loved old movies.

    Answers my curiosity about whether there's a female movie buff out there for me. Bachelorhood is fine.

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  11. Mmm, thanks... That was great for me.

    Just what I needed before hitting the pages again.

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  12. And these kids today think that rapid-fire, machine gun, comic dialogue delivery was created on TV's "Gilmore Girls." As my grandmother never said, "Feh!"

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  13. Worst thing ever said to me by a girl:

    "You're not Cary Grant. Hell, you're not even Ralph Bellamy."


    Too bad you couldn't have been at least somewhere in between, say, Fred MacMurray or Robert Montgomery.

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  14. Russell was so good, it was tough to watch others trying to do the same role (even an homage like JJL in Hudsucker) after that. But I was always a Cary Grant/Kate Hepburn fan, myself...Holiday is one of the most underrated movies of all time, in my opinion.

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  15. I love this film, and this scene in particular.

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  16. This is a wonderful movie. From what I have read about it, Hawks stood off camera with a stopwatch to make certain that all the banter moved along at a good clip.

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