His Girl Friday - Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) (Import)

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 1931The Front Page, the famous pre-Code adaptation of the same material, directed by Lewis Milestone.Special FeaturesNew high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrackNew 2K restoration of Lewis Milestone’s The Front Page (1931), made from a recently discovered print of the director’s preferred versionNew interview with film scholar David Bordwell about His Girl FridayArchival interviews with director Howard HawksFeaturettes from 1999 about Hawks, actor Rosalind Russell, and the making of His Girl FridayRadio adaptation of His Girl Friday from 1940New piece about the restoration of The Front PageNew piece about playwright and screenwriter Ben HechtRadio adaptations of the play The Front Page from 1937 and 1946His Girl Friday trailersPLUS: A booklet featuring essays on His Girl Friday and The Front Page by film critics Farran Smith Nehme and Michael Sragow