His Girl Friday, director Howard Hawks' battling-sexes version of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's newsroom comedy The Front Page, remains one of the funniest American films ever made, but it's always been a chore to watch on video, because circulating prints were mostly washed out and noisy. This restored laserdisc version (unavailable on tape) is a delight: It looks as close as humanly possible to what 1940 audiences saw, and, more important, its cleaned-up soundtrack allows you to savor the verbal sparring between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, as well as the innovative overlapping dialogue machine-gunned by the brilliant ensemble cast Hawks assembled in support.
EW's GRADE
ADetails Movie Rated: Unrated; Genres: Comedy, Romance; With: Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell; Distributor: Columbia Pictures
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