16. ROSALIND RUSSELL
His Girl Friday (1940)

Perhaps the speediest movie ever made, Howard Hawks' screwball newspaper comedy has dialogue that clocks in at 100 miles per hour. Russell says she wants out of the news game; her instincts and Cary Grant (her ex-boss and ex-husband) say she wants in. Sparring with Grant in close verbal knife fights, working two phones at once as if mechanized, nabbing a witness with a high-stepping stride and a headlong dive, she is the most quick-witted of all tough broads — a queen among fast-talking dames.