Seminar: His Girl Friday

Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr takes us through Howard Hawks’s whip-smart 1940 screwball comedy.

In adapting Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s hit play The Front Page, director Howard Hawks made one very significant change. When trying to rehearse a scene between two newspapermen, he was short one man, so had his secretary read one of the parts. Hearing it with one of the roles gender-swapped, Hawks pronounced, “It's even better this way.” With that change, Hawks (along with writer Charles Lederer) turned the play into not just one of the funniest films about journalists, but one of the very best romantic comedies of the era. Join the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr as he examines the fast-paced dialogue, the performances from stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and more of what makes His Girl Friday as iconic and hilarious as it remains today.

About the Speaker

Ty Burr is the Boston Globe’s film critic and cultural columnist. He has been at the paper since 2002. Prior to that, he wrote for Entertainment Weekly and programmed movies for Home Box Office. Burr is the author of Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame (2012), The Best Old Movies for Families (2007), and the e-book The 50 Movie Starter Kit: What You Need to Know if You Want to Know What You’re Talking About (2012). He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics. In 2017, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. He lives in Newton, MA.

About Coolidge Education Seminars

Want to learn more about some of your favorite classic films? Before select Big Screen Classics events register for the Coolidge Education seminar, which includes a 30 minute lecture before the film from an expert and a reserved seat at the screening of the film.