Hildy meet Hildy

So I've been home, watching tv and dvds. Every once in awhile, I go digging into Comcast On Demand menus, just to see if there's anything worth watching. The TCM On Demand included "His Girl Friday", a classic screwball comedy with Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy. I'd heard about this movie, but I'd never had a chance to watch it. Russell played everyone's favorite cutthroat girl reporter Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson. I could easily see where some of the inspiration for WENN's Hilary comes from, especially the interactions with her ex-husband. (My LJ name comes from her nickname used by Scott Sherwood because she reminds him of a trapeze artist he once knew.) Russell and Grant play off each other like wildfire with rapid fire dialogue and commentary. Apparently Howard Hawkes perfected the technique for this movie, because he felt it would sound more realistic of actual conversations with the overlapping dialogue. I have to wonder how many takes some of those scenes took. Poor Ralph Bellamy is caught in the middle of the whole thing. I really couldn't hate him as the odd guy out. Honestly the movie felt weirdly like "Philadelphia Story" in the newsroom, if that makes any sense. jordannamorgan has posted two sets of "His Girl Friday" icons here and here.

Compare that to the British newsroom classic movie I watched "Unpublished Story" (1942), filmed two years later. Less scintillating wit and more melodrama. This girl reporter had to fight for her spot on the paper. Hildy was welcomed in the newsroom and even the all guys stakeout in the court house. Valerie Hobson and Richard Greene starred as a pair of reporters mixed up in wartime espionage and intrigue. Richard Greene is apparently best known as TV's first Robin Hood in "Adventures of Robin Hood". I was mostly interested in the movie because a Cecil Beaton photo of Valerie Hobson. The LW & Remember WENN friends will be interested because it's set in WWII London circa the early days of the Blitz, but it's heavier on the newspaper reporting than radio. Sobering and quiet little wartime movie for what it is, but some of the reporters are fun little characters.

Death in the afternoon

There's a popular old saying. No one's really dead in science fiction. And it's equally true in soap opera land. Characters rise from the grave more times than we can count. But for some reason, I have different reactions to deaths in one genre than the other. For sf fandom, when a character I like dies, I'm furious, I'm upset. My anger usually knows no bounds, unless it happens to be someone I don't like, which rarely happens. With soaps, I'm just saddened. I don't know why I have such a different response. I grow equally attached to characters in both genres. Soap characters usually have longer to grab my attention, so maybe there's more history involved. Is it seeing the storyline come to final close? Even so, I don't get nearly as riled up. Maybe it's knowing a) they could be back someday b) the actor/actress could go on to better things I'll like just as much. But that's true with sf too, right? I've watched sf characters be thrown away with just as much disregard as soap characters, too. It's very odd.

I noticed this especially this week on "All My Children". AMC is badly resembling AW in the latter days with all the complaints on underused characters and the treatment of veterans versus newcomers. In their usual fashion, they need to clean house, so they invented yet another serial killer storyline. Every time I'm turning around, there's a big murder mystery or massive event. You'd think there'd be an easier way to eliminate characters. ( Cut to spare the soap melodrama & recent AMC spoilers )