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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. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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Compare that to the British newsroom classic movie I watched "Unpublished Story" (1942), filmed two years later.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.
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posted two sets of "His Girl Friday" icons here and here.Compare that to the British newsroom classic movie I watched "Unpublished Story" (1942), filmed two years later.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.
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Ralph Bellamy had also had some practice at keeping up with cinematic madness. In 1937, he played a similar beleaguered odd-man-out role as a studio exec in "Boy Meets Girl", and he was the only other member of the cast who could remotely hold his own against Jimmy and Pat's dizzy lunacy.
The second set of HGF icons is up, by the way. :)
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