Hildy's Hi His Girl Friday

Howard Hawks, labeled "the greatest American director who is not a household name”, is one of the most popular and notable American film directors. He was immensely popular during the classic Hollywood era in the 1930s to early 40s. Perhaps his funniest and most outstanding screenplays of his collection is 1940s, His Girl Friday. The original His Girl Friday was director Lewis Milestone’s coming out film, dubbed The Front Page; this film was produced the ever famous Howard Hughes. This second screen version of the play, again directed and led by Charles Lederer, shifted the landscape of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's newspaper classic, The Front Page, and ushered it in a new direction with a major script change.

Genders from the original play were swapped from the previous version, most visibly seen in Hildy. The original Hildy, named Hildebrand Johnson, had his gender reversed, going for a new look as Hildegard Johnson, played by Rosalind Russell. The reversal of genders brought an entirely new perspective to the film, making waves more as a satirical work than anything.

The film, based upon dialogue, use of imagery between the lead characters, and just the overall plot structure, suggests that the roles of the characters offer new possibilities. Like other films in Hollywood over the years, rather than exploit women and use the heavy appeal of sex, the film uses a contrasting mirage of a healthy and intimate relationship based on equality; the woman is not depicted less than her worth, rather as an individual achieving parity through her intelligence, creativity, and economic independence. In the process of creating this relationship, however, the film mythologizes the roles of men and