Directed by Howard Hawks • 1940 • United States
Starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy
One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, HIS GIRL FRIDAY stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema’s powerful women. Hildy is matched in force only by her conniving but charismatic editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (played by the peerless Cary Grant), who dangles the chance for her to scoop her fellow news writers with the story of an impending execution in order to keep her from hopping the train that’s supposed to take her to Albany and a new life as a housewife. When adapting Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s smash hit play “The Front Page,” director Howard Hawks had the inspired idea of turning star reporter Hildy Johnson into a woman, and the result is an immortal mix of hard-boiled newsroom setting with ebullient remarriage comedy.
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The Postman Always Rings Twice
Directed by Tay Garnett • 1946 • United States
Starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil KellawayLana Turner and John Garfield set the screen ablaze with their smoldering chemistry in this erotically charged noir classic based on the novel by James M. Cain. Down-and-out drifter Frank Chambers ...
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Sullivan’s Travels
Directed by Preston Sturges • 1941 • United States
Starring Joel McCrea, Veronica LakeTired of churning out lightweight comedies, Hollywood director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) decides to make O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?—a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his pr...
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Detour
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer • 1945 • United States
Starring Tom Neal, Ann SavageFrom Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist ...
