His Girl Friday

Compared to the other films we have watched this semester, I found His Girl Friday to be the darkest of them all. When Molly jumped out of the window and died, Walter did not show any remorse or pity for the young lady. Hildy told Walter that they were murderers and she seemed distraught, but only for a moment. If I watched someone kill themself, I am pretty sure that I would be sad about it for at least a day. I think their lack of emotions proves that they are not in the "real world". Walter and Hildy live in a world full of chaos and disasters, so they are used to guns being pointed at them and people committing suicide. They truly are only newspapermen and they cannot escape from that world, even if they wanted to.

Throughout the movie, Walter was continuously doing illegal scheming. He ended up getting Bruce in jail at least three times for crimes he did not do. First he planted the watch in his pocket that had been stolen. Then he was arrested because Walter planted the blonde girl on Bruce. And then of course, he was found with counterfeit money that was Walter's. Walter really is not a nice person, although he does have a lot of charm which makes the audience like him. Like Bruce said, "He seems like a nice guy". If Walter did all of this illegal activity just to get someone back whom he cared about, I hate to imagine what he has done to people that he does not like or what he has done to get "interesting" stories. I am not surprised that there was not much respect for the press, according to one of the reporters.

The movie was also corrupt politically. The mayor bribbed the man who had the reprieve letter for Earl Williams. There was also earlier connotations to what the governor had done to secure his position before the last election day. This movie accurately portrays how our government functions today, which is sad, but true. The sheriff in His Girl Friday also was ignorant like the sheriff in Bringing Up Baby. Overall, I found this movie to be the darkest one out of the comedy of remarriage films. As Cavell says, they are not living in "the golden world" or "the green world", but "a black world" (Cavell, 172). And they cannot escape from this black world, even if they want to.