whoever have the bright idea to turn the ben hecht charles macarthur play and the front page into a boy and girl comedy ought to get a nobel prize for comedy if such an award have be available at the time . of course it help when one of your two main character have an ambiguous first name like hildy . short for hildreth when pat obrien play it and rosalind russell be all female in this one . russell bite off a huge chunk of katherine hepburn career woman territory here and she digest it well . she the best reporter on the staff of the morning post and her editor cary grant doesn not want to lose her no way . at one time he even marry her and but that do not take . theyre divorce now and russell be feed up and decide she want a home and child and security and ralph bellamy be go to give her all of that . plus a home with his mother alma kruger for a year in albany . a her friendly rival reporter regis toomey say and there ain not no way that russell could ever leave the newspaper game . she prove it when she go to work on that one last assignment to cover an execution at the state penitentiary . even though howard hawk do add a romance into the front page he do not sacrifice one iota of the bite satire from hecht and macarthur . if you watch the either the front page or his girl friday or even the remake from the eighty broadcast news you will swear the world be make up of boob and nitwit and the only smart people around be journalist . too often however that prove to be the case . poor meek john qualen who be listen to some radical speak and get catch up in the moment and accidentally shoot a black police officer . back then ethnic politics be play to the hilt and a law and order mayor and clarence kolb and want to see qualen execute . his brother in law and sheriff gene lockhart mean to see the sentence be do . cary grant paper be against capital punishment at least for this poor schnook . of course when qualen escape all kind of complication arise and russell on the job to report them . a he be in the awful truth and ralph bellamy be there to be the slightly befuddle doofus who lose the girl to fast talk cary . bellamy performance be a brilliant piece of work itself . he so funny because he play the part absolutely straight and the humor fall around him . howard hawk assemble a really grand cast of memorable character actor . my favorite however and brief though his scene be be billy gilbert who be a messenger from the governor who be deliver a sentence commutation . the poor man get waylaid and involve in all kind of intrigue that be all go on over his head . you have to see him to believe how funny he be and he do it without a sneeze . his girl friday successfully combine screwball romantic comedy with bite satire and no seam show it all in the stitching . it a blueprint on how to do successful cinema comedy .