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Cary Grant: Penny Serenade / His Girl Friday / On Film (1940)
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Hollywood Classics
Penny Serenade Penny Serenade is the story of Julie and Roger Adams. It is an honest look at a happy, if not exactly peaceful period, in the domestic life of a newspaperman and a former salesgirl in a music shop. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, one of Hollywood's best comedy teams, are perfectly cast. Neither has any difficulty sliding from fast comedy to a heartbreaking scene or ending a poignant moment with a laugh.
His Girl Friday This hilarious reworking of The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur sees Grant as the savage editor, and, in a switch, the reporter played by a scheming Rosalind Russell. This version adds the twin lures of sex and romance. The film moves at a whirlwind speed, as director Howard Hawks instructed his actors to overlap their lines, so much so that at times everyone seems to be talking at once. Hawks also has his cast move at twice the normal speed so the screen looks frantic from scene to scene, thus conveying the urgency of the news world he wa | | |