The screening on Thursday 28 May will be introduced by filmmaker John Gordillo and will followed by a discussion at The Atrium Bar.

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. Also presented here is a restoration of the 1931 film The Front Page, Lewis Milestone’s famous pre-Code adaptation of the same material. - The Criterion Collection

John Gordillo is a filmmaker working across documentary and comedy, with credits including stand-up specials for Sean Lock, Dylan Moran, Eddie Izzard and Reg D. Hunter. Recently directed & edited Screwed Up (2025), the most-viewed British comedy special to premiere on YouTube. He wrote and directed the feature documentary Tales From the Colony Room, currently in post-production, and is script editor & picture editor on Barry’s Economics, a popular YouTube channel exploring the psychology of inequality. He is co-devising and directing a new show from Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Phil Nichol which will premiere this August at the Edinburgh Festival.

Cast:
Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall, Ernest Truex, Cliff Edwards