The Bechdel Cast - His Girl Friday

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Say, folks, Caitlin and Jamie covered His Girl Friday!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki,

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by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast Start changing it with the Bechdel cast Hey, Caitlin Durante

Hey, Jamie, do you have that article for me? You're a reporter and I need you to talk really fast to me Yeah, but I didn't do any research Because I'm tired So I just made it up and here it is Let's put it in the paper Well, that's okay That's fine, no problem

Yeah, let's just keep overlapping and talking like Well, that's okay. That's fine. No problem. Yeah. Let's just keep overlapping and talking like this so that no one can understand what we're saying. Okay. Then that's kind of the charm of the movie. Yeah, I guess. For some people, not for me. But for me.

And it's my birthday. God damn it. Not anymore, Jamie. Not anymore. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Welcome to the Bechtel cast. Say my name's Jamie Loftus.

My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what's the Bechdel test? I'll tell you. I'll tell you what it is. I've got it in this big old book right here. It's a video metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,

often called the Bechdel-Wallace test because she co-created it with a dame named... Oh, a broad? A broad named Liz Wallace. No, sorry, Liz Wallace. Lots of versions of the test. The version we use is this. Two characters of a marginalized gender with names you hear

speak to each other about something other than a fella for two lines or more. Does it happen in this movie? I would argue yes, which kind of feels like a miracle. Oh, does it? I didn't even notice because I didn't know who was talking at any point. It's like there's conversations between women that eventually divert to be about a man there's not a full conversation that passes the bechdel test but there are exchanges between hildy and

molly that pass the bechdel test i yeah and other than that it's like two incidentals account but i do think that there's a conversation between hildy and molly that passes and that's the episode folks no just kidding yeah bye um see you later so long um it's his girl friday week on the backdoor cast i was originally going to choose this as one of my birthday picks on the matreon but we went another direction to learn about that direction uh head over to the matreon wow but this is still i think a movie that warrants discussion because it's a very famous movie and certainly yeah what's your history with this movie i i don't know i thought i had seen it because it's one of those like classic hollywood movies that you have to see if you want to know about film you know say but twist I thought I had seen it and it turns out

I hadn't I think I was getting it confused with Philadelphia story which I have seen this does feel yeah I always kind of forget that which is unfair to Rosalind Russell who I think gives an unbelievable performance in this movie I always sort of code this in my brain as a Katharine Hepburn movie, which it is not. But I also think that's somewhat understandable given the fact that it's a Howard Hawks movie. It feels like a Howard Hawks movie.

And I just associate those movies with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn because he did Bringing Up Baby with her. Anyways. So this was your first time watching? This was my first time watching it. I wasn't super thrilled with it i'll say at the top i generally like carrie grant movies i was gonna

say yeah he's probably my favorite actor of that era sure because uh he's sort of the only one who i know about other than gene kelly Stewart oh Gene I like Gene Kelly you do and you but you hate Jimmy Stewart I hate Jimmy Stewart yeah honestly I think that you have slowly moved me against Jimmy Stewart yes yes yeah there I said it well you're welcome um but anyway I generally like Cary Grant movies uh this is not one of the ones I care for very much, partly because his character is despicable. I think, I mean, we'll have an interesting discussion about this movie, but it just wasn't quite for me. What about you, Jamie? What's your relationship with the movie? So interestingly, and I feel like this is just because this show has been on for so long that

we're running out of genuine favorite movies to cover. So yeah, I originally picked this as a birthday pick for the Matreon, not because it's one of my favorite movies. This is only my second time seeing it. But because I saw it in theaters last year. And I was not watching it critically. I was just kind of letting it wash over me. And I was like, wow, that movie was... I mean, I also thought maybe I'd seen it in film school. I didn't. I have seen a couple Howard Hawks movies before and seen Bringing Up Baby. We've covered Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on this very show.

So I sort of assumed that I'd I'd seen this before I hadn't and I kind of I mean it's interesting because I think where I generally come down on this movie is I really enjoyed seeing it in theaters I really enjoyed seeing it with an audience it was really fun listening to jokes written 85 years ago still play in a theatrical setting like I was very taken in by the experience I was with people who I love who loved the movie it was like it was a blast and then upon leaving the movie I was like wow I really love the performances in this movie and I think that it is like a tricky movie for us to talk about which is why I want to try. Because it, you know, I think fails as a feminist story, but succeeds as a satire. And if a few elements were adjusted, it could be successful

as both. And then I did some more reading and it sort of brought back this like latent, you know, early film school talks of the hoxian woman and i don't i honestly don't remember listeners you may be a better authority on this than we were if we talked about the tropes that are associated with the hoxian woman like the one of the like a guy's girl kind of like the original guy's girl in in film tropes but I don't know like I think this movie is a super fun watch I think as a satire it's like really successful and I enjoy letting it wash over me but if you are watching it for a feminist hero unfortunately you do not get one which is which is frustrating it almost like reminds me of I feel like these kind of like Hoxie and women are in conversation with so many other tropes around women that come up later in film of like the girl power girl who is much being heavily manipulated by the male protagonist or

by the patriarchal system on the whole it's so tricky and it's like also quite evil to loop in this brutal manipulation of Hildy with something that she appears to be very good at and loves which is like it's just it's I don't know it'll be an interesting discussion for sure because I'm not like super attached to like I won't defend this movie I won't go to the map for it but I do understand why people still watch it yeah for sure yeah hmm well let's get into it shall we all righty here is the recap and I'll place a content warning for a brief kind of mention slash discussion of suicide we open on the busy office of the morning post newspaper from what city i can't tell not new york somewhere else ever heard of somewhere else no me either we meet hildy played

by rosalind russell who is there to see her her ex-husband walter played by carrie grant he is the editor-in-chief of the newspaper which hildy used to write for until she quit no longer wanting to be in the newspaper business right unclear why because it's like this is where it gets so fascinating already where it's like she's like it's corrupt and then you look at how they do business and you're like oh yeah true but then you're like but that's but that's not why she actually loves being corrupt it's her favorite yeah she doesn't mind at all these two are just like i there is something interesting about watching two characters that you're like hmm these characters are both kind of pure evil and they deserve each other they found each other and they're really going to like win a

pulitzer saying something very fucked up someday very true yeah yes uh so hildy goes to see walter they talk about their relationship why it didn't work out then he plays a little trick to try to get hildy to come back and work for him again because he's always tricking people double-crossing people manipulating, doing sneaky and shady stuff to get what he wants. In life and at work. Yes. And Hildy is like, I'm not going to come back and work for you. And if you're trying to get back together with me, I'm not doing that either.

I'm engaged. I have a fiancé. And I'm getting married tomorrow and he's like damn that sucks yeah and then it's just like the your first hint that something is amiss is the fact that she's like and I need to do this in person and you're like no you don't no you don't this could have been an email you know this yeah why didn't she email him that's that's us this is our 2014 feminist critique um she should have texted him yeah so that's weird yeah uh i also feel like there is a coding specifically during well not even specifically during this like throughout romantic comedies

that if someone if the like alternate romantic interest is like an accountant or works in insurance, he is fundamentally unworthy of love. I feel like this trope carries through the 90s, weirdly. Yes, I think there's like a career coded thing and then also a personality thing where if. Yes, where if you're kind. kind right if you're like you don't deserve love if you're romantic and sweet or on the flip side of it like the other end of the spectrum if you're pure evil a la cal hockley from titanic right right there are exceptions but it's like i i just moments ago listeners tested negative for COVID but I have been a part of a COVID movie club consisting of me and my boyfriend who also

has COVID wow okay really exclusive but we watched Pretty Woman for the first time last night I'd never seen it and I mean we that's been a request on this show for years. We've just been waiting for the right guest the right moment. But I just, you know, it's so like the Richard Gere character and Pretty Woman also like a very fundamentally evil capitalist. Yes. Who like makes one good choice. And then you know, it's just like so bizarre. it reminds like the tom hanks jeff bezos character and you've got mail and you're like we have to be rooting for someone who's like i guess that the thing with with cal hockley is he's despicable but he's not

charming and um the whole like it's like if you have less riz than the other guy i mean you could say he's not i mean billy zane is billy zane is trying I mean, you could say he's not, I mean, Billy Zane is Charlie. Billy Zane is Charlie. Right. Cal, yeah, you're right. He's not.

Cal is like a phony. And I feel like it reads to people who are not millionaires. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just like, it's a Riz contest. It doesn't matter what Cary Grant's values are.

He's going to have more Riz than the other guy. Cause that's like Cary Grant. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, in any case, she is engaged to a different man now. Walter is clearly disappointed, but he wants to meet her fiance, Bruce, an insurance salesman parentheses will be fucked over and arrested 40 times because fuck him yes yes for some reason i mean insurance is a scam so it definitely is but i

i don't feel that bad i feel like the job is coded as quote-unquote boring not as like corrupt because it's like carrie grant is corrupt as hell like yeah that's why they love each other because they're both i mean she's a less corrupt reporter than the rest of them but that's like grading on a curve exactly yeah yeah so walter insists on taking them out to lunch where he learns that hildy and Bruce are taking a train later that day to move to Albany forever which does I with all due respect to my Albany ads which does sound really unpleasant yeah wouldn't be me that's all I'll say so Walter keeps trying to concoct a scheme to get Hildy to stay. And he's talking about this unfolding news story that he wants her to cover about a man named Earl Williams, who shot and killed a cop and who is about to be hanged for it. But how his life could be saved if the newspaper interviews him and publishes the interview to show that he's not of

sound mind, which would get him off the hook because he has been declared sane by a doctor. Right. So if there's like contradicting evidence to support he is not, know quote-unquote sane they could save his life although there's going to be another psychiatric evaluation of this man Earl Williams right before the hanging so keep that in mind everybody now Hildy agrees to take the later train so that she can do this interview with Earl Williams in exchange for Walter buying life insurance from Bruce so that Bruce will get a sizable commission and Walter agrees to this and he also names Hildy as his beneficiary for the life insurance policy and we're like also he's like topless in the same like he's just like it's so weird like this okay we have not renamed it in five years but

this feels like a buscemi test thing to me where it's like if it's not carrie grant getting like shirtless doctor's examinations in the room with this other guy and like doing all this stuff that is clearly designed to make him feel threatened and uncomfortable um if it's not like the sexiest movie star in the entire world conventionally doing that it is like more transparently villainous behavior but it's like because it's carrie grant it's easier to sell in the time it comes out like well it's kind of funny because it's carrie grant right and all these dames watching the movie were so distracted by his nipples right soana, humana, humana. Right.

So anyway, this is happening. Then there's, it's like something, something certified check that Bruce has to put in the lining of his hat. Yeah. There's a lot of yada yada with the money transfers. I had to Google,

I Googled some, bravely, I Googled some stuff. Whoa. Not about the money transfers but about the uh the nature of like what earl williams was listening to in the park i had to like check okay what that was yes so there's another thing about 500 in cash which hildy and bruce have and he gives that to hildy right and it's all because she suspects someone aka walter and his minions are going to try to like rob bruce which does keep happening right meanwhile hildy goes to see earl williams at the county jail um the story with him is that he had lost his job tried to get another one was not able

to he was living on the streets and one night he found himself with a gun in his hands and he shot a cop claiming it was an accident which the movie will get to goes out of the way to say it was a black cop yes which we'll get to right yeah yeah and so hildy while she's interviewing him is like oh well you heard a speech in the park about production for use you know how objects have use and a gun's purpose or use is to be shot so that's why you shot the gun. And he's like, yeah, exactly. Poor Earl. Right. And so Hildy writes up this interview to be published in the Morning Post, him so much that he shot a cop um right and that's why he can't be

yeah executed yeah it was a it was a stretch but you know the the prose from what we heard was was pretty compelling right um okay so then we also meet a woman named molly malloy a friend of sorts of earl williams there's this group of reporters at the criminal courts office who have been kind of like harassing this woman um they made up a bunch of stories about how she's like desperately in love with earl in order to sell papers. Yeah. In reality, she barely knows him, but it's that she like showed him kindness one night and she's trying to advocate for him to not be executed. Right.

And which would be impossible unless you were in love with someone. Right. According to all of these men yes hildy leaves and meets up with bruce who has been arrested for stealing a watch but it seems like he was framed because walter has a mr lovejoy type of undertaker of a manservant, if you will, this guy named Louie, who frames people for stealing expensive accessories, just like how Cal framed Jack for stealing the heart of the ocean. A wild guy to have on retainer.

Yes. Truly. And so Hildy finds this out and she calls walter to be like you double crossing slimy no good so and so i never want to see you again right and she rips up the story and is about to leave but just then earl williams escapes from the county jail during his final psychiatric evaluation before the hanging and so there's all this hubbub uh and a bunch of reporters are trying to break the story of his escape hildy chases down a guy named cooley i think he's the warden of the jail i think so it's really honestly hard to for me to tell but it is really fun to watch hildy

tackle his ass that was like i i just i remember like the first time i watched it i i don't know there are certain subversive elements like i just was not prepared to see a woman in a movie this old be that active i know right and like but she like takes his ass down yeah linebacker style tackles his ass yeah she travis kelsey i don't know what position he plays maybe she potentially travis kelsey's him i don't know we don't know and we're not gonna look it's not that kind of show it's not that kind of show no anyway she's trying to get the story about how earl williams escapes and she does and she relays this story to walter she also wants to be reimbursed for the 450 she spent bribing cooley and walter does pay her back but with counterfeit money rats and then he frames bruce and gets him arrested again uh he just keeps trying to put

bruce in jail and it's working but keep in mind the rule of threes it's not bruce's last time then there are some scenes and i think this movie is a bit guilty of getting too caught up in the like logistics and plottiness of this case where it should be i think focusing more on hildy and her like skills as a reporter and journalist and stuff i agree with that i feel like there's a lot of like i mean and i know that it's relevant to the satire they're trying to get across which is like very rooted in the time but yeah it almost feels like i don't know i feel like there's the same with like a lot of classic novels where you're like in the middle of like a really compelling story and then it just switches to like agricultural law for like 40 pages you're just like what you're like um that happens in a

lot of russian novels you're just like reading about like a marriage that's failing and then they're like and here's what that has to do with agrarian law in 1840 and you're like i'm sorry that's none of my business that's not what i'm here for yeah yeah so it's right around here in the movie that there are scenes where there's the mayor i think the sheriff i think a bunch of men are talking about a reprieve for earl i think this is like a pardon and this guy named joe pettibone comes in to deliver the reprieve that would get now earl off the hook now this guy is the mvp of the movie for me agree it is unreal how and then i had to like look the actor up and like was what a thrilling like looking this actor up really delivers did you look him up at all no i didn't

okay for first of all he's sneezy the dwarf whoa but he's like he was in so many like he was a prolific famous character actor of this time he was in something i know i had to watch in college laurel and hardy's the music box he's the guy who hates pianos um he was in the great dictator this same year like he was just in a lot of hit movies and he got his comic timing is so good he's so funny and then he comes back and everyone's like I don't know that that was the my favorite part of seeing this movie in person was that when he comes back at the end spoiler alert although it doesn't really make that much of a difference but he comes back at the end and everyone's like woohoo because he's so awesome. He's such a good actor. Great. And Joe Pettibone is a great character name. Anyway, he comes in

to deliver this reprieve to the mayor. But the mayor, who wants Earl Williams to be executed, bribes Joe Pettibone not to actually like hand over this pardon. Then Earl Williams shows up at the criminal court's office with a gun. The only other person there at the moment is Hildy. And she's able to get the gun away from him. She offers to help him and she hides him in a roll top desk and then calls walter and bruce to let them know it's going on shortly after a bunch of people show up first molly molloy then all of those crime reporters that we've been seeing throughout the movie then bruce's mother and they're all yelling about where's earl where's this guy yeah and the reporters are bullying Molly so she jumps out of a window to kill herself it's weird I've seen this like alternatively described

as like an attempt to kill herself I've also seen it as an attempt to escape the situation because she's jumping from a window that isn't far I I don't buy that. But I just wanted to mention that I've repeatedly seen that moment characterized that way. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, I interpret it as she was intending to die by suicide. That was my original assumption as well. I don't know where that's coming from. I don't know if that's like something that's noted in the script i don't know if that's like something from the source material and i agree with you i just wanted to mention that i saw it mentioned that way i don't know what that is rooted in exactly interesting either way we never see her again we don't know what happens to her really and the movie does not care which is too bad because um what the fuck yeah exactly yeah

so this causes a bit of a distraction and right then walter shows up with his minion louis who kidnaps bruce's mother and takes her away so now it's just wal Walter and Hildy and Earl hiding in the desk. Hildy wants to leave to get Bruce out of prison so that they can take the train to Albany. But Walter convinces Hildy to stay and help him break this story, which is also about government corruption in the mayor's office or something. These details were a little foggy for me. In any case, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity that would like make her career. So Hilde is convinced she starts writing the story. Then her fiance, Bruce shows up to be like, are you coming with me or what? And she's like, nah, turns out I do want to be in the newspaper business. So he's like, all right, bye. And he leaves.

A few moments later, after she sees Walter trick and double cross yet another person to get what he wants, Hildy's like, a minute what have i done i should be on that train with bruce then she finds out that bruce's mother was maybe killed in a car accident and she feels responsible i also feel like the joke of that scene is that she is not upset about her almost mother-in-law potentially getting hit she's upset about herself yeah yeah which iconically selfish character and that's who she is as a character again she and walter deserve each other it's such a mire they just but i also still feel like hildy's getting getting a raw end of the deal you know but whatever that's true they're dead they're

fictional characters then a bunch of men storm into the room possibly the sheriff i don't i can't keep track of any of these people the crime reporters probably they're demanding to know what's going on they suspect that hildy knows where earl william is. And they start manhandling her. So she pulls out the gun that she took from Earl. And the sheriff is like, wait a minute, that's my gun that Earl Williams stole from me. So you must know where he is. And then Bruce's mother shows up. She is not dead. She tells the sheriff that Hildy and walter are hiding earl right there in the office so they find earl and hildy and walter are arrested poor earl has almost suffocated inside of the desk which i do think is like really i don't know we'll get to like the commentary on

journalism in this movie but like you know could there be a clearer slash in like a screwball comedy way funnier example of how little the actual subject of the story matters to them than the fact that they nearly let him suffocate inside of a desk. But yeah. Yeah. So in any case, Hilde and Walter are arrested for, you know, harboring a murderer. But then that guy, Joe Pettibone shows up again and everyone's like give him an oscar he's so good oh god what an amazing and then he kills it again he steals the whole damn scene once again for sure because what happens here he has decided to refuse the mayor's

bribe because of something his wife told him to do yes yeah mrs petty bone feminist only feminist hero in the movie never meet her absolutely he's there to deliver this reprieve pardon thing after all, and to not accept the mayor's bribe. So now Hildy and Walter know about this bribery attempt, and that the mayor wanted Earl Williams to be hanged because he figured it would get him reelected. That information lets Hildy and Walter off the hook, they are unarrested. And then Walter tries to kind of shoo Hildy away saying that she should catch that train and go be with Bruce. And she's like, well, I want to stay and write the story. And so she seems disappointed that Walter doesn't want her there. And then Bruce calls, he has been arrested for a third time trying to spend the counterfeit money

that they got from walter yeah which makes hildy realize that walter does love her he was trying to get bruce arrested so many times because walter's trying to actually win her back. This is so confusing because I was like, what? They're so messy. Like, it's confused because there are analyses of this movie. And this is how I read it the first time I saw it. That somehow Hildy has been playing this game of like 40D chess to yield this result. But there's too many X factors. Like, how could she count on the

story of her career falling into her lap at this exact moment like i don't i feel like it maybe is somewhere in between or more likely the writers weren't thinking about her motivations very hard but like how she first of all evil of her to be like i am willing if it is her intention to almost get married to someone else to have walter wake up and ask for her back which it seems like she there is some desire that she wants that to happen but she wants it to come from her she doesn't want to be the one to come back to him so she has to orchestrate this but i was like, in order to accomplish that, she would have to be willing to ruin Bruce's life, which she is. We know she is.

Yes. R.I.P. Bruce rotting in jail for no reason. But even so, even if that's her plan, like it doesn't quite come together as like, this is a, you know, I don't know. And then he is, I think he is very conniving and all of the beats of when he does manipulative stuff actually does track a little cleaner than to me than what hildy would have to do to oh for sure but she i don't know i don't know i don't i don't quite understand what

her plan is because what if he had like wasn't at worth that day like what would she do i don't think my read is that hildy never has a like she has not premeditated trying to get back together with okay walter that she just gets duped the way that he dupes everybody. I mean, I read it as she was about to embark on a life that she probably didn't actually want, but had convinced herself that maybe I do want this. And then by being back in the newspaper business, she realizes, oh, I could not actually leave this line of work and this lifestyle, which would be an interesting story if it wasn't orchestrated by her conniving ex-husband right but it's not it's so weird it's such a weird movie see i guess

i always put like a little more maybe it's because i've conniving like tried to get men to say things to me via a series of tricks in the past i'm willing to admit that it's true it often doesn't work usually doesn't work but what if it works once or twice it's like it's addictive but i guess i sort of thought because and again this might just be like the movie that feels like a movie of it all but the fact that she goes in person to me says that she wants some reaction out of him that she wants to witness because this could all be handled over the phone but it isn't and the and the fact that she brings bruce with her like it means that she wants him to bear witness to some dynamic as well like i don't think what

she's doing is healthy or like commendable but i do feel like she like wants some sort of cathartic release from having shown up like I think you're totally right that I was giving an over you know like planning on her part to say that she would expect the rest to happen that she would expect the day to end with her her fiance in jail and her rebetrode to her ex-husband but i did feel like she went there for some sort of catharsis and i'm not saying that critically because again i don't know the the stuff with bruce that's like beyond the pale that's fucked up to bring someone who for all intents and purposes as far as we can tell worst crime is being boring and just like wave him around and sort of open him up to all of this like ridicule and abuse for no reason but i do feel like her showing up with him

something's afoot i think she has intentions that are maybe subconscious and sure but i don't think she's actively necessary i think it's a more of a passive subconscious thing that she's going for i think she's i think she's brat summer well let's take a break to discuss so the movie ends with hildy realizing that walter was getting her fiance bruce arrested all these times because he was actually trying to win her back and he actually does love her and this is his way of showing that he loves her he's like you're right let's get married again this time we will go on a honeymoon to albany and she's like sounds great okay bye and then the movie's over. So wild that the whole time all she really wanted was to go to Albany.

Anyways, yes, let's take a break, say. And we'll be back in a moment, you hear? Mm-hmm. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days,

fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next

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Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

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You see? You see? Gosh, this movie is so weird and fun to talk about. I would like to start, with your permission, with what I think this movie is successful at. Okay, sure. On a story basis. What I think this movie is very successful at, and sometimes at the expense of certain characters

or certain story logic, is the satire of both politics and journalism of this time but i also think it's very applicable to current day politicians and journalists kind of an evergreen thing to be like the media and the politicians are good are corrupt yes and that like occasionally justice can be achieved but usually it's a mistake or just happens to work in one or the other's interest. I feel like that uh that present journalism as wholesale a noble profession that people don't fuck up you know that cannot be bought you know all of this stuff where you know journalism at its core of course is a noble endeavor but it is very often not performed that way because it's carried out by humans and humans

are often not on their best behavior well and even more so there there's a number i mean there's two super famous movies in this one year span like this and citizen kane address the, you know, not exactly yellow journalism. Well, I mean, Citizen Kane does, but you know, flawed, get the story versus get the truth style journalism that was very prevalent in the late 1800s. And then there was another huge bout of yellow journalism in the 20s and 30s, which I think it's more likely this movie is pulling from with, you know, how much of the Spanish American War was fueled by bad reporting. And that bad reporting was fueled by making sales and competition and all this stuff that we still hear about today, because this is what happens in capitalist societies. And the, you know,

fallout is normal people which in this movie is illustrated through earl williams and that portrayal is also flawed but i feel like that comes across very clearly where our romantic heroes are journalists and so we side with the journalists more than the politicians because we know them better they're hotter we like them for sure but I appreciate about this movie that it doesn't at least for me it doesn't really ever make any bones about the fact that what they're doing is not true or like ideal like they are kind of two con artists that are very fun to watch and deserve each other because you know they're they're both lying and in different ways and that's interesting where it seems like you know Hildy generally is lying in favor or at least in the case of this story is lying

in the hopes of achieving justice in a roundabout way. But still, it's not. No one in this movie is doing good or like laudable reporting. They're all lying. They're all making shit up. And I feel like it's like a direct commentary on the state of media at this time. Also, because this movie comes out at the very beginning of World War II. So, of course, people are thinking a lot about media accuracy of a war that's taking place overseas and i don't know i think that it works and the politicians are equally corrupt and they try to you know buy off our king and it doesn't

work um and by our king i of course do mean joe petty boneettibone. I do not mean Cary Grant. I mean Joe Pettibone, the hero of the movie. He should have been on the poster. But yeah, I mean, on that level, it works for me. But on a feminist level, it very clearly doesn't. It sure doesn't. And I've got a lot to say about it woohoo starting with a little bit of context which is that this movie was adapted from a play called the front page from 1928 that was written by ben hecht and charles macarthur which was also adapted into a 1931 film

of the same name the front page those versions of the story have it so the person who had quit their reporting job and who the carrie grant character tries to recruit back into the newspaper business is a man. His Girl Friday, gender swaps it so that the reporter is a woman and the ex-wife of, you know, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper. So this was a pretty significant change that critics loved audiences loved like this movie was a success and so it's interesting that this story introduced a woman into the picture and it was well received right but by doing so and writing this character in the way that she's written leads to some problems yes yes so right because it like it sounds like an interesting choice on it's i mean it's weird it's it's like a lot of quote-unquote gender swapped reboots of something where it's like, I see what you're going for, but it doesn't quite

come together. Because what happens is she has convinced herself that she no longer wants to be a reporter. She doesn't want to work for her ex-husband anymore. She has found another man as a romantic partner, and she's going to go off and live a different type of life so there's all these moments in the movie where people are discussing hildy quitting the newspaper game because she wants to be a quote-unquote woman meaning she wants a traditional domestic life she wants to you know make a home have babies have like a far more traditional right gender role woman's life especially for this era right which seems to be like consistent with how howard hawks talks about women in all of his movies that like the concept of woman is a job which is like huh okay yeah i mean i think it's interesting that the movie is acknowledging

this like traditional gender role of what a woman is expected to do and how for a while and then again later on or you know throughout the movie she is subverting this expectation because in the backstory, she was a skilled reporter. This is how she met Cary Grant's character. They get married, the marriage doesn't work out, and she decides, okay, I'm going to find a more stable slash traditional situation for myself. But she gets kind of seduced by being a newspaper man and falls back into it and we're led to believe based on how the story ends that she is getting back together with walter and that she will continue to be a reporter for him right so you have this story now that seems like at first it seems like it's being set up so that like a woman is prioritizing her career over a relationship with a man which as we've

always discussed like isn't inherently feminist like feminism is all about choosing what you want for yourself and right it's all which is really muddled in this movie because we don't it seems as if based on even like the first conversation she has with walter which for all of its flaws i love to watch i have no idea how you block and act a scene like this it's like how the fuck like yeah I guess I'll just say it like the performances in this movie are just so s tier to me where I just like don't understand how they were physically possible right but in that whole first scene like you kind of understand why they got together you definitely understand why they broke up and it seemed at least that in their marriage like

hildy wanted both but was not right and you know in the very in the way that you know you're led to believe it you know long after this movie comes out it's you know it's almost a radical choice that this movie presents that you could have one or the other usually you know and in movies that come out 10 years later and I don't know if it's because this is like a wartime movie that it's like a more palatable concept for a woman to be a working professional and the fact that I'm sure that it makes it seem like it's more palatable for her to be a working professional because she's married to someone who's doing the same thing which you see a lot but it seems like she's always wanted both and is being forced to pick one or the other and felt diminishing returns with her career

because of how her husband treated her and also her opinions on how dirty a lot of the journalism was and so she's choosing quote-unquote the other thing which is not fair but probably reflective of the time but it just seems like she you know she dumped him because of his inflexibility to right to have both with her which is a great reason to get divorced true and again if what she in her heart of hearts wants is to be with bruce and to it seems like she would be she's describing her future life as though she will be a homemaker yeah and if you know again if if that's what she wants great but there's this component of this movie where you have all these men being like that's not what you actually want you're a newspaper man right just accept it and

so there's this idea of like oh a woman doesn't actually know what she wants and right men are telling her what she does want and they turn out to be right and it turns out that she was tricking herself and this is something that women are so yeah often accused of and assumed to not know what women want with their romantic or personal life, what women want with their career, with their own bodies. And so that was very frustrating that all of these men who kept telling her, like, you're never gonna succeed in that lifestyle of like a domestic homemaker you're in the newspaper business just accept it and the ending is left fairly ambiguous as to i mean and i would guess based on what we know about him that walter probably hasn't moved on that and that will be an unfortunate

argument uh taking place in front of niagara falls but yeah like i one of the first things i wrote down you know like watching this movie critically I, one of the first things I wrote down, you know, like watching this movie critically is like all of the internal logic of their relationship is based on no means yes. And her coming to, you know, for the divorce

is actually like a test. And her, you know, and like taking in, you know, human weirdness and blah, blah, blah. But like, yeah,

the, the logic of the relationship depends on when she says, I don't want to be a reporter. I don't want to be married to you. That she actually means try and change my mind and, you know, like, and keep trying.

And I mean, she mentions repeat it like, and it's like alluded to that he's heavily stalking her. He's calling her non-stop 20 times a day or something she is like actively shielding her present life because he doesn't know bruce exists you know and it's like she's built this whole life without him and so you know on its face it's just like he is again and if you buscemi test, it's like he is stalking her. He is not respecting her boundaries. He is assuming his conception of her is more accurate than what she is telling him to his face.

Like it's just the whole relationship depends on him hearing no and assuming yes. And then the fact that the logic of that ends up to be basically correct is very clearly demonstrated that this movie was men top to bottom because it's it's like a fantasy I feel like it's like a you know sort of a traditionally masculine fantasy that no means yes and that your wife who divorces you secretly wants to you know like test you and doesn't actually you know blah blah blah and wants to do exactly what you want her to do and the fact that this story ends which you know I know is accurate to the time most likely but that you know this still ends with she's his girl Friday she is his employee his girl yeah his girl but like that's like his go-to reporter she's his employee still and so it's just like, she is, I don't understand other than a reaffirmation that I'm sure he's lied about.

The thing is like, I don't know. I just feel for Hilde, even though she is quite evil. And like Bruce just catches so many strays. I feel for Bruce big time. I'm like, buddy,

buddy, he'll be fine. Or not not maybe where he's in jail forever uh he seems to get out and go off to albany it's movie jail but like i don't know it's just i i feel like he's duped her yet again i mean he has duped her yet again and i don't think that we have any reason to believe that walter wouldn't just say anything he needed to to get what he wanted, which is to get Hildy back. I don't believe that he's like, and yes, I am fully supportive of you being a mother and a journalist. Like, I just I just don't see it. if over the course of this movie he realizes he needed to be more flexible and less horrible as a person and more respectful of her wishes and boundaries and stuff like that but he doesn't

learn anything and instead we just you know see him manipulating and exploiting and deceiving people he makes sexist remarks he makesophobic, anti-immigrant remarks. He threatens a woman with violence on the phone. He makes ableist remarks. You know, it's just the list goes on for all of the horrible things. Do I expect more from a 1940 movie? No. However, I mean, it's it's so tricky, too, because it's like, I don't think that we're supposed to believe that these are morally upstanding people. But because they're played by the most charismatic movie stars of the day, you're still like kind of permissive. You're rooting for you're meant to root for them.

Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, that's a complicated, especially when it's a movie for adults. It's like, yeah, you can root for someone who kind of sucks because you're you know, your brain is fully developed. You can handle it but but it is you know it is telling that it's like you're told visually with with time with who's cast with all this stuff who is more worthy of being rooted for when it's just like bruce poor sweet bruce this this brings me to the idea of the hoxian women which i'm pretty sure we did not discuss in gentlemen prefer blondes although there was a hundred that was 84 years ago so we don't it's true a movie i remember quite liking i haven't seen it in a while uh and one that i definitely

feel like falls in under the category of howard hawks like, their job is woman. Because they're like, almost women in like a, I don't know, they're just, they talk to each other like, I mean, like friends, but also like weirdly, like they're doing a job. And the job is woman. You're right. Were they dancers? I don't remember that movie at all. I remember them being on like a cruise ship at one point, but yeah, I could not say anything else about it that's okay uh let me pull up sorry there was a great piece I read in Little White Lies R.I.P. I believe that sort of unpacks this trope and why it can be very frustrating for you know feminists who watch his movies and feel like oh oh oh because it's like for 1940 hildy does feel pretty remarkable in terms of what you get on the surface she is very active she is like negging the hell out of any man she comes into contact with um she very often gets

the upper hand she's an active reporter she tackles someone like stuff that you're not used to seeing or stuff that at least that i wouldn't expect in a movie from 1940 where right you know and into the 50s and on and on where it's like you sort of expect a degree of traditional wives and mothers passivity and hysteria quote unquote that you don't get with healthy and i feel like it's almost like you're you're like oh then she must be a feminist character however um yeah this is a great piece by Sarah Cleary called Who is the Hoxian Woman I would like to share a couple passages from it that also explains where this term came from because the term of the Hoxian Woman didn't exist until 1971 so from this piece film critic naomi wise who coined the term hoxian

woman in 1971 argued that in hox's cinema quote good girl and bad girl are fused into a single heroic heroine unquote this assertion is certainly true of bonnie a different movie whose worldliness and irreverence might have easily marked her as a fallen woman in another film of the 1930s. Upon her arrival in fog-shrouded Barranca, she isn't at all scandalized by the sexy dancing she happens upon in the down-and-dirty saloon. Instead, she sings along with the band and shoots the dancers a cheeky A-OK hand gesture. Despite the customary mid-Atlantic accent, she's a salt-of-the-earth girl from Brooklyn. Moving on in the piece a little bit. It's endings salt-of-the-earth girl from Brooklyn. Moving on in the piece a little bit, it's endings like this, talking about the ending of His Girl Friday, which usually put the kibosh on reading Hawks as heroines, as feminist figures, tempting

as those readings may be. Quote, it's been said like they're the new women's lib, unquote, Hawks told a German documentary crew in 1977, but they don't talk as much as the people today do. Despite this characterization, Hawks' leading ladies are usually rather verbose, articulate, and witty, none more so as Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. His Girl Friday is frustrating when viewed from a feminist perspective in that it comes tantalizingly close to being a feminist work. Russell caught a thoroughly modern silhouette, and one gets the sense that Hawke sincerely believes that she's a tough nut who belongs in a tough business. She ought to be there. He does not, however, trust her to make her own decisions. She continually asserts and reasserts that she wants to quit journalism to settle down with her new dull fiance, Bruce,

but Walter wants her back in his newsroom, not to mention his marital bed. Grant plays Walter so irresistibly and his chemistry with Russell is so sparky that one hardly notices quite how cruel his manipulation of Hildy really is. Moreover, we want to see Hildy scuffle and snoop her way to a big story. If we squint, it almost looks like emancipation. The piece goes on. I would recommend checking it out but what the hoxie woman kind of boils down to that really reminded me of many movies we've covered that feel like kind of a feminist bait and switch over the years is that hoxie and women are generally guys girls which

is hildy to a t you know she's to some, you know, she's a woman who is successful in a world of men. She can hang with the guys. She can walk into the room of like crooked journalists and say like, what's up boys, blah, blah, blah. And like, and she is accepted. She is respected in this world, which is what is remarkable about her in the opinion of the writer and the

director but there is no follow-through on like what is she like with other women we get very little in we get again more than zero which was surprising to me but like it's just very like proto guys girl stuff and at the end she is still at the you know operating at the whims of a man and a patriarchal system whether she realizes that or not so it's like the illusion of feminism it gets so like i totally get because when i got when i walked away from this movie i was like was that and then when you see the end you're like oh never mind uh right no but i totally agree that if you're watching this maybe only kind of half paying attention or if you don't know that much about feminism modern feminism you'd be like wow again a movie about a woman who prioritizes her

career that she's really good at over a relationship with a boring man. Woo, feminism. But because she ends up with a different man who is way worse of a person, and who manipulates her and everyone around him. And again, it's like this idea of like, well, you know, women actually can't have it all. So feminism looks like woman in career, not woman as a homemaker or like woman doing domestic things. And that is not what feminism is. Again, it's all about choice. And it's all about choosing what works best for you. But I understand why you'd have the notion of, oh, well, choosing career over domestic things. Well, that's feminist, because women were expected to take on this role of traditional domestic homemaker. And so choosing

career, which is the opposite of what what women were traditionally expected to do under the patriarchy well that must be feminist and that is not the case but that is sort of the logic right i think this movie is operating under totally like and it's like and i understand like particularly if you're a viewer of the time why or if you would if your reaction would be like this is way more than i'm used to like sure she gets to talk uh but but i mean you know also movies of this day it's weird like how world war two movies and movies of the 40s like women generally do tend to have more agency when like katherine hepburn is at her peak of fame and all of this stuff and then there is like a pretty severe pullback of that in the 50s as women's roles change. So this kind of is the most, you know, agency you might see a woman with in a big movie for some time.

In the early 40s, there's movies that are, you know, still all made by men. But you do have like more, you know, women that have there's a dual protagonist. I would still argue that Hildy is the protagonist of this movie. She gets more screen time than Cary Grant, I would argue. I think so, yeah. And she is driving the narrative more,

you know, he is doing his Gru shit. He's very Gru code. He's doing evil stuff. Interesting that Gru is nicer to his wife than Cary Grant is in this movie. Interesting. He does have a kevin yes um but yeah that like she you know is driving the narrative she has a job she's good at it she's respected for it she's desired professionally not just as a but all of that is undercut by the fact

that like that you know this movie does not suggest any radical ideas in terms of like a woman can have quote-unquote it all it just doesn't um but i still think for 1940 it's it's doing it's doing a lot i didn't think it was going to do agree but it's not a feminist movie sorry folks no it's not um in my research about this movie because again when howard hawks got his hands on this play slash screenplay and was like casting the movie he originally intended for it to be a pretty faithful adaptation to the original source material as far as like having both the interesting editor-in-chief and the reporter be both men but when he was doing auditions Howard Hawks had his assistant who was a woman read the reporter's lines in the auditions and he was like wait a

minute I like the sound of this i like that it's you know a woman with those interesting lines and so it was rewritten for the reporter to be a woman and then they made the changes that the backstory was that they were formerly married now divorced and which is also like oh you know there's no other way to get a woman into the story than his wife and him to some extent right so that's a little bit more of the context a little bit more is that in his comedies Howard Hawks would often let his actors improv some of their lines so this ability to improv allowed rosalind russell to basically she hired a ghost writer to punch up some of her dialogue because she felt that she didn't have nearly as many like good lines or little quips or whatever as carrie grant was

given because the screenwriters were like well women are boring the man should get all the good lines and i didn't know this this is so cool yes she talks about this in her autobiography entitled life is a banquet um so she was upset that she wasn't given as good of dialogue as the man so she hired a ghostwriter to punch up her lines and because they were allowed to improv a little bit she would not really improv because they had been pre-written for her but she would slip in these lines and the only person who knew this was carrie grant and so he would like go to her on set every day to be like what have you got today meaning like what did the ghostwriter

write for you for this scene oh and so and so he was like supportive of it and seemed like it he did he didn't seem to like narc on her at least that's so that's lovely mm-hmm I mean sucks that she was not written to have better lines in the original script but cool that she had the freedom to kind of and the instinct to have better lines written for her. That's fascinating. I wonder how common a practice that would have been. I mean, that makes a lot of sense because you have so few women working as screenwriters. It speaks completely to how much diversity behind the scenes makes a difference.

The fact that she had to out of pocket i'm assuming hire a ghost writer to write her better lines i mean money well spent ultimately shouldn't have been money she had to spend but like she i feel like you know carrie grant his character is evil and if you can accept that i think his performance is really really funny like there's like so many expressions or like deliver i mean they're just both so good the only person that is better than them at any moment is billy gilbert joe pettibone yes yes who just drowns them all and kills them yeah but i mean that's that's fascinating and rosalind russell is in another movie that we've been threatening to cover for years

that came out the year before The Women. She's one of the women. Wow. That's fascinating. Yeah. We have a couple other women in this movie, which, again, was Brave of the filmmakers. But now knowing that, that's fascinating because you can tell that the rest of the women in this movie are reading the dialogue as written. Not a criticism of them.

No one should have to hire another writer to write their lines better. But the other three characters you have are I think the most prominent is Molly Malloy. You have Bruce's his mom. And you have a character who appears very briefly named Evangeline, I believe. Who is one of Walter's minions. He sends her. Again, she's hanging out with Kevin. It seems like they're both minions on retainer for various illegal hijinks walter wants to pull louis is the kevin le mignon i think this other this woman the the not to reduce a woman to her hair color

but that's what everyone else in the movie does but the she's blonde woman yeah um hawks also has a whole thing about blondes i mean i mean gentlemen prefer them obviously it's been said she is the i guess she's the stewart or the bob of the group of the unclear yeah and she i mean i guess i mean she is deployed in a gendered way right because she is sent to seduce bruce seduce bruce seduce bruce yeah to get him arrested a second time basically like and i guess hildy knows that this is a part of walter's minion playbook uh who knows if she has also you know use it's unclear that's because we only see hildy returning to reporting and we don't see what she was like before it's unclear how on board she is with this stuff i'm assuming meh it's that's the

feeling i was getting blurry yeah i still wouldn't say she's an ethical reporter because the only reports we see her writing are fake but at least you know there is moral intent behind them than a lot of the men she works with but yeah we are given a name for this character uh carrie grant kind of mumbles it so i had to look it up but her name is evangeline okay but then she's sort of just referred to as that blonde lady that is paid to seduce people so they go to jail question mark so not much going on there i would say bruce's mom's character is treated in a pretty ageist and gendered way you You know, she's the hysterical mother. Yeah.

Even though she's right. Obviously she's like, which I mean, it is, is it pity women against women? Yes. But Hildy is being despicable to her son. Why would she side with Hildy in this situation?

She's just like, you are a little brat. And she's like me and then she gets kidnapped she's like well it's brat summer so what do you expect 1940 brat summer i would also argue that the way molly malloy yes jumps out of a window is leaning into like women be hysterical tropes and that matches any read i think of whether it is being characterized as an attempt on her own life or if it's being like as like a hysterical attempt at escape either way it leans into tropes around women and again i think that like molly malloy's character works with the satirical bend to this story where she, you know, her and Earl, her in a more gendered way, which I feel like is at least an attempt or maybe accidental commentary on how women are treated in reporting of like, oh, she's a woman who he knew so of course we're gonna make up that there was like this whole affair and they're in love and blah blah blah and then they lie to her and say well

that's what earl said when it's clear that that's not true like and so she is i can appreciate her character where she is just beside herself that there is no she cannot get anyone to take her seriously she is very much like a pawn in this narrative a narrative that she's on board with because she doesn't want Earl to be killed but you know like no one is listening to her and the closest she can get to anyone listening to her is when Hildy takes her aside and takes her out of the room and sort of extracts her from this really traumatic upsetting situation she's in but even Hildy doesn't really do much to no I think she like calms her down right but doesn't do anything to meaningfully alter that narrative and we know because of how you know like she what we know about Hildy, the one thing I'll say for her is that she doesn't reproduce the sexist, here's a woman Earl knew, they're in love, they have a love nest, blah, blah, blah. She does more accurately characterize Molly as someone who just really cares about him and would be very upset if he was killed by the government which is more true and that is

like the i think the most sort of noble thing that hildy does in the course of the movie but hildy is still despicable in that like her reporting is less bad than everyone else's it's more empathetic than everyone else's but she still leaves this guy to die in a desk, you know, after it makes sense to like, there's a part of like, at least if I like there, there's a hijinks portion where no one can know Earl's in the room because

he'll be arrested and then he'll be killed. Okay, fine. He has to stay in the desk for that portion, but they also leave him in the drawer while they're just having a conversation about how she's gonna win an award for writing this and while they're like hashing out their relationship like he is suffocating so I don't know but with Molly she's I don't know Molly's just underwritten and underthought yeah I feel for her character because and I think that like she is presented as a character who is worthy of

consideration but like the writing just isn't there and it falls into tropes around hysteria and then ultimately the plot does not care what happens to her after this and part of the reason that we don't know what her motivation narratively is for jumping out of the window is because we never hear about her again right yes because I jumping out of the window is because we never hear about her again right yes because i think that all they say is like oh we think she's going to make it oh she moved she wasn't killed and yeah we we don't know we don't know if she survives or not i do like the monologue she gives to that group of crime reporters where she's like oh you you wouldn't give me the time of day or listen to me until it's like serving you

and your story now you're listening to me that's some bullshit hypocrisy and that's really cool but then again two seconds later she jumps out of a window and we never see her again so it's all very melodramatic like the way it plays out even though i yeah i agree like that what she's saying makes a lot of sense and I feel like unfortunately it's still very applicable to true crime reporting that you see today which just is so largely base and scary with like the lack of consideration it gives to anybody dead or alive so it's definitely like relevant commentary but again it's like because it's like written and orchestrated by men it just seems like they can't help themselves uh they as far as

Earl himself goes I don't know I feel like there are some tropes around the working class in general at play because the two working class characters or I guess the three working class characters we get to know are Molly Malloy who is treated I think unkindly in a more gendered way and then with Earl and our boy Joe Pettibone they're just made out to be they are made out to be sympathetic we're not rooting against them but they're also not made out to be very smart correct and are just being actively manipulated by politicians and journalists and i guess what i can say is that both of those characters do seem aware that that's happening because joe pettibone comes back and is like wait no fuck you you know i will i will not be bought but he is presented as being like quite doofy. Exactly, exactly. I mean, and that's this actor's bread and butter.

And I do feel like the two working class men that we get to know are presented to be pretty malleable and like easily manipulated and unintelligent, which is just never a trope I like to see. It is, I think, an attempt at commentary, but it certainly like rubbed me very much the wrong way the way that it's the plot goes out of its way to say that earl like we are led to believe that earl you know did shoot someone by mistake but they go out of their way to say that

it was a cop who's a person of color i think we're led to believe a black cop. Yeah, the language they use, which is very outdated, but it's specific to black people. Right. And so they mention that and then the attempt at commentary that follows is that politicians will want to hang Earl whether he's guilty or not because they value the black vote,

which I don't know. I see what they're going for but it just is like not I don't I just not well done at all especially because there are no movie where no black people appear characters having any perspective on the matter whatsoever right every single actor and character we see is a white person so right so it's like what you know bringing race into the conversation at all when there's not going to be any attempt which i don't know this is hayes code era but it's still just like if if you are unable or unwilling to cast any people of color in your movie that doesn't need to be there I don't know it just felt like a throwaway attempt to commentary that didn't sit very well with me yeah very of the era yeah did you have anything else you wanted to talk about um I don't think so um yeah ultimately I feel like the the real tricky thing for me with this movie is making Hildy's career that she does seem to love, inextricable with this marriage that she's being coerced into reentering, just makes this, you know, at least from an analytical analytical point I still think it's a blast to

watch I'll watch it again it's a movie to watch with soup I think but yeah as a feminist work it just making those two things um inextricable from each other it just you know it's it's unfortunate because I think it is preventable I think there could be a modern retelling of this that using a lot of the same kind of foundational story beats yeah could be a feminist text but this was 1940 so it was never really gonna happen that way yeah but i do i mean it's like i also just like i'm a sucker for a movie about girl reporters girl spies blah blah blah like i i'd love it all i'm a sucker for a movie about girl reporters, girl spies, blah, blah, blah. Like I love it all. I'm a sucker for it.

And it's a bummer when I mean, I guess, you know, going into 19 movie made at this time, you don't really expect a feminist masterpiece. But it's this movie feels like it's teasing you with the fact that with some adjustment it could have been way closer yeah yeah and for all we know it might have been considered a feminist masterpiece in 1940 for the time it might have been because i mean yeah hard to say we're way too young we would we don't know brave we weren't we weren't alive in 1940 yeah so this movie as we've already hinted at does pass the Bechdel test kind of very fleetingly but in a way that does feel plot relevant because it's between Hildy and Molly and those those are consequential interactions but they're brief right and then when Hildy speaks to her mother-in-law, Mrs. Bruce or whatever, Mrs. Baldwin, I think it's always about Bruce.

So that's never going to work. I agree. As far as our nipple scale, where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens um i'll give it like a 1.5 maybe a two because of what it seemed to be attempting to do as far as like look a woman can have a career but it's presented as though she doesn't actually know what she wants. And it takes a bunch of men to convince her what she wants. Because a woman can't be trusted to know what she desires for herself and her life. And the fact that as I was watching this and seeing all of the horrible things that Walter, theary Grant character does and says repeatedly in every

single scene he's in I was like if she ends up with him I'm gonna be so pissed even though I knew that was bound to happen right and then she does and I was so pissed but by the end I'm not even convinced that she deserves better no that's not true she does deserve better but it's like she has so many garbage things I don't't know. I don't know. The way she treats Bruce, not me being Team Bruce, but like unforgivable. The crime of being boring should not land you in jail three times in a day. Yeah. And, you know, left by the person who was supposed to marry you tomorrow.

And all his money is gone. And his money is gone. The crime of being boring. Unreal. his money is gone and his money's gone the crime of being boring unreal the other thing i have to say about this movie is so howard hawks was he was very interested in like overlapping dialogue he thought it resembled the way people actually speak more realistically which is true yeah um but he was determined to break the record for fastest film dialogue, which was a thing, I guess. The Olympics of film dialogue.

He wanted to get the gold medal. And I am reminded of a quote from one of my favorite movies, which I just rewatched last night, Jurassic Park. And here's what i'll say the director was so preoccupied with whether or not he could he didn't stop to think if he should try to break the record for fast i gave me such a i had such a headache after watching this i didn't know what anyone was saying i couldn't parse out anything so headache inducing different strokes baby yeah i think it rocks oh bring it back i don't mind like quippy fast back and forth dialogue but there are some scenes where 10 people are talking all at once yeah and i just i was like to what end i can't i don't know what any of you

making jamie smile they're feeling frown wow another classic episode of the best look has so true anyway what i'll give it one and a half nipples i think it seemed feminist ish for the time for 1940 but obviously nearly a hundred years later doesn't really cut the mustard is that an expression i think it's an old old timey it sounds like an old timey expression well appropriate and I'll give one nipple to Rosalind Russell and I'll give my half nipple to Joe Pettibone uh king love him king Joe Pettibone uh I'm gonna get I'm gonna do a split down the middle I'm gonna give this two and a half nipples to Joe Pettibone. Oh, king. Love him. King Joe Pettibone. I'm going to do a split down the middle.

I'm going to give this two and a half nipples. I think that, you know, taking into consideration the time, the two and a half nipples are cleanly cut off by the fact that really the whole of this character's false, like Hildy's false liberation is, you know, her being kind of pulled back in by this manipulative ex-husband and predatory system however for the time I think you're seeing so much of you know like women's agency and capability that wasn't considered kind of verboten in a lot of earlier

movies there's no time in this movie which I feel like also in any sort of I mean this is a rom-com but it's also a crime movie which is interesting um but we don't see Hildy ever damseled in any way we see her actively moving the story forward she's really good at her job I mean even though a lot of this is surface level I think for the time the surface level is pretty subversive and I like that Rosalind Russell Russell I hate that she had to resort to having to pay someone under the table to give her good lines but I love that she her performance I mean almost against the wishes of the creatives she steals the show except when Joe Pettibone is in the room and then she loses those scenes but she for me like steals every scene she's in

such an amazing performance I love movies about women journalists so I'm kind of a sucker for this stuff plenty to be desired you couldn't call it a feminist movie but I do think that it's subversive and I want to give it some credit for I think really effective and unfortunately still relevant commentary around how politics and media are inextricably linked in a way that makes it impossible to get justice on fair terms. So I'm going to give it two and a half nipples. I'm going to give one to Rosalind Russell.

I'm going to give one to Slim Keith, who Howard Hawks was married to, I believe at the time, or he was dating at the time, who is just a really fascinating historical figure who later gets entrenched into the world of Truman Capote's Swans, which there was a terrible miniseries about earlier this year, but a really great book that I read. And she's just like a fascinating person who was said to be sort of an inspiration for a lot of Hoxian women as someone who is very self-possessed and assertive and cool. And I will give the other half nipple, of course, to King Joe Pettibone, Mr. Sneezy himself. We love him.

It is ultimately his movie. Yeah. No arguing that. and that is his girl fridays wow right i was gonna know it's because i was gonna say his his fems on friday was what i was gonna say about us i think it's about the restaurant franchise fridays TGI Fridays. His Girl Fridays. His TGI Fridays. Wow. Wow. And it makes me think. It does.

It does indeed. You can watch this movie. Also, if you haven't seen this movie, I would still recommend it. I mean, and you can watch it really wherever because it's in the public domain. I watched it on Tubi. Wow. Tubi or not Tubi? That is the question. I just love watching 80 commercials. So I watched it on to be wow to be or not to be that is the question i just love watching 80

commercials so i watched it on to be but you can watch it like ad free in a lot of places all right caitlin i guess that that that's that's a case cracked let's get married in niagara falls that's all folks this is not a looney tunes brother at all i don't know why i said that well if you'd like to hear more of our amazing repartee right up there with howard hawks is best you can follow our patreon aka matreon joined for five dollars a month which will get you access to two new episodes a month with caitlin and myself about frequently requested episodes often on a ridiculous theme we make up and it also gives you access to over 150 episodes in our back catalog how do you like that oh i love that yes thank you so much for

listening you can also follow us on Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can buy our little merch designed by Jamie Loftus. Ever heard of her? We're the little merch mates. Yes! I'm sorry. I'm riding on this negative COVID test. Let's get silly.

I'm going to go see Trap. Wow. Yeah. let's get silly i'm gonna go see trap wow um yeah merch at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast and uh we'll see you back here next week you see so long so long folks see you you see bye bye the bechtel cast is a production of iheart mediaMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus, and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast,

please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd.

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