Production for Use in “His Girl Friday”

Before she settles down to life of homemaking, security, and insurance policies with Bruce Baldwin in Albany, star reporter Hildy Johnson has one more story to write for her ex-husband and ex-boss Walter Burns, editor of the Morning Post. Hildy must write up an interview with convicted killer Earl Williams that will grant him a last-minute reprieve on the basis of insanity. The ingenious angle she finds to prove he’s insane: Earl listened to so many soapbox speeches in the park about the socialist concept of “production for use” that when a gun was placed into his hands, he had to shoot it. Howard Hawks’s 1940 film “His Girl Friday” knits together two plots from two very different genres. One is a romantic comedy that intends to reunite its main couple in something like wedded bliss. The other is a dark drama of murder and corruption, complete with a gallows lurking just outside the window and a suicide attempt that takes place on screen. Yet Earl Williams and Hildy Johnson’s fates in their respective plots are twinned. Both are, in a sense, looking for their own reprieves. And Hildy has her own production-for-use dilemma. What was she made for—the life of a newspaperman, or the life of a housewife? To what kinds of production should we devote our own lives? What are we made for—risk and adventure or security and insurance? Wes & Erin discuss. Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, MasterClass, where you can learn from the world’s best minds–anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. This holiday, give one annual membership and get one free by going to masterclass.com/subtext. Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: Before she settles down to a life of homemaking, security and insurance policies with Bruce Baldwin in Albany, star reporter Hildy Johnson has one more story to write for her ex husband and ex boss, Walter Burns, editor of the Morning Post. Hildy must write up an interview with convicted killer Earl Williams that will grant him a last minute reprieve on the basis of insanity. The ingenious angle she finds to prove he's insane. Earl listened to so many soapbox speeches in the park about the socialist concept of production for use that when a gun was placed into his hands, he had to shoot it. Howard Hawks's 1940 film His Girl Friday knits together two plots from two very different genres. One is a romantic comedy that intends to reunite its main couple in something like wedded bliss. The other is a dark drama of murder and corruption, complete with a gallows lurking just outside the window and a suicide attempt that takes place on screen. Yet Earl Williams and Hildy Johnson's fates in their respective plots are twinned. Both are, in a sense, looking for their own reprieves. And Hildy has her own production for use dilemma. What was she made for? The life of a newspaper man or the life of a housewife? To what kinds of production should we devote our own lives? What are we made for risk and adventure or security and insurance? These are the topics for today's discussion. This is Erin O'Luanaigh. And this is Wes Alwan, and you're listening to Subtext. So, Wes, I've been dying to talk about this film with you for a long time, partially because it's one of my top two favorite movies of all time, but also because I'm really curious to hear what you have to say about the sort of philosophy of the film and particularly this idea of production for use that the whole film to me seems to hinge on. Have you read a lot of Marxist ideas about production for use, or have you heard a lot of soapbox speeches in the park when you were wandering around at night during the Depression or 2:20 Wes: something like that before I tried to murder someone. 2:22 Erin: Right. 2:23 Wes: Well, I went to school where they make us read significant parts of Das Kapital. And then I kind of wrote my master's thesis in grad school on Marx and Nietzsche. So I'm supposed to know something about Marx. 2:39 Erin: You're kidding. But more on I knew Nietzsche, but I didn't know Marx was in the middle. 2:44 Wes: Yeah, my conception of ideology, so very focused, actually. And then we've also done for the Partially Examined Life, we've done some Marx. So I can't claim to be an expert on the economic side of things, actually. But I was glad in your introduction that you featured production for use. Because this is one of the things that I looked up and thought about and tried to make sense of in relation to the film, what it's doing thematically. 3:09 Erin: Well, please explain it to me, because my 50 or 60 or 70 times of watching this film, it's still kind of opaque. And I'm guessing that they're making very liberal use of the phrase production for use. That is not being used in a traditional Marxist or a strict Marxist sense. 3:25 Wes: It's pretty foundational to communism. The idea that is, instead of accumulating capital, instead of producing things for profit, they are produced directly in proportion to social need. If any listeners want to email us and correct me on any of this, go ahead. But so that, for instance, instead of having. Developing a surplus, going through economic cycles of boom and bust, right? There's too much supply or where there's too little supply. And maybe when there's too much supply, there's not demand for it, even though there are people who are in need because they simply can't afford it. Now, supposedly market forces, right, are supposed to adjust the pricing until it does become affordable. But anyway, the idea, I think it has something to do with the production of things in a capitalist society. It's not in proportion to what's actually necessary. It's more about producing profit and capital accumulation for capitalists. So the idea in the film is that Earl hears something about this and this was kind of an idea, I think, that was talked about by Eugene Debs, for instance. It's this kind of idea that you would hear about at the time in speeches. And so the idea is that Earl, and this is the idea that Hildy invents for him, that he's listened to a speech about production for use, someone on a soapbox in the park trying to convert people to socialism or communism and has had the idea that this means that if there's a gun, it's gotta be used, right? It's gotta be put to use. And so that's what he does when he realizes the analogy is, I can't keep bullets in the chamber and leave the gun unused. Maybe in the same way that it can't accumulate capital or store something up. Everything's gotta be expended relative to the moment, the concerns of the moment. So it's a really interesting parallel to draw because I Think, you know, as we talk. You already brought up in your introduction what it might mean socially. Right. For their relationship. 5:21 Erin: I'm just thinking, too, about the fact that Hildy, in the snippet of that interview, write up that the other reporters in the press room read aloud once she sort of vacated the typewriter for a while. Also draws the parallel to the Gallows. So the funny thing about Earl Williams reprieve is that it's subverting the Gallows own production for use, as defined by Hildy's interview. So she says something like, you know, the Gallows too, has its own production for use, and tomorrow morning, Earl Williams is set to be hanged. Which is a kind of a funny idea that seems like somehow related to almost a subversion of what you're talking about with the gun and its relationship to this idea of, like, bullets and capital. Like, the gun seems to be an item that's like, almost accidentally snuffs out in the expenditure of the bullets and sort of like keeping things moving through the market, if you will. Whereas the Gallows is like a total dead end and something that both Hildy and Earl Williams have their own respective gallows that they're trying to escape from. It's an odd comparison to draw, I think, because it seems to me to be like the end of production for use. You know, maybe the Gallows is like the most capitalistic structure in the film. 6:27 Wes: Interesting. Yeah. At that point, they're reading from her unfinished interview and this is worth quoting, and she's straight up lying. It's worth. 6:36 Erin: Yeah, for sure. 6:37 Wes: It's worth reminding yourselves of that. It's completely fabricated the story. But she's also tainted Earl to believe that it's his story. 6:45 Erin: But the very fact that he accepts this story also, though, kind of proves that he's insane, which proves the basis of her argument. So she is being honest in a deceitful way. 6:56 Wes: Right. And so into this little tortured mind came the idea that the gun had been produced for use, and use it he did. But the state has a production for use plan, too. It has a gallows. And at 7am Unless a miracle occurs that Gallows will be used to separate the soul of Earl Williams from his body, and out of Molly Malloy's life will go the one kindly soul she ever knew. This is kind of almost like a structural or systemic idea at this point, like, you know, reversing the causality. It's like we need Gallows because we have to have deterrence for capital crimes. Right. And we had A way to deal with criminals. But the idea is that if we make the gallows, inevitably they'll be used. Making them as part of creating the social environment in which they would have to be used. Or maybe we'll find people to use them on whether they're guilty or not. You know, that kind of idea, that the making of it somehow mandates the use of it, which is the idea that Earl had about his gun, which is. Which is not quite what production for use means for socialism. It's the perversion of that. So the underlying idea seems to have to do with. It's about whether we can keep things in reserve. So whether. If you have a gun, can you keep that power in reserve? Or does it need to be used as quickly as possible or something like that? Can you hold on to some kind of awful or violent power like that and have it truly wait until it's ready to be used? Or is it naturally going to be premature? Is its use naturally going to be premature or naturally going to be unjust? So there are perils to the accumulation of power, violent power, including the power of the state, which is founded on violent power. The ability to arrest people and imprison them and execute them. Power corrupts. Or will it naturally be to its unjust use? Or can it be accumulated and kept in reserve for the times when it is actually necessary? And so I think the same thing with capital, right? That the idea is that there's something, I think the capitalists would argue capital accumulation is a good thing. It helps create businesses and you hire employees and so on. But the counterargument is that it will necessarily create class divisions and unjust conditions. So the only way to prevent that. You can see how the parallel is kind of breaking down. But anyway, sure, but the way to prevent that is to prevent that accumulation of power or capital or whatever in the first place. To have the creation or the production and the use more tightly wedded to each other. So that there's just. Hey, when the occasion arises when I need something, it's supplied for me. And it's not building up in quantities that will allow exploitation to occur by the people who control those quantities or the people who have the power. 9:52 Erin: It's really interesting. The way that this relates to Hildy is purely on the basis of a kind of word association then, but not necessarily anything having to do with the logic behind this. But maybe the softest version of this concept is sort of like nothing should go to waste regardless of this sort of like power being stored up or Whatever. So insofar as it applies to Hildy, it's like having to do with the fact that her journalistic power is too great and not that it's going to be stored up in some. I mean, maybe it will be. And then she'll sort of like explode in newsprint all over Bruce after a few years in Albany. But just the idea that this is something that should be actively used, it shouldn't go to waste. This muscle shouldn't atrophy. It's something too precious or important, but not in a scary sort of punitive way, though it could be put to that use as well, I suppose. 10:41 Wes: Yeah, I think that's right. And that's one of a number of layers to this. I think there's a positive case being made here for some sort of social version of production for use. And the way I see that is that what goes on for us socially. I'm thinking of production for use as a way of describing their banter. There's a kind of openness there, right. So they don't stir up their feelings and hide them and engage in romantic niceties and. Or even any sort of normal social politeness. Right. Their banter. And this is like Much Ado about Nothing. Their banter puts them in place of having certain emotions and then immediately discharging those in a certain way. Which is not to say that they're honest with each other, because there's all sorts of, on another level, deception going on. But they kind of know from the beginning of the film where things stand, right? He's made it clear that he wants her back and maybe that's her is tongue in cheek. He wants her to marry him again. Or does he want her back for the paper or does he want her back for themself? There are all sorts of questions, but their ongoing irritation with each other, right, all of that, in a way they wear on their sleeves. So that, to me, is production for use, as opposed to the other model is to keep secrets, to repress, to not be as forthcoming about one's feelings, which is pretty typical socially. Right. We engage in a lot of social deception and at the political level, that's happening with the governor and the mayor. And all the political machinations involve a similar thing at a political level, which is hiding information, keeping things hidden. And the press is supposed to undo that. They're trying to expose people. That's another production for use example. Instead of letting information capital accrue in secret to the benefit of the people who are in power, you expose it, you get the information out, you get it flowing, you get it into the social bloodstream, so to speak. 12:32 Erin: I love that idea. That's genius. 12:34 Wes: Thanks. That's why I do this podcast. Get your compliments. 12:40 Erin: That's fantastic. Well, no, but you're. I mean, sorry, you probably. 12:45 Wes: No, no, no, go ahead. 12:46 Erin: You know, in regards to the romantic element of this, you're exposing a kind of difference for me between the nature of this relationship and the one that we covered in the Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, where there's a lot of secrecy and, you know, and part of this exorcism of that remarriage plot is to have a kind of a new sense of openness and honesty with each other. And I think that this is related to a kind of class difference probably. Right. Like Grant and Dunne in that film are high society. And there's more feigning, there's more sort of like natural deception in polite ways of interacting with one another that Walter and Hildy can completely do without because they're straight talking newspaper men, you know, and they don't have to hide behind these niceties. And so everything is just sort of free flowing. I mean, Walter never really tricks Hildy. It's just a matter of what he's going to do to get her back. But she knows not to trust him at every turn. Even those deceptions are just another form of open communication, at least as far as their relationship works. He's deceiving other people, but it's all kind of for her benefit, right? 13:50 Wes: Nominally, she's tricked because there's counterfeit money or this or that, and she's getting calls from Bruce in jail, but she already knows from the beginning that that is what's going to be happening. And he's going to be trying to do that stuff and she's going to. She's trying to outplay him, but she knows he's going to be making those plays. But meanwhile, she's keeping Bruce in the dark about that's what's going on, right? 14:10 Erin: Oh, that's not hard to do, right? 14:13 Wes: Oh, shucks, I didn't know. 14:15 Erin: I could see. He's wrong for you, Hildy. 14:20 Wes: Yeah. So with him, interestingly enough, there's more capital involved in that relationship, so there's more idealization. For instance, and he's very idealizing of her and it's very cute, you know, him running around with this umbrella because it might rain or is it raining? I don't know. I think. 14:37 Erin: Yeah, that is the Worst, Walter makes 14:40 Wes: fun of him early on for that. You can see every time she answers the phone and it's him, she responds very sweetly and with genuine affection. And it's something that can arise in the context of this very sweet, not cynical man who's idealizing her and she's appreciating, enjoying it and says that directly this is what it means to be treated as a woman. And there's too much openness, for better and for worse. But I think the argument of the film is probably ultimately for better. But there's too much openness with her and Walter for that. It could still be romance, potentially. Right. And then you have to figure out what kind. But that type of relationship is too much openness for that. There's too much capital in that and there's too much production for use in their relationships. Which comes across as cynicism. Right. Like the cynicism of this hard boiled press reporters. And I don't know if this is like the first movie to do that, to create this trope or not. 15:40 Erin: Well, this is a remake, right? 15:42 Wes: I mean, the front page. Yeah. Does the front page create that trope or does it predate that? 15:46 Erin: But yeah, yeah, I think it pretty much solidified it in the public imagination at any rate. 15:50 Wes: Yeah, yeah. So the play itself and then the earlier movie based on it. But yeah. So I'm trying to say is that that cynicism of the press, which is of a kind, in a way, with the cynicism of the powerful people they're trying to expose. And it's almost like it's unnecessary. It's unfortunate that they have to be as hard boiled and cynical as they are, but that's just what comes with their job of exposing these people. Their illusions are destroyed. They can't idealize power and government, the system. They have to be disillusioned in a way. But on the other hand, they're serving these ideals, which are ultimately progressive. Right. Where is society going to go? The only way to improve is to have this critical process going on. Thinking of this at two different levels. The personal relationship between Hildy and Walter, and then there's the economic, and then there's what goes on socially with the press and people in power and all that stuff. 16:40 Erin: I wonder what the relationship is, though, between appreciation and idealization. Because certainly Bruce idealizes Hildy, but he does not appreciate her. Walter does. He's capable of appreciating her more deeply. 16:54 Wes: He genuinely knows her. 16:55 Erin: Yeah, right. You're reminding me of something that Cavell Says, for the benefit of our listeners, we should say that I love this book, Pursuits of Happiness, which I think I've heavily referenced, at least in the Awful Truth episode, if not more, because I just adore that book so much. 17:08 Wes: Yeah, you did. Yeah. And that's why I have it and looked at it again for this episode. But. 17:13 Erin: Yeah, but Cavell writes about these comedies of remarriage in this book, Pursuits of Happiness. He's the one who comes up with this term comedy of remarriage. And so in his essay on his Girl Friday, which I know really well, though I haven't read it as recently as you have, this is something that he gets really right about Hildy, which you're noting in her appreciation of Bruce's sweetness and idealization of her. She is better equipped to appreciate Bruce, of course, than Walter is. Walter sees nothing to appreciate, but what he gets right. What Cavell gets right about Hildy, I think, is the fact that she genuinely wants what Bruce is offering her. She is genuinely conflicted about what to do here. This is not, you know, in the awful truth order of, like, using Bruce as some kind of pawn to torture Walter and get Walter to love her and appreciate her more, because Walter literally cannot love and appreciate her more as much as he is capable of is what he gives Hildy. So she's not using him to make Walter jealous or anything like that. This is a life that she genuinely desires. And that conflict within her is what makes her such an interesting character. And to see that sweetness and that desire for idealization, I think really bears out Cavell's point. 18:19 Wes: And she uses this phrase, I'm gonna be a woman, not a newspaper machine. I'm gonna go have babies and take care of them. She says this in a climactic moment to the other reporters. I'm gonna live like a human being. The word home is associated with this as well. She wants a home. She wants children. And even at a certain point at lunch where Bruce is having second thoughts for her, he's like, well, actually, are you sure you want to quit? And then he comes back, he gives his own retort, which is, well, no, this is your chance to have home and be a human being. So obviously, they've both been talking about this a little bit to get it right. She's used this phrase, being a human being around Bruce as well. And they formed the kind of united front about the explanation for the choice that she's making. Right, which is a career versus domesticity type of choice. But it's also, as you're pointing out, it's a legitimate dilemma that we all face. Adventure versus domesticity, family versus career. And in this case, someone who can a greater amount of, at least for now, this sort of romance and idealization, but less fast and loose communication. Maybe there's some ideal level of communication which is not as hard boiled as between Walter and Hildy. But you get the sense that Bruce will never be able to understand her in the way that Walter does. And for that reason he's always going to be less cynical than Walter about his relationship to her. He's always going to be more idealizing. This is a real choice and it's not even clear what the right choice is. These are both facets of her character and what she wants. 20:01 Erin: Both require giving something up, either choice. But I think that Bruce's idealization of her is of an odd sort because he doesn't really even understand what makes her so wonderful. Like what is it that he actually loves about her? Like Bruce, in a way is the most mysterious character. Why does he get hooked up with this woman? Well, I think he's excited by her, right? Like he says, he never knows what she's going to say. Part of that is because of his sort of incredible naivete and his inability to understand her. So she provides, I think maybe some excitement for him, some way for him to jazz up this life of his. And the film is rather cruel to him. You know, I love that scene where he's in a clinch with his mother as the door closes. You know, that's pretty great. The mama's boy destined to lose the girl. But otherwise, like, what does he love about her? The fact that she's a doll faced hick underneath the newspaper business transformation that Walter has affected. I don't know. 20:57 Wes: Well, let's reconstruct this movie. They met in Bermuda, right? 21:00 Erin: Yes. During her post divorce trip. 21:03 Wes: Right. So she didn't get a chance to have a honeymoon, a real honeymoon trip. So she gets a divorce and then treats herself to whatever the divorce equivalent of a honeymoon, post divorce equivalent of a honeymoon. And that's where she meets this guy. So on her solo honeymoon. 21:20 Erin: So let's pause here for a moment and talk about our sponsor for this episode, Masterclass. 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Is that the right phrase? 23:16 Erin: Fourth wall. 23:16 Wes: Fourth wall. 23:17 Erin: I don't know how many walls there are. 23:18 Wes: I don't know why I'm going to fifth. But other than her being an attractive woman, there's got to be something about him that's interested in someone who's different than usual. And she's from Chicago, I guess. And he's from where? 23:31 Erin: Albany. 23:31 Wes: Albany. 23:32 Erin: Home with mother in Albany too. 23:35 Wes: Yeah. So the only other thing I would say about this is he's constantly just getting duped and taken advantage of through the whole film. Right. Repeatedly being arrested, being robbed. It's almost like he's the victim of a scam or a sting or something in which both Hildy and Walter are actually cooperating. And they're not after his money or anything like that. They're just after the mechanism of their reunion. So if I'm going too far with that. 24:03 Erin: But no, I think you're right. And I think Cavell will even say that what she needs from him is clear right from the very beginning of the film that she's sort of participating in the winning back of herself to Walter, which is a really interesting idea, which isn't a set way to read the film, but that they're both cooperating in her means of return to the paper. 24:24 Wes: Yeah. So what she finds in Bermuda is not the next guy, but the way back. 24:29 Erin: Right. 24:29 Wes: That's where the whole scam begins. The shared scam that they're cooperating. And then she shows up to the office to say, you gotta stop calling me so much. Which is bullshit. 24:38 Erin: Right. 24:39 Wes: To the office, right before she's about to get married, you know, the day before she's leaving to get married. To do that. She's just letting him get started on his side of the scam, and then they can make things unfold together. 24:51 Erin: In talking about what it is that Bruce doesn't necessarily love her for or understand about her, we might get at what are her gifts. This is what's really interesting about the film. There's this dichotomy between being a woman or being a housewife and being a newspaper man. 25:08 Wes: Yeah, I'm a newspaper man. 25:11 Erin: Right. So Hildy is a brilliant reporter. Like, she's a brilliant writer. And I think that what makes her so brilliant is actually her femininity. She wears it rather loosely. But being a woman in a man's world gives her a kind of an ESP that other people don't have. In addition to the fact that she's obviously extremely smart. And this production for use thing is really genius. So she's smarter than everybody else. But she's also, I think, more perceptive and more compassionate than everyone else, which I think makes her special. It makes people open up to her. It makes her get scoops because she has a relationship with the subjects of her interviews or articles, whatever, that is going to be fundamentally different than the man's harsher relationship with those subjects. She has compassion for Molly. She has a certain amount of compassion for Earl, which the other reporters are emotionally divorced from the subjects of their writing. And so they can't see them on a deeper level. They can't get the deepest angle on these people. So, like you say, it's not obvious what the right choice is. I would say, of course it's obvious that you always have to go with Cary Grant, no matter what, even if he's playing the bad guy. And also I do think that his appreciation of her therefore is rooted in her being a woman in a way. I mean, obviously they have kind of a sexy relationship. He loves her as a woman and not just as an employee. But I think that the extent to which she is his best employee is as much related actually to her womanliness, if you will, as it is to her good solid workmanship, her newspaperman quality. I don't know. I mean, would you agree with that? 26:48 Wes: I do. And I think I was thinking while you were talking about that when you watch the film, especially as someone like with my level of knowledge about the era, which is low, and films of that time, and you're thinking, wow, this is like the gender dimensions or however you want to put it. Nothing is made of that in the film, right? She's just this go getting reporter and one woman among a bunch of men and holds her own. But the film never hits you over the head with that. It never makes a thing of that. Exactly. Oh, this is the long suffering female reporter in a room full of sexists. And of course, to whatever extent they're sexist, there's evidence for that, right. The way they treat Molly, which is horrific, terrible, and they make nothing of her being a woman either. So it's really interesting the way that's done and it makes you think what's going on here as far as the role of a woman in a workplace, especially like that, which wouldn't have been as common and obviously isn't since she's the only female reporter. Right. But yeah, I think going back to what you were saying about part of her skill comes from being a woman. In the beginning, Walter is worried about this guy getting executed because of what it means for his paper. This is a very typical thing in, in the film, like ethical concerns just get translated into concerns about the self interest of the profession or the paper. So the paper, in a way, right, they're supposed to hold powerful people to and to be doing something on behalf of justice. But that often gets confused with just getting the story and getting notoriety, entertaining people or inducing interest in people. There's a point even where, you know, Walter is talking about comparing the story of Earl's escape, its level of importance to the war in Europe or to local human interest stories and trying to say where it belongs. So we're meant to question the degree of importance or the way in which everything that appears in a newspaper starts to take on the same level of urgency. It's a high level of urgency. But it's cheapened in a way, because it's all about stimulating the reader in certain ways. And we could say the same thing about social media. So her idea is to actually get to know Earl, is to do that interview to create an opposition between whatever she discovers in that interview or whatever she plants in that interview and between what the psychiatrist is going to say so they can say. How does she put it? Because she uses the word goofy. 29:14 Erin: Do you remember that alienist says he's sane interview shows he's goofy? 29:18 Wes: Yes. 29:19 Erin: I think is the line from memory. 29:21 Wes: You put these stories side by side, what the alienist says and then what the interview shows, and you get that contrast, and it maybe becomes a chance at saving his life as well, but only for the purpose of saving the paper or maybe for exposing the corruption of the powers that be or something like that. But I'm just trying to expand on your idea of the benefit of being a woman here. But you could say this sort of idea and the idea for the interview and how she's going to elicit his goofiness, whether one thinks that's ethical or not. You could relate that to her greater focus on empathy being in the other person's head. Right. By comparison, all her male coworkers or colleagues, not even coworkers exactly, are focused on the surface, let's say. Maybe that's the way to get it. It's about surface focus versus something deeper. But maybe you can elaborate on that. 30:15 Erin: I don't know. 30:15 Wes: Am I getting at what you're talking about? 30:17 Erin: Yeah, yeah, I think that's nice. I think that relates to this idea of Walter and Hildy both being the most, to use film technique terms like deep focus. People in the film because they can see several layers deeper than other people can, which makes them so well suited to each other. Like the one who looks at the world and sees it the most surface level is Bruce. And then there's kind of like an angle that the other newspaper men in the press room from other papers are employing for the particular ends of their own papers, allegiances, you know, political and otherwise. But they're not quite so interested in getting at the heart of something, the reality of something. It seems to me that Hildy is. And sort of, to a certain extent, Walter. I mean, I think that he's in this Earl Williams thing because of the benefit to the paper and the idea of wanting to oust this current political regime that's in place. But I think it's because he believes that this political system Currently in play, rather, the party and the people currently in power are actually corrupt. And so I think there's something a little bit deeper to his motivations. 31:18 Wes: Yeah. 31:19 Erin: To just give him a little bit of credit. Because I think otherwise. I mean, he doesn't care when someone jumps out a window in front of him, you know? But I do think that he cares about the truth. And I think underneath it all, maybe he does think he's doing some kind of public service. This reference to the unseen power that watches over the Morning Post. To a certain extent, he believes God is on his side. 31:39 Wes: We should talk about that concern for the truth. You know, the number of different moments in the film. We see the other reporters just outright lying, even with stuff that's just happening right in front of their eyes. Right. So as Earl is caught, it's already an amazing story that's unfolding in front of their faces, right? 31:55 Erin: Yeah. 31:55 Wes: Earl's coming out of the desk and it's right there. And they're reporting it in real time and they're making shit up. 32:02 Erin: Right, Right. 32:02 Wes: Fabricating stories. And there are many instances of that in the film. So you get the sense that even with the press, right. Which their job is to production for use, in a sense, and getting things out there, exposing things, not letting things accrue in secret. But unfortunately, it becomes hard to distinguish that the truth from whatever it is that maybe titillates or something like that. Right. So to reveal is to titillate. And therefore, it seems like everything titillating must be revealing when it's not. And we can accuse Hildy of this as well, although it's just more sophisticated. Right. Because she even does that thing with Molly. Right. So they've all fabricated the story, and maybe it's true, you know, but Molly denies it, that she's somehow involved with him. It makes a juicier, more interesting story. And she does that as well, saying, you know, Molly will lose the nicest person she's ever known. Or something like nicest soul she's ever known. And then, of course, planning. This whole idea about production for use in Earl's head is also deceptive in a way, and dishonest. But I think you're right. Both her and Walter have a more interesting relationship to the truth. There's still an interest in the truth in some sense with them, whereas with her colleagues, they would never have the imagination to do what she did with Earl, planning that idea. So maybe it's literary truth. Right. She's coming up with a theme and a narrative that makes sense. That's more interesting than just, oh, Walter the socialist and Molly his girl. They found something more interesting in it, whether it's there or not. 33:35 Erin: Well, I think this is related to Hawkes's kind of values as a director. He's a really interesting director in that he's probably directed more great movies in the widest variety of genres than any other major Hollywood director. And what kind of unites all of them is he has a very workmanlike attitude towards his films. And all of his films are about work. And the highest value you can aspire to in a Hawks film is like doing your job well. It's like professionalism, you know? And so Hildy just does her job better than the other newspaper reporters do, you know? And I think part of doing your job well under these circumstances is actually uncovering the truth. Finding it and uncovering it, rather than just putting your own papers, gloss onto true events. So to the extent that she uses deception, it seems to me to get at the truth in a deeper way. Like you say, a more poetic truth, but a truth of a certain order which is more true than the scene you describe when Earl comes out at the desk and all the different newspaper reporters are writing, dictating vastly different stories into the phones. So I think this is related to Hawkes's own concern about what it means to be good. To be like a good person means to be good at your job. I don't know about the moral implications of that, but within the universe of his films, that is a source of morality. 34:52 Wes: Interesting. I didn't know that. 34:54 Erin: He's really interested in gender roles and therefore in gender role reversal, which is why he loves tomboys and he loves women who can keep up with men. And so that kind of plays into Hildy as a figure as well. I was really interested in this time around watching. I was interested in Sweeney, the guy that they're constantly using as the excuse. And what an interesting absent figure Sweeney is. He's this writer who could maybe do what Hildy does. And Hildy calls him the best man you've got on the paper for that sob sister stuff. He's this sort of like, absent, feminized figure. So this, like, feminine, coded writing that Sweeney is good at is just like a pale imitation of the writing that Hildy can do, you know? And then, like, what's the excuse for why Sweeney can't perform this writing? It's because, like, he's going to have a baby, right? And then later the baby Becomes twins. And of course, you know, it's all made up. Walter has just sent him away on a vacation, which is kind of funny. Like, Hildy wants the vacation, Hildy wants the babies. What does he do? He sends Sweeney on the vacation, gives Sweeney the babies and says, you know, he's not around to write the female coded articles that Hildy has to write. 36:01 Wes: Yeah, it's really interesting what you're saying to this idea about morality for hawks having something to do with being good at one's job. 36:08 Erin: Yes. But I think that there's something about, maybe even Cavell says this, like something about Hildy being lucky. I recall the idea that when she's around, that's when this magic moment happens of Earl Williams puncturing the actual space of the press room. The story comes to her. I don't know what that means. I haven't really thought about that. But I'm just thinking that there's something like supernatural maybe about Hildy's abilities. 36:32 Wes: Yeah, he does refer to that really interesting shot, which I think he relates to German realism, where she's walking into the prison to see, and he's in that cage. So you get this very high angled shot looking down as she's entering. And this is what Cavell says about it. The high angle entrance shot is first of all a reflection of the woman's expansion of consciousness. She can see the whole of the situation as we can see the whole of Earl's cage, including its top horizontal bars, emphasizing a prisoner's absolute loss of privacy, of subjection to visibility, as if to being filmed. I don't know if that's what related to. I don't remember the lucky part, but I read the article and I'm not going to remember a lot about what 37:13 Erin: Cavell had in front of me. 37:14 Wes: I would like if I couldn't say. I couldn't even summarize what Cavell said in it. But there is something about the idea of an expansion of consciousness that goes back to. And it's not unrelated to being good at her job. And it goes back to the sort of whatever higher truth is being gotten at, despite this deception, because the truth is actually really mundane. The truth is probably that he was given a gun and accidentally discharged. So then there are two stories that can be fabricated. One is that he's a socialist and he did that as a political act. And meanwhile, it's an African American cop. And the African American vote is very important. So this guy must be hanged or he's a loony and the thing that, of course, is closer to the truth and may even be true is that he is a loony. He is goofy. Is any accident an accident, in other words? Right. One of the problems with the news is that if something really is just random, it doesn't make a story in a way, and you have to weave it into a narrative, and then you falsify that as soon as you do so. Then in this case, it becomes a choice of narrative. And then there's the question of saving this guy's life, which is also in observance of a higher ethical truth. So just repeating what he says, Right? Oh, it was an accident. It was an accidental discharge. Putting that in the newspaper again is not going to do anything for this guy. So we can speak to her motives as well. So what she writes, she's deceiving Earl, she's tricking Earl. And as Cavell points out, it kind of runs in parallel to Walter being a trickster who is tricking her, although she's not really being tricked. Right. So she's able to take something that cannot be given sense, cannot be really given a narrative without being falsified, and she's giving it the closest approximation of something untrue. But it's the truest thing that you can get and still be a narrative. Right. The idea that he's insane because there's an element of sensationalism to that. People can be interested in that. They can't be interested in an accidental discharge, but they can be interested in someone who's lost their mind and it could save his life. 39:22 Erin: So you're reminding me of the sort of unholy bargain that gets Hildy into this in the first place, which is to receive a kind of, I guess you could call it like a form of alimony from Walter to get paid in the form of buying a life insurance policy in order for her to do the story. I mean, there's a lot that could be said about that. But just at the lunch table, he is able to appeal to at least Bruce's sense of the stakes of this story as being a man's life by saying, you know, that Earl Williams face is going to come up in his mind when they're at the preachers will 39:51 Wes: be on your hands. 39:52 Erin: Yeah, right. Well, he says something really interesting like, his face is going to come between you, which is exactly what happens. But this is another thing about Walter. 40:00 Wes: Yeah. He says, sorry, Earl Williams face will come between you tonight and the rest of your life. 40:05 Erin: Yeah, yeah. He knows what the right thing is, even if he's using it for his own nefarious ends, like, you know, he knows that it's a bad thing that this guy be killed, that it's an unjust thing, and he uses it to manipulate Bruce and through Bruce, to kind of manipulate Hildy. Right. Which she knows she's being manipulated, but he knows what the right thing is. And I think in a way that makes him also more like Hildy than the newspaper men in the press room who, like, really don't care whether or not Earl Williams dies. So there's something, I think, a little bit more human or humane in Walter. But to switch gears, talking about the cage scene, I want to talk about two items this time around that really kind of fascinated me. And maybe we can get some sort of symbolic resonance out of them. And thinking about the cage, it reminded me that I was really reflecting on Hildy's pinstripe suit in the first part of the film, which is, like, totally insane. 40:59 Wes: Yeah. 41:00 Erin: And how that relates her maybe to Earl a little bit, because I think she and Earl as parallels to each other are really interesting. And the more I thought about it, the more parallels revealing. But the suit is absolutely crazy. And it reminds me of Irene Dunne in the Awful Truth or a lot of these screwball comedies where these women wear incredibly wild outfits, which are supposed to signify that they're capable of breaking out at any moment into sort of devious or dangerous behavior. Behavior anyway, not befitting a prospective housewife. Right. There's something professional about it because it is a suit. And there's something like newspaper manny about it. Like, there's something of newsprint in the outfit with these sort of stripes. And there's, like, freedom, too. I was thinking this is like a professional career for a woman which, particularly in 1940, on several different fronts, economically, societally, et cetera. This woman's business suit represents freedom on a basic level. So there's a sort of, like, freedom of consciousness that it implies that we might free to behave in wild ways. There's also freedom of a kind of social mobility sort for a woman in 1940. But of course, she's also, like, wearing bars. You know, she's caged like Earl Williams, and she has to kind of find her way, I think, out of this mental cage. I started to see the suit as being the symbol of both, like, freedom and imprisonment and a sort of visual depiction of her own ambivalence about what her life should be, what choice she should make. She's sort of stymied by this decision. And I think this ambivalence actually plays out, like, in certain scenes. I. It's just amazing how I've seen this film so many times and yet I notice something new every time. It's so rape. Rewatching and this latest viewing, I noticed, you know, the scene where she comes into the press room for the first time and she's telling them, like, she's gonna go into business for herself is how she calls it. Gonna make her farewell appearance by writing this paper. But she's getting married tomorrow and they're kind of like making fun of her. Like, can you imagine her washing diapers and beating rugs and whatever else they're saying? So they're talking about her being a wife and mother, and then suddenly a bell goes off that signals like a fire. And I never noticed before that the fire is in a school. So she's talking about being a mother. And then there's this, like, school full of children that's potentially up in flames. And its only interest to her is as a potential spot for, like, a good scoop. You know, she's like Pavlov's dog with this fire bell. It just triggers this ingrained newspaperman's response of excitement towards what anyone with maternal or paternal feeling would find horrifying. And then this is immediately followed by the sound of the gallows outside the window. Because they're like, whatever. They're practicing for the hanging. And Hildy asks, what's that? And she's like, interested. She starts walking towards the window to see. And even as she's like verbally asking, what is that? Even as she, like, walks over to the window, one of the men says, you know, it's going to be a pretty good hanging tomorrow. And she says, not interested. But of course, like, she is interested. Like, her body is moving towards the window and she's wondering what's going on with interest even as she's claiming out loud to not be interested. I felt like the suit is a sort of like expression of that where there's this stop start quality. Like it's giving her this mobility. But, like, the bars are kind of holding her back. 44:12 Wes: Yeah, I like that. It's a busy kind of frenetic. You know, if you look at it, it almost looks like a. I don't even know what you call it, you know, with the black and the white stripes. It's like you're hypnotized by it or something. 44:23 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 44:24 Wes: But, yeah. Why do they say zebras? Have stripes? Do the flies get confused when they're trying to land or something? But, yeah, I like that. I think you're getting at the kind of conflict between the bars that hold one back versus the activity. The freneticness that's kind of trying to come out. Because it's both at the same time. It's funny because on one of the posters, at least, it's got her in a yellow. Or is it even her? It doesn't even look like her. 44:48 Erin: But I know it's totally, like, has no relation to her. Yeah. 44:52 Wes: Evening gown. Which, as far as I remember, she never wears in the film. 44:56 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 44:57 Wes: And Cary Grant is kind of looking down at her almost like God from the skies or something in a condescending way. And then it says she learned about men from him. Exclamation point. Yeah. Right. 45:11 Erin: Clearly they're trying to advertise a different movie than. 45:13 Wes: It's ridiculous. Yeah. It has nothing to do with them. 45:17 Erin: This is their newspapery lie that's trying to sell the truth to people in a different package. 45:21 Wes: It's like they're taking the title literally. A Girl Friday would be the girl that you have on Fridays. Meanwhile, you're not committed. Is that right? 45:29 Erin: I think it's Man Friday. So I think it's supposed to be that she's his lackey. 45:34 Wes: Yeah. 45:34 Erin: But also helps him out of jams. I don't know. So. But I think that's an interesting read, taking that literally. 45:40 Wes: Okay, so what is it in the slang of the time? What does it mean? Like, it's a Man Friday. That's the original. 45:45 Erin: I think it's from Robinson Crusoe. His assistant or his friend on the island is Friday. Right. So if you're somebody's Man Friday or Girl Friday, you're their assistant. You help them get out of scrapes like a loyal servant. 45:56 Wes: Okay. 45:57 Erin: Which, of course, is very true in this running after him with his suitcase. 46:01 Wes: So is that made up about having a Girl Friday who's just on the side or something? 46:07 Erin: I don't know. 46:07 Wes: But okay. 46:09 Erin: That's a really interesting idea, though. Idea of taking that literally is. Yeah. 46:13 Wes: So of course she's not in either way. She's not in that servile position, actually. So the title is entirely ironic, but the poster has not caught on to that. 46:26 Erin: It's hilarious. 46:27 Wes: What would she be doing in an evening gown? 46:30 Erin: Nothing. In this film. 46:31 Wes: Yeah. 46:31 Erin: It's like a workday girl, not a weekend girl. 46:34 Wes: Yeah, exactly. 46:35 Erin: The other thing I was thinking about in relation to this pinstripe outfit and her ambivalence or something. Is the desk as another symbol? I mean, obviously the telephone is the most obvious symbol in the film, but there's a lot, I think, that's been written about that. And maybe the desk, too, I don't know. But this desk is really interesting because it's like a play on the production for use argument. Like, what is a desk for? Well, here it's used for getting a scoop. It's used towards newspapery ends, even when Earl Williams is hiding in it. I mentioned before about this idea I had of him puncturing the newsroom. Like when the news comes to you. When the news happens in the press room. 47:13 Wes: Yeah. 47:13 Erin: And this is like double symbolized. When he actually crawls into the roll top desk. I love that Cary Grant calls him a mock turtle. 47:21 Wes: Um, can you do the accent? 47:25 Erin: No, I don't want to. 47:27 Wes: Get back in there. You mock turtle. Turtle. 47:30 Erin: I can. I can do it, but I don't want to. So it's like a funny moment, of course, but also I was thinking about the fact that this is like his coffin, you know, and if Earl is a kind of a proxy for Hildy and vice versa, what are we trying to spring Hildy from? Death for her represents, like, the death of her. Her journalism career represents marriage. So this body in a coffin in the middle of the newsroom that they're trying to spring Earl from takes on this, like, double significance of this coffin represents you're gonna die. If you go to Albany, you're gonna. Everything that's interesting about you is going to die. And so there's something ridiculous about it, which makes it funny. Just like there's kind of something ridiculous maybe about the idea of Hildy beating a rug, especially in the outfits that she wears. But I don't know what else can be made of that. But I'm just kind of thinking along. 48:17 Wes: It turns out to be the desk of this guy, Roy G. Bem. Is it Bensinger? 48:22 Erin: Bensinger. Doesn't have to rhyme. Doesn't have to rhyme. 48:26 Wes: Yeah. I love that he's trying to get him out of there and has convinced this guy that he's going to give him a job and seems like, write a story for me from the point of view of the escaped man. Get the sense of the animal. 48:37 Erin: Animal. Kind of a Jack London style. 48:42 Wes: All right, let me get my rhyming dictionary. It doesn't have to rhyme. Doesn't have to rhyme. 48:46 Erin: It's my favorite line in the whole film, of course, 48:51 Wes: but yeah, it's a great irony to have the actual story be hiding inside your writing desk incarnate. 48:57 Erin: Of course, the only ones who know it are Walter and Hildy. 49:00 Wes: Yeah. 49:01 Erin: Oh, and Bruce's mother, but she doesn't quite know what she knows. 49:05 Wes: Yeah. And then when he gets out again, the reporters can't even see what's right in front of their face. They start fabricating stuff. They don't pay an awful lot of attention to him before they get on their phones and start wiring and fake stories. 49:18 Erin: That's interesting. They can't deal with the reality in front of them the way that Walter and Hildy can, even just in terms of finding a practical solution for this guy being in the newsroom, they're able to figure it out, Earl. 49:27 Wes: They make him as uninteresting and as timid. Right. As they possibly can. And even at the psychiatric examination, he could have been an interesting character. He could have been like Hannibal Lecter mask. He could have been a firebrand socialist. He could have been anything. But instead, he's just the guy that the psychiatrist and the sheriff are talking co. Callously about how his life is about to end. And all he can do is say, I'm tired, or something like that. What does he say exactly in that moment? I'm awful tired. Yeah, I'm awful tired. So he's not inherently interesting. And to open up that they've got their guns pulled. Right. Waiting for this supposed criminal to jump out of the desk and do who knows what. But ultimately he's really. Despite the fact that he stole a gun and. And escaped. Okay, that is interesting. He's ultimately harmless. Right. He's a mock turtle. So the reveal is inherently anticlimactic. Once you open that up and see this timid little guy in his coffin, and that's when the fabrication starts. 50:33 Erin: Well, you're making me think that even stealing the gun really doesn't make him all that interesting. He's still a pawn in the narrativizing efforts of the sheriff to try and recapitulate the story as they want to tell it. The state has a narrative about him too. It's that he did this sanely and in cold blood. Right? 50:52 Wes: Yeah. 50:53 Erin: On the basis of that narrative, they're hanging him. So when they try to, during his examination by Egelhoffer the alienist, and Sheriff Philip B. Hartwell, B for brains, they tried to replay what occurred on the basis of what they want to have happened, not on the basis of what actually happened. So they too have their story to tell about him. And then in their story, he becomes the cold blooded killer, discharges the gun. But actually, even that redoing of the story, the truth asserts itself. Right. Because the gun accidentally goes off even in the examination process, demonstrating that the gun went off accidentally and that it does go off accidentally. 51:34 Wes: Let's see. So the sheriff gave his gun to the professor, who gave it to Earl, who shot the professor in the classified ads. 51:43 Erin: So many ass jokes. 51:44 Wes: No. Ads. Yeah. Do they say. Do they figure. 51:48 Erin: Well, maybe there's a similar kind of question. 51:50 Wes: Yeah. Did it go off accidentally or not? And then. 51:53 Erin: Right, right. But the truth there probably is also rather mundane. It probably did just go off accidentally. Again, they were literally playing with a gun. 52:01 Wes: And then he ran and he had the gun while he ran and. 52:05 Erin: Right. 52:05 Wes: Yeah. He was pretty easily disarmed by Hildy. 52:10 Erin: Right. Well, you just have to be a newspaper man, Take that gun away, put it to your own use. 52:17 Wes: So maybe we should make the transition to Postscript. What do we want to talk about? 52:22 Erin: I could think of a couple things, but the machinations of Walter aren't all that interesting. I suppose in the postscript we could talk about background on the film and our personal relationship to like, we can make it a more personal postscript if we feel as though we've gotten through everything we want to say for the. 52:38 Wes: Yeah. 52:38 Erin: For the movie. 52:41 Wes: Yeah, let's do that. 52:43 Erin: Okay, good. And the only fan letter I ever wrote. That's a teaser. 52:47 Wes: Okay, that's good. Yeah, that'll get some subscriptions. 52:51 Erin: So. Fascinating. All right, thank you, thank you, thank 52:57 Wes: you to everybody who listened to this episode. [email protected] subtext Also, this podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. airwavemedia.com Com.