Tomorrow BBC2 is showing a couple of classic films during the daytime. At 11.00am there’s Holiday from 1938 with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. And then at 12.30 is 1940’s His Girl Friday.
This is a film that I’ve mentioned before as it’s one of my favourites of all time.
But Wikipedia noted a couple of things that I hadn’t come across – the radio adaptions. Nine months after its January 1940 release, it was adapted by the Lux Radio Theater – the subject of a recent Radio 4 Archive on 4 programme. That adaption featured Claudette Colbert, Fred Macmurray and Jack Carson in the main roles.
Six months later, however, it was again adapted by the rival Screen Guild Theater, this time with Grant and Russell in the main roles.
Happily the Internet Archive has both versions available to download! Of course, these radio versions do lose quite a lot of the original panache of the film, and in the Screen Guild Theater version, lose over two thirds of the running time (even with the famous rapid-fire dialogue, that’s a lot of missing action).
Lux Radio Theater version.
The Screen Guild Theater version.
Anyway, if you’ve never seen this film, set your Sky+, Freeview+, V+ or other PVR.