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If This Was Made for You, You May Be Made For Me

Filed under: Personal Tagged: Cary Grant, movies, Rosalind Russell, YouTube

Can you imagine an expertly edited, magnificently pared-down, eight-minute-long version of His Girl Friday with not a word of dialogue? That's no impediment for those who know every breath, carnation, siren, sigh, innuendo, newsroom bell, typewriter report, bang, cry, groan, and cock of the eyebrow. Go watch it at Bad for the Glass, where I found it, and which adds the comment: "This experimental edit of the film removes every word, leaving in only sneezes and grunts and Cary Grant's delightful laugh. Knowing the film's plot, the rapid edits are intriguing in places. And this shortened version helps you actually pay closer attention to Hawks' marvelous visual staging, even in a setbound film like 'Friday.'" The editing is by Valentin Spirik. Bravo.

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Who she?

I'm Emily Gordon, reachable at emily@emdashes.com.

I'm an editor at PRINT magazine in New York City. I've worked at The Nation, Newsday, PEN America, and Legal Affairs. I've written for the NY Times Book Review, Salon, The Washington Post, The Village Voice... continued

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A few clips

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Tell me more

They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

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Written and edited by Emily Gordon (plus various guest contributors), designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.

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