It is worth mentioning that because I love its prototype so much, the movie "Girlfriend Friday", even though I already knew about the existence and reputation of "Wind and Rain", I didn't want to watch this movie. It's very simple, no one wants to see their favorite works that have been perfected and then edited (zao) edited (ta).
Out of confidence in Billy Wilder and love for Jack Lemmon, I clicked on this movie. However, after more than ten minutes, I felt that what I was worried about really happened. The scene in which Walter poses as a bail officer in front of his fiancée creates a certain moral discomfort for me as an audience member. A boss is willing to slander his fiancee, slander her personality, and destroy her hard-won happy marriage just to keep employees working for him (we don't need to squeeze the word). This is too much!
This kind of moral discomfort is not due to my personal hypocrisy, but a judgment made by normal people's values. Normal people tend to regard marriage as being connected with lifelong happiness, and work is just a job (not to mention that journalists have not lost their jobs before, but have to switch to advertising), it is self-evident that the former is more important than the latter. . Water's behavior here, not to mention disgraceful in itself, will bring irreparable damage to Hildy once it succeeds, which is what we, as normal audiences, are outraged.
In contrast, "Girlfriend Friday" never gave people a sense of moral discomfort in this link. First of all, Walter and Hildy were married and had an old relationship with her. So keeping her is not only for work, but also for true love - this is a more "noble" reason in the eyes of audiences of any era. Secondly, after Hildy left, she became a housewife, which aroused more regret from the audience than changing careers. We just wanted to join Walter and use all means to keep her on the job. In the end, all of Walter's immoral methods were used behind Hildy's fiancé, and the kind-hearted fiance kept him in the dark and treated him as a good person. This kind of treatment is more uglier than "The Storm". Exposing his face in front of a kind fiancee is also easy to accept psychologically - after all, the old foxes can parry each other by playing tricks with each other and the audience is happy to watch, but we can't sit still if they directly hurt the little white rabbit.
Seeing that there are readers here who should scold me for pulling a step and getting out of the comment area of this movie as soon as possible. Don't get hurt, I've written the conclusion at the beginning. What follows is how the film goes on to alleviate the moral discomfort it creates for audiences.
First of all, more of this film is used to exaggerate the fact that reporters are really not done by people (or journalists are not people), and this is the most "moral" reason for breaking up Hildy's marriage - because The end of the film, Walter gets his staff and coverage, Hildy is back in his best position, only his fiancée gets nothing, and she's the weakest of the three, we have to know she's in this incident I also took advantage of it, so I felt a little more at ease. What is cheap? That is, you don't have to marry a journalist whose nature is inexorable and who is destined to live a precarious life. So the screenwriter used Walter's lines, the taxi driver's lines, and the part where Molly was forced to jump off the building to reinforce the turbulent, shameless and unfriendly life of reporters. And through the subtitles at the end of the film, the fiancée finally happily married and had children, alleviating the moral discomfort we have caused by destroying the marriage of a weak woman.
Secondly, Hildy's character design has never been slag. From the beginning to the end of the film, Hildy has always longed to marry his fiancée, and we see his final image is to take the train with his fiancée to his new life in Philadelphia (as for the failure to achieve it in the end, it is an objective force majeure!) This is completely opposite to Hildy's final choice of Walter in "Girlfriend Friday", but it fulfills the moral integrity of the film. The choice of female Hildy reflects the awakening of professional female literacy and the understanding of true love (true love is not about me raising you, but fighting side by side). The choice of male Hildi reflects the unrequited pure love and the image of a man who regrets his old friends but is more responsible for life. This also makes the fiancee no longer entrusted with the inhuman sadness.
The most important thing is to talk about the shaping of the friendship between Walter and Hildiki in "The Wind and Rain in the City". Really just right! That cigarette me! (Reminds me of the cigarette lighting (and confession) at the end of "Double Indemnity") The fiancee was present when this sentence and the following actions took place, but she couldn't do anything but watch her own The fiancé is sworn in as sovereignty. As a symbol of friendship between men, lighting a cigarette, Billy Wilder really uses six! And the look in Walter's eyes as Hildy is typing - here's the difference from "Girlfriend Friday": "Girlfriend Friday" uses a riot to prove how high Hildy is at work and everything about her fiancé only adds to the confusion ; "Wind and Rain in the City" uses silence to let the audience experience the needless tacit understanding between the two men.
Of course, the relationship between the two male protagonists is not a real romance. Maybe Walter has a little bit of Hildy, but Hildy, we know that he is true love for his fiancée. That is, Walter's little affection for Hildy, so that the audience can completely leave even the slightest moral discomfort at the end of the film and applaud. I can't speak for the majority of the audience, but for myself, I've felt sympathy for Walter since I lit a cigarette. When he arranged a car to escort Hildy to the station to reunite with his fiancee, I was a little moved; then when I saw Hildy kissing the beautiful woman through the window, I was already sighing; when I presented the watch, I received Hildy's The sentence "I would never do that" - it's more or less recognition and response; when I turned to the lonely back after saying goodbye, I felt a blow in the softest part of my heart. So far, all the weights we've put on the moral scale have rolled from the fiancé's side to the Walter's side, and even a lot more, weighing us down a bit. This also makes the end of the last reversal not only not annoying at all, but a delightful hit and praise!
The originals of "Wind and Rain in the City" and "Girlfriend Friday" are simply a story of a boss who is willing to destroy the personal happiness of employees to squeeze their residual value, or a caricature of the press. But both great films have made the story stand morally as a comedy through love and personal love and flair in their careers, compared to how difficult it is for All the City to do so bigger. But Billy Wilder did it perfectly. I would like to pay tribute to him with this post!
View more about The Front Page reviews
