The other couple buying popcorn at Williston’s Majestic 10 last Wednesday wasn’t there for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. My partner, Tim, and I had driven 20 minutes in the dark from Burlington to watch the movie in a proper cinema. Like so many fans of the television show set in post-Edwardian England, I couldn’t get enough of the aristocratic Crawley clan and their sometimes-scheming servants. The dresses! The newspapers! I wanted to watch the saga wrap on a big screen and successfully twisted Tim’s arm to come along.
We thought we might be late to the 9 p.m. show but, as it turned out, had no reason to worry. We scurried into a big, beautiful, empty theater and had the entire place to ourselves. Without lowering my voice, I said, “It’s like our living room — only with stadium seating.” True to form, Tim fell asleep in his comfortable chair about two-thirds of the way into the film, right around the time I started getting weepy.
Two nights later, it was a different story. A little before 7, under a sunset sky, we walked from our house on Burlington’s Lakeview Terrace down to the waterfront to see an old movie in a little room packed with people. To celebrate our 30th birthday, Seven Days is presenting “Media in the Movies,” a journalism film series, in partnership with the Vermont International Film Foundation. The movies show on Fridays through October 10 in the org’s intimate screening room at Main Street Landing.
The first of four was the 1940 screwball comedy His Girl Friday, with wisecracking Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant in the roles of star reporter and editor, respectively. The two have recently divorced, and she intends to quit the paper to pursue a “normal” life. In his opening remarks for the sold-out film, VTIFF executive director Steve MacQueen, a former journalist, noted that he and his wife met while working at an independent daily in Florida. Then he passed the mic to Seven Days deputy news editor Sasha Goldstein, who gave our paper a shout-out. I was sitting next to cofounder Pamela Polston, happily eating her popcorn.
His Girl Friday’s opening scene shows female “newspaperman” Hildy Johnson — in a magnificent dress and matching hat — sauntering confidently through a busy, smoke-filled newsroom, greeting everyone with tough love. She’s there to inform the boss, her ex, that she is through with journalism and getting married to someone else the next day.
With the help of a well-timed breaking story, he successfully manipulates her into changing her plan. Although it gets news-gathering ethics almost entirely wrong — reporters pay sources, hide murder suspects and ask leading questions in interviews — the movie is right about a few things. Inconvenient and stressful as truth seeking can be, the job is often exhilarating and always gratifying.
Amazing, too, for a film that depicts an earlier decade in the biz: The best writer in the room is a woman, highly respected by her peers.
Most of the action in His Girl Friday takes place in the “press room” — as opposed to the newsroom. It’s a second-story office next to the courthouse with a clear view of the gallows. Reporters from competing papers are shoulder to shoulder, bent over manual typewriters and “Downton Abbey”-era telephones. There’s a collegiality, even though each one is desperately trying to get the scoop.
When the lights came back on, we realized VTDigger’s northwest reporter, Auditi Guha, was in the audience, wearing a hat in a fashion nod to Hildy. Sasha introduced us — they met taping “Vermont This Week” — and, after some chitchat, the subject moved to dinner and drinks. Warm and sociable, Audi said she and her two friends were getting a bite at Santiago’s, and Sasha, Tim and I followed, thinking we’d get our own table for three. Upon arrival, we found that Audi had arranged one for six.
We all talked about the movie — there are three more to come — and got to know each other better, just like in the old days.
This article appears in Sept 24-30 2025.
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