Product: The Front Page [VHS] (1974)
Rating: 4.0
It works well even if it doesn't exceed any expectations...
Critics had mixed feelings about this 1974 newspaper comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. I too have them. The fact is that `The Front Page' works, at times very well, but in the end the truth remains that it never exceeds its limitations. It never becomes something great, rather sufficing to stay merely good.Hey, that's better than being content with mediocre.So, in the film Hildy Johnson is Walter Burns best reporter, but when Hildy wants to quit so he can move and get married, Walter loses it. He needs Hildy to stay, at least for a little while, since the biggest story they'd ever get is just about to break; but Hildy is determined. So Walter maneuvers things so that Hildy is basically forced to stay and cover the story; and when actions within their own building force the action inside, well then there is no way that Hildy is going to let just any other reporter steal his thunder.Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are an undeniably impenetrable team. They work very, very well off one another and it shows in every scene they share. Sadly, Matthau isn't in a lot of the movie. He's absent through a lot of the middle, surfacing on a few telephone conversations really, and then he makes a larger appearance at the end of the film. This is one of the rare times where I feel Matthau upstages Lemmon, so I was saddened to see so little of him. Lemmon is great here, but Matthau is slightly better. The cast is rather diverse, so much so that I was really expecting great things. What I got was a lot of good things, but nothing really jumped out at me as spectacular. Susan Sarandon is sorely underused, but she had yet to really prove herself as an actress (and what an actress!); and Carol Burnett is far below her own standards (even she has reportedly panned her own performance). I was really looking forward to Vincent Gardenia and Charles Durning, but neither of them wowed me like I was hoping. Gardenia has his moments, and is probably the most entertaining of the supporting players, but he never really capitalizes on his character. Durning is nothing but background noise, which is sad because he's probably my favorite supporting actor of the 70's. He could have really done so much more, but they gave his so little.I know that last paragraph sounds like one long complaint, but seriously it is a minor one when you look at the overall picture. It is a good film. It is funny and entertaining; the point I was trying to make is that it never becomes more than that. It's just simple fun entertainment.There's nothing wrong with that; right?