Product: The Front Page [VHS] (1974)
Rating: 4.0
Great Comedians Tell a Mad, Mad Story
Well, it's been a long time since 1974, so I suppose I need not apologize for forgetting just how much fun this movie really is. After all, with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon, Austin Pendleton and Carol Burnett, you know it's going to be funny. But it's easy to forget how much real story is involved as well. Somewhat crazy story, of course, but enough real plot to keep it from being just a comedy.Chicago, 1929, Walter Burns (Matthau) is the crabby and unscrupulous editor of a big-city newspaper and Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon) is is top reporter. But the day before convicted killer Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton) is to hang, Hildy waltzes into the editor's office on a cloud of song and announces that he's quitting. He's marrying Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon) and moving to Philadelphia to work in her uncle's advertising agency. Of course, this leaves Burns with nobody but a green college kid to cover the hanging.Hildy visits the prison press room to say goodbye to the other reporters, an interesting set of characters. So he's there when Mollie Malloy (Carol Burnett) bursts in to curse the bunch of them for their callous attitude toward Williams and all the lies they printed about her. And he's still there when all hell breaks loose after Williams is escorted to the Sheriff's office to be examined one last time (only a formality, everyone agrees) by a Viennese psychiatrist. The argument is that he was insane when he shot a police officer, even though he contends it was an accident.I'm not going to tell you what all the excitement was about, and what Hildy and Burns do about it, or what happens to Earl Williams and Mollie Malloy. Nor am I going to tell you what becomes of Hildy and Peggy's plans to be on the midnight train to Philadelphia. That would spoil the fun.It's somewhat slapstick in places, but it's mostly one surprise after another, one funny situation after another for Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to play off against each other, and one opportunity after another for the sheriff, the mayor and the police to display their incompetence and corruption. Almost too much fun.