The Front Page

Plot synopsis:
The play's single set is the dingy press room of Chicago's Criminal Courts Building, overlooking the gallows behind the Cook County Jail. Reporters from most of the city's newspapers are passing the time with poker and pungent wisecracks about the news of the day. Soon they will witness the hanging of Earl Williams, a white man and supposed Communist revolutionary convicted of killing a black policeman. Hildy Johnson, cocky star reporter for the Examiner, is late. He appears only to say good-bye; he is quitting to get a respectable job and be married. Suddenly the reporters hear that Earl Williams has escaped from the jail. All but Hildy stampede out for more information. As Hildy tries to decide how to react, Williams comes in through the window. He tells Hildy he is no revolutionary, and that he shot the police officer by accident. The reporter realizes this bewildered, harmless little man was railroaded — just to help the crooked mayor and sheriff pick up enough black votes to win re-election. It is the story of a lifetime. Hildy helps Williams hide inside a roll-top desk. His daunting challenge now is to get Williams out of the building to a safe place for an interview before rival reporters or trigger-happy policemen discover him. Hildy has no choice but to ask for help from Walter Burns, managing editor of the Examiner — a devious tyrant who would do just about anything to keep Hildy with the newspaper.

Tags: humor, satire

Review:
Cynical editor newspaper (Walter Matthau) wants to get a big scoop on a death row which involves convincing star reporter (Jack Lemmon) to come back to work and put off her marriage to handsome pianist woman (Susan Sarandon) .
Very good performance from Jack Lemmon as ace journalist who wants to quit the business and get married and exceptional Walter Matthau as editor who finds out his main reporter wants to leave him and gets in the way .
Other versions about this classic story are the following : 1931 ¨The Front Page¨ by Lewis Milestone with Adolph Menjou , Edward Everett Horton , Mae Clark and Pat O'Brien in his film debut ; ¨His Girl Friday ¨ 1940 by Howard Hawks with Gary Grant , Ralph Bellamy and Rosalind Russell with the pivotal character assigned to a woman instead a man ; ¨Switching channels¨ 1988 by Ted Kotcheff with Kathleen Turner , Christopher Reeve , Ned Beatty and Burt Reynolds in which an attractive TV anchorwoman want to marry tycoon but his mean ex-husband impedes it ..
Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon), who is the best newspaperman of the Chicago Examiner, tells his boss Walter Burns (Walter Matthau) that he will marry the widow concert pianist Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon) on the next day and quits his job, telling that he will move to Philadelphia and work in advertisement business.
When Hildy finds Earl hidden in the press room, his sense of journalist prevails and he calls Walter to protect Earl together with the unseen power of the press."The Front Page" is a witty comedy by Billy Wilder in one of his last works.
I have never had the chance to see the original 1931 film, but this cynical remake is great, with top-notch performances of Walter Matthau in the role of a Machiavellian editor that has no ethics and presses his top journalist to stay in his newspaper.
Seemed like a case of perfect timing to me.The original material that Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur wrote in the Twenties was perfect for Billy Wilder's cynical mind.
When Howard Hawks released his classic screwball comedy, 'His Girl Friday,' in 1940, it was a pretty safe bet that the film would forever remain the definitive cinematic version of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's hit Broadway comedy of 1928.
Jack Lemmon stars as Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson, an ace reporter with the Chicago Examiner newspaper in 1929, who decides to resign and get married on the eve of a major execution.
The two actors make an absolute dream partnership, and, as always, work incredibly well together {they had previously shared the screen in 'The Fortune Cookie (1966)' and 'The Odd Couple (1968),' and would do so on many more subsequent occasions}.In the crowded press room of a Chicago jail, a cluster of rival newspaper reporters clamour about for the perfect exclusive story, centred around the execution of a convicted cop-killer, Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton).
While the two leads are, of course, terrific, enjoyable supporting performances are given by Pendleton as the prisoner awaiting execution, Vincent Gardenia as the bumbling sheriff and Susan Sarandon as Hildy's would-be future wife.Though 'The Front Page (1974)' {the third adaptation of the play} doesn't cover any different ground than 'His Girl Friday' did {with the exception of reverting Hildy back to a male character}, it is the quality of the script, the chemistry between the leads and the selection of quirky supporting characters that make this an essential complementary viewing experience for fans of Hawks' film.
Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon and Vincent Gardenia are great in this movie, but most impressive is Carol Burnett's wonderful and powerful performance which dominates every scene in which she appears.
MILD SPOILERSThe Front Page is one of my favourite Billy Wilder films, and by definition, this would mean also one of my favourite comedies of all time.
Sorry to disagree, Mr. Wilder, but I believe that in few films you got a chance as good as this one to demonstrate your spectacular sense of rhythm and comic timing, and get performances as astounding from everyone involved; the Lemmon-Matthau unbeatable duo works like a perfectly greased machine at full blast and I definitely prefer their vicious bickering to the flirty, romantically-intentioned banter of Grant and Russell; and all the rest of the cast I think is perfect too, for example Sarandon, who with just one look can convey her frustration and her resigned acceptance at her husband-to-be's inability to change...
Billy Wilder's remake of the Ben Hecht play is a little better than the 1931 original, but not as good as the 1940 Cary Grant version (The Front Page).Still, Jack Lemmon (won an Oscar the year before for Save the Tiger) and Walter Matthau (The Fortune Cookie, Kotch) give excellent performances, and Vincent Gardenia (Oscar nominated the year before for Bang the Drum Slowly ) and Susan Sarandon (a relatively new actress) support them to the extent that this is still a superior film.Funny, funny film about politics and newspapers and some the the early seventies best actors.
However, the 1931 version really isn't good enough to pay attention to, and the 1940 version (His Girl Friday) changed things around quite a bit, making Wilder's version the definitive version of the play.
Wilder reverted the lead role from a woman back to a man, retaining the relationship between the two leads to the 'male life partners' version that the original play had, which I found more interesting than the romantic relationship in 'His Girl Friday'.And the best thing is that the chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau is so good, that they make this relationship really work.
They worked twice before, in 'The Odd Couple' and 'The Fortune Cookie', and once again prove how good they are together; a testament to that is that the first half of 'The Front Page', in which Lemmon interacts with actors like Susan Sarandon and Austin Pendleton, moves along with a lazy pace, usually witty but never grabs the viewers completely; but the second half, which is mostly around Lemmon and Matthau, sparks all over the place and is an absolute joy to watch, right up to the ending - and nobody could direct an ending scene like Wilder.
It's Wilder's knack for pacing that makes the film work, and Lemmon and Matthau have amazing timing that compliments it perfectly.
I'll get to that later.This production hearkens back to the 1931 version where the editor/reporter combination are both men and one wants to leave and get married (Jack Lemmon) while the other resorts to a stream of delay tactics and outright dirty tricks to get him to stay (Walter Matthau) and cover one last story.
Probably the production code was the best thing that ever happened to Billy Wilder, because once it was completely gone, as it was here by 1974, Wilder felt he needed to put in crude sex jokes and crass language seemingly because he could.Although this is the least effective of the three filmed versions of this story,
you can't go wrong with a Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau collaboration.
Carol Burnett as the prostitute and love interest of the condemned man disappoints because she is so over the top.It's not the best thing Billy Wilder ever did, but then he is responsible for some of the greatest films ever made.
With The Front Page makes one of the earliest pairings of the two actors, almost ten years after the release of Gene Saks' The Odd Couple and about two decades before the wildly popular Grumpy Old Men films.Set in the 1920's, Lemmon and Matthau star as Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson and Walter Burns.
But when a checkered and incredibly juicy story comes along, Walter hopes to keep his star reporter one last time to write what may be the most outlandish story of his life.Like most Lemmon/Matthau efforts, the real treat at hand is watching the chemistry of the leading men as they recite scripted dialog in such an elegant way that it conveys the buddy-to-buddy naturalism of a certain situation.
Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond provide the men with several opportunities to put their loquaciousness to the test as the camera finds a way to fixate on them for several minutes at a time as the two bat off rapid-fire dialog at one another.It is this chemistry that makes The Front Page a good piece of work and all the more fun, especially in the present time as it shows the functionality of old-school journalism and reporting and how journalists back in the day worked and operated.
Run and print that.Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon, Charles Durning, and Carol Burnett.
Billy Wilder, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Vincent Gardenia, Susan Sarandon & Charles Durning.
Were it not for the snappy energy and comic veteranship these performers bring to their roles, and Wilder's old-school deference to the primacy of the writing, The Front Page delivers virtually the same neat, fast-paced pick-me-up vibes as the quintessential classic wisecracking comedy and the quintessential classic picture about Chicago in the 1920s: About scoophungry police reporters, dishonest politicians, a fugitive who exhausts half the film hidden in a rolltop desk in the very press room where a parade of frantic folks are wearing out the subject of where he could be.In His Girl Friday, Chicago was never ever named.
In 1950,Billy Wilder told the story of a reporter (Kirk Douglas ) who "exploited the "human interest story" for his own benefit "(Maltin).It turned into a tragedy.In 1974,he comes back to the dark side of the medias ,no matter if it's a comedy:you've got to pay attention to all the serious things the director is telling us.In 1950,people were having a wild time around a man buried in a hole(hence the first title "ace in the hole"!);in 1974,people are playing cards and drinking whiskey in front of the gallows :nothing really changes.
You would have to search for a long time to find clever comedies like this one in the contemporary cinema;and if people are disappointed,too bad for them:Billy Wilder was one of the greatest American directors of all time,even when he was a bit sub-par,he was better than the rest.There are numerous funny moments:Lemmon turned into a exhibitionist by his boss,the desk in which the two reporters hide the condemned person -which might be a spoof on Hitchcock's "the rope",the "stolen" watch...What is sad is Wilder's end of career:after the overlooked "Fedora" (1976)which he made with European money and which was unfairly deemed "a poor man's "sunset blvd"",and the remake of the French movie "l'emmerdeur" ("buddy buddy"),he was never given a chance to direct another movie.How unfair!.
The best is "His Girl Friday" but the others aren't bad.In 1920s Chicago Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon), a reporter, wants to leave the newspaper business and get married (to Susan Sarandon).
The cast does what they can--Matthau is horrible but doesn't destroy the movie; Lemmon, although too old for the role, is just great; Sarandon is shamefully wasted (but she was unknown when she did this); Carol Burnett is (surprisingly) not that good as a prostitute (yes--you read that right--Carol Burnett plays a prostitute); Austin Pendleton is letter-perfect as Earl Williams; Vincent Gardenia explodes and yells (a lot) as the sheriff and Harold Gould (wisely) underplays the part of the mayor.So this is a good movie but too loud and crude.
This movie is a great remake of a great classic 'His Girl Friday', one of the best old black&white comedies.
So humor is more cynical and bitter than in original, in some moments a strong political and social comments appear (these are the years when Lemmon balanced between dramas and comedies), but don't worry if you're looking only for a good time and laugh: this is what 'Front Page' has been made for.
mark of Billy Wilder is so significant, the performance of Matthau and Lemmon - pieces of same puzzle, presence of Susan Sarandon - delicate nuance.a good work , with great actors, smart script and correct combination between satire about media , policy, each form of ambition.so, it is not a surprise.
Jack Lemmon's character wants to rid himself of the newspaper business and especially his editor played by Matthau.
Billy Wilder as a director.The legendary duo Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as the leading men.The result: a great comedy film.Lemmon plays Hildy Johnson,a star reporter who is about to leave his newspaper Examiner in order to get married to his girlfriend Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon.He has some minor obstacles on his way.His editor Walter Burns (played by Matthau) doesn't want him out so he comes up with schemes to keep him in.And then there's also the convicted murderer Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton) who escapes from the hangman.There's the plot for this comedy classic, The Front Page (1974), which has been seen on film some other times.It's based on the 1928 Broadway comedy play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.The team Wilder and I.A.L.Diamond were writing it for the screen.When Billy Wilder got together with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau they would often come up with something really great.Too bad they're all gone now and the world of comedy isn't quite the same anymore.The casting is brilliant not only for Lemmon and Matthau.The young Susan Sarandon does terrific job as Peggy who keeps losing to the paper.Austin Pendleton as the terrified cop killer is something fantastic.Vincent Gardenia is hilarious as "Honest Pete" Hartman.Harold Gould is excellent as The Mayor.And so is Charles Durning as Murphy.And Cliff Osmond is very good as Officer Jacobi.The Front Page is a movie for all comedy lovers.And this is a good comedy..
I'm a big fan of Billy Wilder's film, and of Walter Mattheau and Jack Lemmon, so I can't really figure out what this film is missing.
While not one of Wilder's best, THE FRONT PAGE is still engrossing and shows how two top-notch directors handle the material: Howard Hawks in the "take-a-deep-breath-and-begin" screwball comedy, HIS GIRL FRIDAY - and Billy Wilder's more serious film (well, a little more, anyway) and much, much slower approach to the same Hecht-MacArthur play.
The way that I figure, if Billy Wilder directs, then it's bound to be good (especially when starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau).
Walter wants Hildy to cover the hanging of cop killer Earl Williams.Billy Wilder adapts the play, the most famous film adaptation being 'His Girl Friday'(40).
As a result, "The Front Page" comes off as far too laidback, a serious problem in a film which takes place primarily (as with the play) in one setting, the newsroom in Chicago's Cook County Jail.This version has been previously compared with another remake, "His Girl Friday."  Whatever else one might say about that version, good or bad, it had at least one facet which this film needs: Split-second timing between its principals.So is this a bad film?
Or better yet, watch His Girl Friday, which was filmed in 1940 with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell (with Hildy Johnson recast as a female reporter).
Director/screenwriter Billy Wilder and his co-scenarist I.A.L. Diamond give Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's lickety-split stage comedy (as well as the two previous film versions) a PG-rated rewrite.
The Lemmon-Matthauw duo still works well but the two characters are not enough on-screen at the same time which is a shame because this is one of the only positive aspects of The Front Page, one of the last, and less inspired, productions of the Wilder-Diamond association..
His Girl Friday is far superior to this Wilder remake but that doesn't mean that Front Page is rubbish because of it.Without making comparisons Front Page is a very well made movie with good chemistry from Matteau & Lemmon as Newspaper editor & journalist respectively.
Critics rate it low because the original 1931 version, as well as "His Girl Friday" were far superior versions of this now-remade-four-times film.
'The Front Page' is a very apt title for a film based on the lives of two important men working for a newspaper.By making this comedy film, director Billy Wilder gave viewers a chance to closely observe what really goes behind the scenes in a newspaper office.He makes audiences realize that a lot of personal sacrifices have to be made at all costs by journalists in order to make progress at a newspaper.What makes this film interesting is that it also describes the tumultuous relationship between a reporter and his boss.Nobody is willing to yield and each man tries his best to outsmart his rival.The pace of the film is fast and it also exposes weaknesses of police who are unable to catch an escaped criminal who has been awarded death sentence.It can be said that viewers would appreciate this film as it does enormous justice to the topic portrayed.Great acting performances by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau seem to be a perfect reason to like a film where one would have tough time finding a dull moment..
Front Page, the remake by Billie Wilder of the Ben Hecht play, suffers a bit from the lack of any character to be anything beyond a stereotypical caricature.
Lemmon and Matthau are fine in this version of the classic comedy, this time from Billy Wilder, but the quality of the rest of the film seems way off base here.
It's too bad all they seemed to hear in the film was the profanity; there are some great moments of witty dialog amongst the crude and profane expletives.Jack Lemmon (Hildy Johnson) and Walter Matthau (Walter Burns) are perfectly cast in their roles.
Walter Matthau is the shifty editor and Jack Lemmon is his ace reporter.
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau would seem to most movie buffs to be a perfect pair to play the leads in a remake of the 1931 comedy film, "The Front Page." And, had director Billy Wilder and Universal Pictures decided to do an authentic remake, I think it would have worked.