The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-05-23
Palace Presents
 The Front Page
High Dranlatics in Story of
 Newspaper Life


 ture of newspaper life?
 This play is coming to the Fox Poli Palace theater for four days \ only, starting Sunday. (and it must be admitted that the picture has im- proved on the stage version) and 1t has aroused a storm of comment among the Fourth Estate from one end of the country to the other. :.
 No story of the intimate lie or the reporters of today's news sensa- lions has aroused such controversy among newspapermen themselves. Ren Hecft and Charles Macarthur. a,fhors of the play, are famous stormy petrels of Chicago journal ism. Both have been through the mill. and the settings of this picture are as familiar to them as their own homes.
 Many of the characters are said to have been based on real life person alities. Many reporters though they recognized in the character of Wal fer Burns" a famous Chicago manag- ing editor. under whom many or them had worked, and a wave of corltroyersy in newspaperdom arose as 10 whether this managing editor shad actuallly done the things in real life that Walter Burns is credited with doing in the picture. Incidental. ly. Adolphe Menjou takes the part or the managing editor, and he IS any thing but the suave Adolphe re- membered of past years by movie patrons.
 Several New York critics who felt sure that they had worked under tne ( ftvx to his defense-in print. Other re- snorters maintained that it was all frue-that walter Burns" was true picture down to the last detail.
 Newspapers vary in different To- calfties. Tn many cities all newspa- pers hays high standard of ethics. Tn other metropolitan centers muck raking and scandal are intensified fo the nth degree, and the newspa- per with the most of it is the most successful newspaper. Individual rep utations are torn down without mer- cv for the sake of headlines. Every thing is justified in the name or s'news.
 That is the school to which the
 Walter Burns of this picture be- tongs and to which his slave, "Hildy Joflnson,'' the ace reporter who, at 8 last. tries to get away from sensa- tionalism (but doesn't succeeD be- longs.
 Most people will believe "Tne Front Page is true picture of the press today. Many editors in the smaller and quieter centers. who are striving to render real constructive service to their communities, will probably claim it is libel of their profession.
 Bartlett Cormack, author of one of the most successful plays of recent years, "The Racket" wrote the screen-play and dialogue for this pic ture For many years he was an i'm portant Chicago and New York newspaperman.
 ..Whether you newspapermen like it or not" he says, The Front Page" is Chicago, boiled down in all it's newspaper essence. Perhaps 1t isn't any other town. But it dosen't pretend to be. Tn the final analysis, however, the psychological truth of these portraits. These men live. In a degree, there is a part of them. in every reporter. That's what makes "The Front Page" one of the great pictures of all time"
 "The Front Page" is easily the greatest or modern urdmdtlc ehlor- tainments. It was made by Howard Hughes. producer of "Helps Angels, and directed by Lewis Milestone, the director of ''All Quiet on the Westarn Front"
 On Thursday through Saturday comes an all new double feature program headed by "Young Sinners, with Dorothy Jordan. Hardie AL bright, Thomas Meighan and James Kirkwood; and on the same bill, .sThe Spy" with Kay Johnson, Neil Hamilton and John Halliday.
 Still playing the pick of pictures from Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-M Mayer and Paramount, the Fox-Poli Palace has now added the biggest dramatic hit of the year from United Artists, s'The Front Page" to it's great series of uper-attractions for the present season.