This story is laid in a Mythical Kingdom.
The Front Page (1931) - watched 8/4/24
Director: Lewis Milestone
Writer: Bartlett Cormack, Charles Lederer
Starring: Adolphe Menjou, Pat O’Brien, Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton
Available to watch on PlutoTV, Amazon Prime Video, Plex
First Time Watch? Yes
I’m trying something a little different with today’s review for The Front Page. Since multiple versions of this movie have been produced, in various forms, I decided I wanted to make my life harder by tracking down and watching two of its remakes1: His Girl Friday from 1940 and The Front Page from 1974. The latter two were notably not nominated for Best Picture, and so I wanted to see what, if anything, made this first version stand out, what might have made it better. The answer… may surprise you!!
Now, listen you crazy baboon, I could sneeze a better newspaper story than you can write.
In a city that we’re all pretty sure is supposed to be Chicago, anarchist Earl Williams (George E. Stone) is set to be executed in less than a day, having been convicted for murdering a black police officer. The killing of the cop was actually accidental, but due to the red scare and Earl’s well-known political beliefs, the powers that be are frothing at the mouth to put Earl to death. The movie opens with prison workers testing out the strength of the rope in the gallows. You know, a pretty typical, lighthearted opening for a slapstick comedy.
In the courthouse press room, reporters for various publications play cards and shoot the shit to pass the time while they wait for the execution. Hildebrand “Hildy” Johnson (Pat O’Brien) is an esteemed reporter who is about to quit his job—and journalism altogether—to get married and move to New York City with his gal, Peggy Grant (Mary Brian).
Hildy’s boss, the brash and wildly unethical Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) doesn’t want Hildy to quit, as he depends on Hildy to cover the story of the execution. Hildy gets swept up in the moment as news breaks that Earl has escaped from custody. In his haste to escape, Earl ends up in the courthouse press room, where Hildy and Burns help him by hiding him in a rolltop desk.
Poor Peggy is waiting on Hildy this entire time so that they can get started on their life together and move to New York. Peggy’s mother goes up to the press room to get Hildy, and witnesses Hildy and Burns hiding Earl in the desk. To silence her, Burns has her escorted from the building by one of his associates. Meanwhile, a messenger arrives to deliver a reprieve for Earl Williams to the Sheriff and the Mayor. They send the messenger away with a bribe, not wanting news of the reprieve to get out and hurt their chances at a re-election. After an accident, Peggy’s mother returns, disheveled and pissed off, and squeals on Hildy and Burns, revealing that Earl Williams has been hiding in the press room this whole time. The reporters are all super horny for this new development, each eager to be the first to get the scoop.
Just as Hildy and Burns are about to be arrested for aiding the escaped convict and for technically kidnapping Peggy’s mother, the messenger re-appears, unable to accept the bribe from the Sheriff and the Mayor. He reveals their intentions to dismiss the reprieve for Earl Williams, and once again, the reporters are horny for the news. The sheriff and the mayor agree to drop the charges against Hildy and Burns as long as their own crimes are not reported in the papers.
With everything resolved all neatly, I guess, Burns offers Hildy a promotion in a last-ditch effort to entice him to stay, but Hildy cannot be swayed—he’s in love! Clearly! Burns insists there are no hard feelings, and gives Hildy a watch as a parting gift. Once Hildy and Peggy have departed, Burns phones to find out the first stop their train will make on the way to New York, and arranges to have the police meet them there, claiming that Hildy has stolen his watch.
Did you ever come up out of a sewer and have the cool, fresh air hit you? Well, I did. And, honey, you're the cool, fresh air. You made a fresh air fiend out of me, dear.
Out of the three versions of this movie that I watched, I enjoyed 1931’s The Front Page the least. Across the three, the plot—and even a lot of the beats and dialogue—changes very little, but the vibes just weren’t there for the original. I had the least amount of fun with it. The idea of using a desperate, innocent man who is about to be executed as tabloid fodder seems so callous and cruel to me—and that’s the point. Journalism can be a callous and cruel business. I guess I just wish that this idea had been presented in a less slapstick-y way? It feels like the message gets lost or muddled—we understand that Walter Burns is unscrupulous, that this situation is pretty fucked, but do we really care?
1940’s His Girl Friday, by contrast, has more energy and complexity to it from the jump by swapping the gender of its main character, Hildy. And naturally, with the two main characters being a man and a woman, we simply must introduce a romantic component to the plot! Eh. It’s fun, and Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant have undeniable chemistry, but it’s an element that the story didn’t really need. Everything about this version improves upon the original material, which is rare. The script is sharper, more nuanced than the original—character motivations make more sense, and there are moments of humanity and softness that make the story more compelling. Hildy, in particular, is a stronger character in this version2—her moments with Earl Williams and Mollie Malloy were striking highlights of the film for me. And the ending is greatly improved here—instead of sending Hildy on her way, only to have her arrested at the first train stop, Walter ends up back together with Hildy and they plan to honeymoon in Niagara Falls. Walter learns that there is a strike in Albany that they can cover, on the way to Niagara Falls. Hildy accepts a less-than-glamorous honeymoon in Albany, thereby accepting Walter as he is. An ending that makes me frustrated in that I don’t want a woman like Hildy to settle for less than what she wants and deserves, but it’s at least a funnier, more apt way to button up the story.
The 1974 version of The Front Page takes a lot of elements from the previous two, for better and for worse. It has the same frenetic pace as His Girl Friday, and you simply can’t go wrong with the pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as Hildy and Burns, respectively. The whole cast is delightfully stacked, actually—Susan Sarandon steps in as perhaps the hottest version of Peggy and Carol Burnett as the most pained, tragic version of Mollie Malloy. It was fun to watch this cast work with this material but aside from a few fun curses added in (thank fuck they did away with the Hays Code by then) this version only improved moderately from the original. I did feel this had the most sympathetic portrayal of Earl Williams yet, but that could just be my bias showing, as I have a soft spot in my heart for character actor and theater legend Austin Pendleton (I was also pretty stoked to see Paul Benedict show up as the messenger informing the sheriff and mayor about Earl Williams’ reprieve).
So, was the original version of The Front Page the best version, more worthy of a Best Picture nomination than the other two? By my modern standards, I’d say no. It’s actually a little shocking that, for how much His Girl Friday improved the story, it somehow wasn’t nominated. Out of the three, I’m most inclined to re-watch His Girl Friday, as I recognize it’s easily the strongest of these versions, but even so, I don’t think I’m quite as goo-goo ga-ga over it as most people seem to be. It also could have been a very big mistake to watch each of these movies back to back, thus clouding my judgment a bit due to the fatigue of plot repetition. My bad, if so!! Still, this was a fun experiment and I most likely won’t learn my lesson and will probably watch every version of A Star is Born when we get to the 1937 Academy Awards.
I'm ready to go. I don't care. It's better to die for a cause, than the way most people die - for no reason.
Quick Facts:
Nominated for 3 Academy Awards, won none
Best Picture
Best Director (Lewis Milestone)
Best Actor (Adolphe Menjou)
Due to the censors at the time, the last line had to be partially obscured by the sound of a typewriter, as they wouldn’t allow the phrase “son of a bitch” to be used.
Famous screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz makes an uncredited appearance
Stray Observations:
These characters and this dialogue could not be more 1930s if they tried
Once again, we have a film that only gets interesting once a woman character shows up (Molly!! Give me a movie about Molly! I need her origin story!!)
Aside from a handful of nice camera movements (the moment when the camera orbits around Hildy & Bensinger, then Bensinger & Molly was so nice, and I loved the one tracking shot of Molly), this was fairly un-cinematic and not too interesting to look at. Can definitely tell it was adapted from a play, as that’s exactly what it feels like I’m watching.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐
Next Up: Skippy (1931)
There was another 1988 version released called Switching Channels that’s set in a television newsroom instead of a newspaper, starring Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner. I didn’t seek this one out because… it sounded kind of bad, honestly, and I think I’ve hit my limit with this plot after watching it unfold three times in a row. Sorry to Switching Channels, I guess!!
Women….. they simply make movies better!