The Front Page (1974)

 

The Front Page - 1974

Coming up next we have 1974's "The Front Page", a film about a newspaper editor who tries to get his top reporter to cover one last story before he leaves the business to get married.

The film's cast includes Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Susan Sarandon, Austin Pendleton, Carol Burnett, Vincent Gardenia, David Wayne, Allen Garfield, Charles Durning, Herb Edelman, Harold Gould, Jon Korkes, and Martin Gabel.

There's big news in Chicago.  Accused/convicted Russian sympathizer Earl Williams is going to be executed.  His gallows are being erected right outside City Hall.

Chicago Examiner editor Walter Burns wants his top reporter, Hildy Johnson, to cover the story.  However, Hildy announces his retirement from the newspaper business and his intention to get married.  Burns does everything he can to change Hildy's mind, but Hildy says "Sayonara" to newspaper life.  Disappointed but not defeated, Burns starts to plot to get Hildy to stay.

Hildy's fiancée is movie house organist and "classy dame" Peggy Grant, who gets the audience involved with the song "Button Up Your Overcoat".

Burns goes to see Ms. Grant and spins all sorts of wild and wacky stories about her intended groom.  However, that doesn't work when Hildy calls on the phone and straightens everything out.

Meanwhile, back at the reporter's room at City Hall, prostitute Mollie Malloy, a friend of the doomed Earl Williams, pays the group a visit and condemns their portrayal of her relationship with Earl.  "If you was worth breakin’ my fingernails on, I’d tear your puss wide open," she says to the bunch.

Though she has feelings for Earl, the truth of their relationship isn't the way the reporters have painted it.  "That’s a lot of bunk!  Like all that other stuff you been writing.  Calling me an Angel of the Pavement and the Midnight Madonna.  Who ya kiddin’?  I’m a two-dollar whore from Division Street, and you know it!" she exclaims.

When Hildy comes to the reporter's room to announce his retirement, he isn't thrilled by the replacement that Burns has sent.  But, he shrugs it off, fully intent on saying goodbye the world of journalism.

However, a jailbreak by Earl Williams sends all those plans right out the window.  Williams eventually hides out in the reporter's room, and only Hildy knows what is happening, providing the Chicago Examiner with a very hot advantage over the rest of the city papers.

Mollie is on hand to help out with the injuries that Earl sustained in his escape.  Reading a report that she intended to marry him on the gallows, he asks her if it was true.  "Well, if it’s in the papers, it must be true.  They wouldn’t print a lie," she says to him with a smile, but she casts the reporters a sneer.

When Burns gets wind of the fact that Hildy has Earl Williams with him, he insists that nobody but Hildy get the story.  Of course, in the heat of the moment, Hildy casts off all of his previous plans and dives right on, vigorously pounding out the story on the typewriter.

Poor Peggy is left realizing that she will always in second to Hildy's first love: journalism.

The story reaches its peak when Burns and Hildy uncover the fact that the Mayor of Chicago and the Sheriff are hiding a reprieve for Earl signed by the governor.  Once it's made public, Earl is a free man.

After it's all said and done, Hildy joins Peggy on a train out of Chicago to get married and start a new life.  Burns wishes him well and gives him a watch as a farewell gift.

Of course, that's just a deviously sneaky way for Burns to send a telegram to the train's first stop so that the police can arrest Hildy for the theft of a watch.  Burns will stop at nothing to keep Burns working with him in Chicago.

Cast rundown:

   Jack Lemmon...........................Hildy Johnson

   Walter Matthau.........................Walter Burns

   Susan Sarandon.......................Peggy Grant

   Austin Pendleton.......................Earl Williams

   Carol Burnett...........................Mollie Malloy

   Vincent Gardenia......................Sheriff

   David Wayne............................Roy V. Bensinger

   Allen Garfield...........................Kruger

   Charles Durning........................Murphy

   Herb Edelman..........................Schwartz

   Harold Gould............................The Mayor

   Jon Korkes...............................Rudy Kepler

   Martin Gabel............................Dr. Max Eggelhofer

And that's it for The Front Page.  I think that a good blog is only as good as the material it covers.  Therefore, it should cover as much ground as possible, including films the blog owner both likes and dislikes.  For me, this film falls in the dislike category.  I hated the relationship between Lemmon and Matthau's characters in the movie.  Carol Burnett was very unhappy with her performance in the film (however, I liked it).  When it was shown on an airplane on which she was traveling, at the conclusion of the film she stood up and apologized to the passengers.

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