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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Little Women (1994)

 

Little Women - 1994

1994's "Little Women" is our next look at our series on Louisa May Alcott's classic story of four women who grow up in the midst of the Civil War.  This version comes nearly fifty years after its previous incarnation.

The film's cast includes Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Gabriel Byrne, Trini Alvarado, Samantha Mathis, Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes, Christian Bale, Mary Wickes, Eric Stoltz, Donal Logue, and Beverley Elliott.

As ever, our setting is the town of Concord, Massachusetts, in a bitterly cold winter.

Inside the March family home, the young March sisters live with their mother, anxiously awaiting any news from of their father, who is off fighting in the American Civil War.

Though all of the other films mention and portray it in some variation, this one delves deeply into the world of Jo's imagination and her late night scribbling.

The March girls are full of compassion for their fellow man.  On Christmas Day, they decide to give their breakfast to a needy family.  "Lovely weather for a picnic!" shouts Jo sarcastically to the neighbors.

Jo wonders incessantly about the boy who lives in the grand house next door.  Both Jo and Laurie, as the boy is known, peer at each other through their windows.

To pass away the long winter evenings, Jo and her sisters have formed the "Pickwick Society", where they read stories, act in wild theatricals, and muse about their wishes for life.  "We'll all grow up someday.  We might as well know what we want," says young Amy.

Eventually, Jo and Laurie get to meet for the first time.  In a departure from the other two films, Laurie is not actually ill when Jo meets him.  They meet at a dance they both are attending.

The long winter days are filled with trials for the Marches.  Meg must work as a governess to a couple of unruly charges.  "Lovely children," Jo remarks sarcastically when she sees them making faces through a window.

And Jo must read for "hours and hours" to her Aunt March ("the crabby old miser") and act as her companion.  She clings to the hope that Aunt March will take her to Europe one day.

Amy faces her own trials at school when she's struck by the teacher and has to endure peer pressure over trading "limes".  She's also obsessed with having her nose shaped.

Jo continues to write little plays for her and her sisters to perform.  Eventually, she recruits Laurie to join their group.

And the girls take Laurie straight to their hearts as they would a brother.  Laurie accompanies Meg to a dance and kids her about the way she's dressed and made-up.  He also delights in telling Jo about a flirtation between Meg and his tutor, John Brooke.

As it happens in all versions of the story, Jo sells her hair when Marmee needs money to visit their wounded father in Washington.  "Your one beauty!" moans Amy.

While Marmee is gone, Beth takes it upon herself to visit a poor family that had been looked after by her mother.  She contracts scarlet fever and becomes deathly ill.

The entire March family rejoices in her eventual recovery.  Mr. Laurence from next door even provides her a better piano than the one she had.  Beth lovingly touches the keys before beginning to play a merry holiday tune.

As time passes, things in the March family change.  Meg marries John Brooke.

And Amy, who has shown great artistic talent, heads off with Aunt March on Jo's coveted trip to Europe.

When Jo feels she's being left behind in life, she vents her frustrations to Marmee.  With her mother's blessing, Jo decides she needs a change and heads to the big city of New York.

There she meets Professor Friedrich Bhaer, and the two get along famously.

He opens her up to new worlds, such as the opera, and also to romance.

Meanwhile, as Amy studies painting in Europe, she meets up with Laurie, who has run off after being refused by Jo after Meg's wedding.  The two strike up a difficult relationship, which ultimately ends in their marriage.

Jo leaves New York after hearing that Beth has taken a turn for the worse.  Beth's death scene is very well done.  Beth talks with Jo and says, "I don't like being left behind.  Now I am the one who is going ahead".  She slips away peacefully while Jo is laying beside her.

After Beth's death, we learn that Amy is unable to return home from Europe because Aunt March has suddenly become bed ridden.  All of the stress of her family situation sends Jo reeling.

In her grief, however, she finds the inspiration to create her greatest work, a novel about her and her sisters.  After completing it, she sends it on to Professor Bhaer for his thoughts and impressions.

Eventually, Amy returns home as Mrs. Amy Laurence, now being married to Laurie.  She asks Jo if she minds, and Jo warmly smiles and embraces her sister.

After Aunt March's death, we find out that the old lady has left Jo her enormous house.  Jo decides to open it as a school.

Professor Bhaer arrives and brings Jo's newly published book.  He also proposes, and she accepts happily.

Cast rundown:

   Winona Ryder.....................................Jo March

   Susan Sarandon.................................Mrs. Abigail March

   Gabriel Byrne.....................................Professor Bhaer

   Trini Alvarado.....................................Meg March

   Samantha Mathis................................Older Amy March

   Kirsten Dunst.....................................Younger Amy March

   Claire Danes.......................................Beth March

   Christian Bale.....................................Theodore Laurence

   Mary Wickes.......................................Aunt March

   Eric Stoltz..........................................John Brooke

   Donal Logue.......................................Jacob Mayer

   Beverley Elliott....................................Irish Maid

And that's it for this edition of Little Women.  I think out of all the adaptations this one is the most beautifully filmed.  It also delves more into the lives of the March sisters as individuals, instead of just in relation to Jo.  This version of the film is the only one we profile where Amy is played by two different actresses at the different stages in her life.  All of the others use only one actress to portray her from adolescence to adulthood.

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