The Front Page (1931)

Howard Hughes brings to the big screen the first of what would be many very successful adaptions of the Broadway comedy about newspaper reporters and their antics surrounding their coverage of a hot news story. Coupling the popular witty, quick-paced stage play with the direction of Lewis Milestone, fresh off his Academy Award winning masterpiece All Quiet On the Western Front, the picture would produce both a delightfully entertaining movie as well as a beautifully composed production.

The Front Page follows the happenings of a city newsroom where bored reporters sit playing cards as news comes in usually slow and having them resort to exagerating or even creating news stories based on little blips of information happening in the city. That all changes when an alleged murderur accidentally shoots his psychiatrist due to the doctor's humorous lack of judgment handing a pistol to the patient/criminal. We follow newspaper editor Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) as he tries to get the scoop through his favorite writer Hilby Johnson (Pat O'Brien), though Hilby has called it quits from the business and plans to move away and start a new life with his fiancee Peggy (Mary Brian).Throughout the film we watch as Burns does what he can to keep his main man in town and on the job, the struggles of Hilby as he fights doing what he loves and letting go to please the one he loves, and Peggy trying to convince her man to get out of the newspaper mess and settle down. The newsroom is filled with characters all putting their twists on the news story and the action of the picture creating humorous lines and situations. Burns and Hilby eventually discover the gunman who doesn't want to run but rather turn himself in and try to keep him hidden from their fellow reporters so they could have the exclusive scoop. In the end the men get their story and Hilby and Burns part their ways leaving us with one last gag as Burns sets up Hilby to be stuck in town a little bit longer.

Director Lewis Milestone does a creative job taking a play that is confined to a small space for most of the production and keeps the energy and action going at a high rate. This includes a wide use of moving the camera around. Milestone uses many of the techniques in All Quiet On the Western Front, but instead of dramatic war he uses tracking shots to create the high paced world of news reporting and comedy. In many scenes the camera circles the group of men deep in conversation taking what would normally be a static shot in most cases and making it more energetic and lively to compliment the fast talking wittiness of the dialogue who's jokes and one liners come spewing out faster then time would allow for the audience to laugh. Milestone seems to discover that a camera moving most times is highly engaging and very different from pretty much everybody else in Hollywood giving him and his productions extra flair. After winning two of the first three best director Oscars Milestone would receive yet another nod from the Academy making him quite the revolutionary director of his time in the late 20s and early 30s.

The film is very quick paced and fresh when compared to the other films being produced at that time, mainly due to the writing of the original stage play. The witty comedy would be something that would mature in the cinematic world several years later, but would begin to blossom here even in the very early years of sound films. With the help of the success of a witty Broadway play Hollywood would discover how to use the new medium of sound to create even better productions and comedies in fun and interesting ways.

The film gained a good amount of recognition with its three nominations at the 4th Academy Awards, with the aforementioned best director nod, a nomination for Menjou as best actor, and even being up for best picture. The story would be so popular that the premise would be remade several times through the years. Just nine years later we would see the Howard Hawk's production My Girl Friday starring Gary Cooper and Rosalind Russell, a wildly popular adaptation that changed the Hildy character to a woman to create sexual tension between the two main characters. It would be hailed as one of the greatest comedies of all time. Billy Wilder would direct an adaption in 1974 starring the popular duo Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. There would even be another version of female Hildy character in 1988's
Switching Channels, adapted so that the reporters work for television stations.

As we can see the premise of the story was very popular, but we mustn't forget the original. The production quality and humor makes it a very enjoyable piece to watch and fun film to compare to its counterparts.