THE FRONT PAGES (1931, 1940, 1974)

Here’s an exciting suggestion for a triple bill: all three screen adaptations of Ben Hecht and Charles Macarthur’s classic play, ‘The Front Page’. While I started from the last, going in reverse — Billy Wilder’s penultimate feature was my introduction — the order of the features really does not matter. But if you would, start at the very beginning, then gradually uncover how each new adaptation is in dialogue with the ones before it, and how all three screen adaptations are individually in dialogue with the original theatre play, their source material.

Written by Ben Hecht and Charles Macarthur, as their ‘love letter’ to their old occupation, the play barely conceals its real-life inspirations. Every single character is drawn out on real-life counterparts, and I would redirect the reader of this piece to defer to the Wikipedia of the play for details. For this piece is not about the direct-life inspirations of the play or its socio-political impact on the times (it had none), for the play was written and conceived first and foremost as a comedy, and never pretended to be any more than that.

In the Press Room of the Cook County Criminal Courts Building, rotten, conniving reporters from all over the city are lounged with direct lines back to their respective offices are partying and playing poker, covering the imminent hanging of one Earl Williams, a reported Communist, a ‘red’ Bolshevik’, who was caught killing a black policeman. Our hero, Hildy Johnson, reporter for ‘The Examiner’ arrives late on the scene, only to bid goodbye to his comrades, letting them know that he has quit his job and is getting married. As the story progresses, we discover that Earl Williams is obviously not the menacing, dangerous and threatening troublemaker he is made out to be, but a petite, infirm and harmless young man framed as a Communist, to be hanged as a means of posturing by the city’s Mayor and Sheriff who have scheduled the hanging two days before the election. We are made aware how important it is to hang a Bolshevik who killed a ‘colored’ cop, to secure the ‘colored vote’ of the city. Through a series of hilarious mishaps one after another, Williams escapes and lands in Hildy’s lap, who takes it upon himself to hide the man everyone is after, and reluctantly lands the help of his boss, the even more rotten, conniving, ruthless Editor of the ‘Examiner’ who doesn’t pull any punches, leaves no stone unturned and doesn’t shy away from the most immoral, let alone the most illegal activities to get what he wants. What does he want more than anything right now: to stop Hildy Johnson from leaving his job!

When the movie was first made in 1931, produced by Howard Hughes, it was not simply cashing in on the instant success of the play on-stage, but was also attempting a sort of commentary, as it was contemporary and did not shy from showing how journalists of the time were, at that time. It gained handsomely with additional touches of genius dialogue provided to the script by Charles Lederer, and impeccable performances by Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien as Burns and Hildy respectively. The bravest of the three adaptations socio-politically speaking, it has one brilliant line that stood out to me, that I found absent in the subsequent versions of Wilder and Hawks: “it is better to die for a cause, than the way most people die–for no reason”, spoken by a dying Earl Williams to his sweetheart Mollie.

Nine years later Howard Hawks had the brilliant idea of making Hildy Johnson a woman, instead of a man, changing the entire dynamic of the story, not only adding new layers to the humor of the play, but also expanding their avenues immensely. For instance, a line like, “If you want me, take me as I am, instead of making a floozy out of me.” delivered by a male Hildy to his female fiancé, hits totally different when a female Hildy played by Rosalind Russell delivers the same line to her male fiancé, played by Ralph Bellamy.

That is just one idea of the many dimensions the story unlocks once its central protagonist’s gender is changed. ‘The Front Page’ is surely a fast-paced comedy, but Hawks takes ‘His Girl Friday’ to a screwball level, in typical Hawks fashion, with overlapping dialogue and lack of breath. The famous opening shot shows the energy in the office of Burns’ newspaper which establishes the pace the film will take over the next hour and half, and it never once slows down. Cary Grant’s Walter Burns is the meanest of the three, for my money, anyway, but that could have something to do with the fact that owing to my male gender, I find it harder to see a female Hildy Johnson reject her sweet fiancé (Ralph Bellamy) for the completely repulsive, rude, abusive, absolute rat of a conniving maniac, Walter Burns. There is something I find unsettling about the fact that the movie is selling the stereotype of women liking ‘bad boys’ and ditching the ‘nice guys’. But perhaps I refuse that right and agency for a female character to be flawed, to be a bad person herself, a ‘newspaperman’. But if that is the case, I wish Hawks gave us more scenes pointing in that direction. However, conversely, no such demand is made of Wilder and Milestone to prove their Hildys as ‘newspapermen’. They simply are, by virtue of them being male, and working as writers for a newspaper. Regardless, some moments of His Girl Friday show unjustly harsh and cold behaviour by Burns to not only Hildy’s fiancé, but also to his mother, which borders on not funny. Perhaps, that part of the comedy has aged a little. Granted, that in neither of the three versions does Hildy Johnson succeed in escaping from the ‘newspaper business’, but the Wilder treatment of Walter Burns seems a lot milder, even if it is singularly owing to the unending charm of Walter Matthau.

Cary Grant’s Walter Burns is the meanest, rudest, most offensive depiction of the character. If he was written as a revolting, conniving little sewer rat, in His Girl Friday, he stinks through the screen. And this is only a testament to Hawks and Grant’s skill as filmmakers.

One moment that I found poignant and which exists in both the Milestone and Hawks film, but is missing from the Wilder film, occurs when Mollie first appears in the newsroom. After her outrage, the boys have had enough of her and don’t think twice before laying their hands on her. They pick her up and throw her out of the room, she curses them and leaves. After she leaves, everyone is silent for a good few seconds, before they give up playing cards, having lost the mood for it. This moment is indicative of the cloud of guilt hanging over that pressroom, that these men knew what they did was wrong, and Mollie reminded them of it. Even Hawks’ 100 mile-an-hour His Girl Friday slowed down specifically for this moment, and then took off again, without skipping a beat.

Wilder’s version is significantly different from Hawks’ as his justification to remake ‘The Front Page’ was the brilliant idea to cast Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns. Owing to their brilliant screen chemistry and off-screen friendship, having already established themselves as ‘the greatest movie buddies of all time’, Wilder exploited this dynamic, combined with his unique, sardonic touch (which incidentally assumed warm and fuzzy overtones later in his career), this latest remake is nothing short of an absolute delight. While Lemmon is the front-stage, handsome, reliable protagonist gifted with impeccable comedic timing as cherry on top, it is always Matthau who singularly transcends not simply the story and words of Hecht and Macarthur, but also comedy itself.

WALTER BURNS (MATTHAU) ARTICULATING WHAT HE STANDS FOR

With all of this working for him, Wilder and IAL Diamond minimize their contribution for the most part, ensuring that their personalities do not overpower and hinder the actors and the story. This is a work of great skill that looks simple, but could very easily be botched up real bad, by a lesser director. Out of the three screen adaptations, only Billy Wilder’s 1974 adaptation places the movie firmly and concretely in a geographic place and time. Not only is Chicago explicitly shown, the paper Hildy and Burns work at is explicitly called the ‘Chicago Examiner’, the Cook County Courthouse Building is shown in no uncertain terms, the other reporters also belong to real newspapers of the time, and there are even references to real-life events that give us an idea of when and where this story takes place, like: Leopold and Loeb trial, the Scopes-Monkey Trial in Tennessee, and finally the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, incidentally also referenced by Wilder earlier, in ‘Avanti!’. In contrast, Howard Hawks begins ‘His Girl Friday’ with the not-so-subtle disclaimer that the story is set in ‘the dark ages’ of ‘the newspaper game’, with no resemblance to ‘the men and women of the press of today’, while Lewis Milestone begins his movie with the simple title card: ‘THIS STORY IS LAID IN A MYTHICAL KINGDOM’. This is not to say either of the three versions were not true to the source material or pulled any punches.

If Wilder’s is the only version that firmly places the film in our reality, it is only because he can afford to do so. In the 70s when the ‘yellow journalism’ farce had completely died out and more sinister, systematized mutilations of it taken over, ‘The Front Page’ lost most of its urgency and relevance, except maybe as a sort of time capsule for 70s audiences, who could peek in and look at the roots of the rot. Free from the socio-political overtones, Wilder was free to explore this film for what he loved most–an exercise in structure, timing and blocking.

In an interview with Roger Ebert conducted as Wilder was filming this movie, he said that he had taken great pains to conserve the structure of the story as it is, which is tight as a drum. Working within those confines, he did take some liberties and made considerable changes: the fiance’s mother’s character was taken out, a completely superficial character that served no purpose in the first movie, and was only in the second one as an object of ridicule. The character of Louie, Burns’ reliable goon who ran questionable errands for him without asking any questions was cut off too. Both of these minor characters have little to do with the real plot, substituted with a single new character, ‘Rudy Keppler’, a new, young journalist who is to replace Burns. Having studied journalism in college with no real ‘on ground’ experience, Keppler is the ridicule of the hard-boiled, real ‘newspapermen’ in the pressroom. With the character of ‘Rudy Keppler’, Wilder also juxtaposes for the first time, the three generations of journalists in the pressroom. The old guard characterised by the mannered-spoken, old-fashioned poet, Bensinger, the future of journalism characterised by Keppler, and the other reporters signifying the ‘yellow’ journalists, depicting the jaundice endemic of that period. The special Wilder touch here is that he marries off the old guard with the new guard as we’re told Keppler and Bensinger move to Cape Cod together at the end of the film, while the rest of the gang spend their days half-blind as copyboys behind a desk.

Another perhaps, more subtle homosexual gag comes in the middle of the picture when Burns has already succeeded in convincing Hildy not to run away and get married. In the pressroom as Hildy types away like a monkey his big story, Burns is coordinating logistics on the phone with his head office, screaming like an angry gorilla, while the ‘outsider’ Peggy watches the two like she’s watching two crazed animals in a cage. Then with a unique Wilder touch, the scene shifts to a POV of Peggy: Hildy, with both hands typing away asks Burns for a cigarette, Burns lights one, takes a drag himself, then puts it in Hildy’s mouth. He then looks up straight at Peggy, the meanest look he ever gave, as if he was putting that cigarette out in her face, as if to say “You’ve lost, now go home”. That seals the deal for her too, and she leaves. It isn’t anything personal for Walter Burns: he will sell his own mother for a good story, just as they tell it to the Mayor. Walter Burns here seems a lot like Wilder’s Sherlock Holmes, a man who keeps working, cannot recall the last woman in his life, and who sleeps in his study.

In no version of the story is Hildy Johnson able to successfully escape the ‘newspaper business’, but none of them are exactly sad or tragic. They are cynical, yes, but perhaps it would be even more cynical to portray newspapermen like these finding love in the end and all that. Perhaps then, Howard Hawks’ brilliance surpasses the bleakest of cynicisms when, after making his Hildy a woman and having Burns’ motivations not simply as keeping her on the job but also ‘winning’ her back, he marries them off in the end. Not only is Hildy unable to leave the ‘dirty business’, she will now be quite literally ‘married’ to the job, a total complete ownership by the boss and husband, husband and boss, she has become the ideal ‘newspaperman’.

If you’re not happy about Rosalind Russell dumping her nice fiancé for the rude and repulsive Walter Burns, too bad, because she is happy!

All three adaptations of ‘The Front Page’ taken together form a sort of holistic whole, with the first being a comedy with an urgent message, the second an all-out speeding screwball comedy, and the final version, the most honest to the source material, finally brings the story back to where its set, in our reality. Through the three we can trace the evolution of film culture and sentiments of different times, and how the filmmakers adapted to censorship, both outright and ‘soft’, while not compromising on the story. It is a masterclass in adaptation. In addition, the play itself, and either of the three adaptations are a masterclass in great storytelling. As Wilder put it, the story is ‘as tight as a drum’. If you take one element out, everything tumbles. You have to be careful rearranging it. Not one word is wasted, not one moment overstayed its welcome, not one bit of information repeated twice, not one joke indulged in itself. Everything serves a calculated, precise purpose, and it is so neatly sewn together, we’re never made aware of the inner workings and mechanics of it all. Perhaps, this is old-fashioned storytelling. Perhaps the story has aged as much in form, as it has in content. Even so, as new generations grow exceedingly apart from the roots of storytelling, we might do better in going back to basics once in a while.

Ben Hecht and Charles Macarthur were way ahead of their times, and inspired comedy writers in Hollywood for generations to come. ‘THE FRONT PAGE’ has had the very rare fortune in cinema history, to have only faithful adaptations and suffer no ugly mutilations whatsoever. As Wilder said in the interview with Roger Ebert, ‘Hecht and Macarthur would be proud’.

--Written for AmoralHighorse as AmoralKritik.