December 20, 2020

THE FRONT PAGE (1974)

Billy Wilder's remake of Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht's 1928 play occupies a snug but odd place in the filmographies of all those in it. A snapshot of the differing states of the careers of its actors, crew, and writers, if you will. Already brought to the screen (slightly censored from the stage version) in 1931 and again in 1940 as His Girl Friday, the story struck again while the iron was hot in the wake of Watergate and a slew of films themed around the era's paranoia. That, coupled with the wave of nostalgia films also ubiquitous for the rest of the decade (Paper Moon, The Great Gatsby, The Sting), likely spurred Universal to throw their newsboy cap into the ring as well.

Jack Lemmon as Hildy Johnson

Walter Matthau as Walter Burns

Susan Sarandon as Peggy Grant

Austin Pendleton as Earl Williams

Vincent Gardenia (center) as Sheriff "Honest Pete" Hartman

Adapted by Wilder's main scribe I.A.L. Diamond, TFP takes advantage of a great cast, relaxed 70s standards, and timely source material to produce an admirable if ultimately mixed result.

Above: the only weather-related indication that the film takes place in June.

Indeed, a fundamental flaw that is soon noticed with TFP is its timing, pacing, and relative lack of tightness in its energy and direction. Wilder seemingly aims for lines of dialogue to simply not overlap, which is often doom for a fast-paced satire.

After the film's excellent opening credits, it loses considerable momentum
once we see the press room and the competing newsmen in it.

On the upside, Lemmon and Matthau are great together, and Diamond's screenplay rightfully expands Matthau's role and accommodates their winning chemistry. The factors of the source material's dialogue, Matthau and Lemmon's quicker timing, and far worse outings such as Buddy Buddy and The Odd Couple II have given me a new appreciation of this film on recent rewatches.

Pendleton said years later that Matthau and Lemmon didn't 
get along with Wilder over their conflicting approaches to the film. 
Tellingly, it's this portion of the film that seemingly has the most energy.

Gardenia is a standout, easily matching Matthau and Lemmon's energy
and making for a fun, blustery villain (relatively speaking).

Pendleton also fares well, adding a much-needed sweetness to the proceedings.

Make no mistake, TFP is not a long film (it's barely over an hour and forty minutes), but it can feel that way at times, especially in the first half. Perhaps Wilder was better off just allowing Matthau, Lemmon, and others to pick up the pace and inherent manic energy characteristic of the profession being satirized. 

THE ROLE OF ADAPTATION 

Diamond's script adds several new characters while removing several others, such as Hildy's future mother-in-law who Walter kidnaps (as hilarious as Matthau's Walter doing this would be).

Jon Korkes as Rudy Keppler
One of the best additions to this version, as it allows Walter to basically
troll Hildy from offscreen and emphasize Hildy's professional ego.

But the best immediate result of Diamond's adaptation is the expansion of Walter Burns' screentime, unsurprising given Matthau's star power and excellent casting.

I love how Walter just appears in the room here, a la Buddy Love.

The downside comes as a result of the aforementioned looser standards in language, as while Deliberate Values Dissonance is definitely in play here, the mentions of "f*ggot" and other words not in the original play come off as jarring and even a little cheap, especially given how characters already use terms like "red" and "pinko", (but not harsher versions of those words) in the period slang context. 

And that's before getting into the cringey implied actions (to Keppler)
of newsman Bensinger (David Wayne).



Diamond does a decent job adding events and action outside of the press room
setting, including this (visibly) sped-up chase of squad cars rushing to 
various alerts of Williams' whereabouts.

THE STUFF OF SLATES (AND THE REST...)

Wilder and Co. put together a stellar supporting cast for TFP. Loaded with character actors, Wilder regulars, and "before they were big"s, TFP's roster includes but is not limited to...

Herb Edelman (Stan on The Golden Girls and Murray in The Odd Couple (1968))
as Schwartz and Allen Garfield (Nashville, Beverly Hills Cop II) as Kruger

Charles Durning (Tootsie, The Muppet Movie, Peter Griffin's dad) as Murphy

Dick O'Neill (who costarred with Matthau that year in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three) as McHugh

Cliff Osmond (another Wilder regular) as Officer Jacobi, who was only mentioned in the play.

Harold Gould as the Mayor 

Paul Benedict (Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons) as Plunkett

THE REDHEAD IN THE ROOM...

Carol Burnett as Mollie Malloy

In the grand scheme of things, while not terrible at first, Burnett's portrayal of TFP's moral center is tonally mismatched to the rest of the film. My first viewing wasn't helped by having previously seen 1972's Pete 'n' Tillie, so imagine the whiplash seeing and hearing Burnett's pitched-too-high performance, almost diametrically opposed to the actors around her. 

Some time after the film's release, after it was shown as an in-flight movie on a flight she was on, Burnett stood up, went on the attendants' P.A. system, and apologized to her fellow passengers for what they had just witnessed, to great applause.

THE STUFF OF PLATES

Despite its flaws, I've found myself coming back to TFP time and time again for its period detail, cinematography (by Jordan Cronenweth), lighting, and atmosphere. It's not a far cry from other period films of the 70s, but its setting and somewhat-claustrophobic feel (for its 2.39:1 aspect ratio) reminds me of rainy winter nights at home rather than Chicago in the summertime (which you'd think would be hotter than seen in the film, but who knows).









1974: A banner year for trains, fog, and white lights.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

You know it's 1974 when the (intentionally) bland girlfriend is played by
Susan Freaking Sarandon, of all people.

The original Stormtrooper Aim.

Still shorter than the wait for Rex Kramer.

TIDBITS AND SUCH


TFP would later find itself featured (albeit with its clips out of order) in 2019's Dolemite is My Name (a film I highly recommend). It says something about TFP's place in film history when its most prominent appearance has it being lambasted by the main characters.

    

Like with its cinematography, another visual aspect of TFP that stuck with me was its great posters (U.S. and Japanese ones above). Given the amount that survives today in the form of posters, lobby cards, and foreign release materials, Universal seemed to have been gunning for a massive hit that ultimately fell a bit short.


The Front Page has found a new audience on DVD and Blu-ray, and while it's not deserving of being a mere footnote, its overall result leaves much to be desired, given its league of talent.


Copyright © Chynna Moore

2 comments:

  1. Being a huge Carol Burnett fan and having loved "The Odd Couple" when I was young, I was very eager to see "The Front Page" when it came out. But it was a Christmas season release that opened on the very same day as THE TOWERING INFERNO and AIRPORT 75...and you know how I love disaster movies. So I never got around to seeing this until it was almost gone from the theaters. Our entire family went, however, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Me, I have never seen it since 1975 and I remember next to nothing about it. SO I thank you for your wonderful post with its great screencaps that helped jog a memory or two. It really is a great period-looking film. But like as they reference in the DOLEMITE film, I don't suppose it had many laughs! Thank you, too, for your generous links to my blog. That's very kind of you. I found your piece very enjoyable and informative in structurally breaking down where some of the film worked for you and where it didn't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ken, I'm glad I could jog your memory! (These days, that's hard for me to do with my own memory!)

    The film turned a profit, but seemed largely forgotten outside of Wilder fans and Matthau and Lemmon fans for quite some time. With the North American Blu-ray release in 2019, the critical consensus seems to be "it's not great, but it's not as bad as others say". I, while disliking "Buddy Buddy", can't really muster up a totally improved view of this film.

    There really is so much that's good about it, but the whole film has an air of "something missing" during its runtime, and Wilder's efforts to make every line heard clearly (a decision Lemmon later regretted) drag down a story that's so critically dependent on timing.

    Thank you so much for your kind comments. This film's exterior shots (and final train station scene) were filmed in San Francisco, so you might be able to recognize them. ��

    ReplyDelete