A reporter wants to marry the gal of his dreams but has to divorce his Boss first! Lewis Milestone’s early sound film is atypical of the era, as his characters speak quickly with overlapping dialogue and seemingly without time to breath! Lines are screamed at machine-gun pace while the actors constantly move like sharks, taking substance from the very ether. The movements are expertly blocked as the camera tracks and moves without losing focus though a few times the actors almost walk quickly out of the frame! DP Glen MacWilliams does an excellent job of photographing and creating interesting compositions for what could have been such a static film. He uses reflections and mirrors to depict an altered and superficial reality to great effect and shoots low-angle with two-shots (or more!) while his camera moves and dances with the action. The dialogue is at the mercy of early sound design and can sometimes be difficult to understand while even the overhead microphone dips briefly into one scene. The film is shot in long takes with many moving parts and a subtle mistake would probably take days to re-shoot!
The story involves a gaggle of newspaper reporters waiting to get the scoop on an execution. When the convict escapes, Hildy (Pat O’Brien) and his boss Mr. Burns (Adolphe Menjou) become part of the slapstick escapade. Both actors are excellent and Menjou deserves his Academy Award Nomination but the always excellent Edward Everett Horton as the germaphobe Bensinger steals every scene he’s in! The language is bawdy even for Pre-Code but it’s the pictures of naked women on the wall that seal the deal. If you can see this on Blu-ray and on a big screen (similar resolution and size of the original projection) the pictures are obviously meant to be noticed by the audience. The opening credits are printed on a newspaper with the film’s title as the headline and a photo of each actor is depicted with a caption as the pages are turned. Very cool.
An adrenaline-fueled comedy of criminal errors and hard-boiled reporters sacrificing morals for a headline, THE FRONT PAGE has been remade by Howard Hawks as HIS GIRL FRIDAY and is Grandfather to the entire ink stained Fourth Estate genre.
Final Grade: (B)
