The Front Page (1974) - Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau movies, with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, or one or the other

Director

Billy Wilder

Cast
Jack Lemmon - Hildebrand 'Hildy' Johnson
Walter Matthau - Walter Burns
Susan Sarandon - Peggy Grant
Vincent Gardenia - Sheriff "Honest Pete" Hartman
Carol Burnett - Mollie Malloy
Austin Pendleton - Earl Williams
David Wayne - Roy Bensinger
Allen Garfield - Kruger
Charles Durning - Murphy
Herb Edelman - Schwartz
Harold Gould - The Mayor
John Furlong - Duffy
Jon Korkes - Rudy Keppler
Cliff Osmond - Officer Jacobi
Paul Benedict - Plunkett

"Journalists. Bunch of crazy buttinskies with dandruff on their shoulders and holes in their pants. Peeking through keyholes, waking people up in the middle of the night to ask them what they think about Aimee Semple McPherson. Stealing pictures off old ladies of their daughters that get raped in Oak Park. And for what? So a million shop girls and motormen's wives can get their jollies. And the next day, somebody wraps the front page around a dead mackerel." - Hildy Johnson ('The Front Page') 

If "The Odd Couple" is the movie that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are most remembered for, "The Front Page" should be the second movie they're remembered for. 

I feel like their usual roles are reversed a bit in Billy Wilder's 1974 comedy "The Front Page," the third movie Lemmon and Matthau appear in together. 

In "The Fortune Cookie" and "The Odd Couple," Jack Lemmon's character is somehow at the mercy of Matthau's character. However, in this movie, Matthau's Walter Burns is at Jack Lemmon's Hildy Johnson's mercy. Matthau is the pain in the backside this time. 

"The Front Page" is based on the 1928 play also titled "The Front Page" by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

It's the third film adaptation following "The Front Page" from 1931 and "His Girl Friday" from 1940 with Cary Grant as Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson. 

The movie is set in 1920's Chicago. The twenties, by the way, is my favorite decade as I've mentioned in my commentary of Milos Forman's movie, "Ragtime." So, that's an added perk. The movie as an atmospheric feel similar to the movie "The Sting" which came out the year before. 

Anyways, in this movie Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon) is about to quit his news reporting job at the Chicago Examiner as he's getting hitched to his fiancé, Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon). He's the best reporter the Chicago rag has got. Hildy's departure comes at the great chagrin of his editor, Walter Burns (Walter Matthau). To add salt to Walter's wound, Hildy is taking on a new gig (besides marriage) in advertising. 

"You mean you're going to be writing crap like 'I'd walk a mile for a Camel', or 'Quick, Henry, the Flit'," Burns says at the news. 
Hildy replies, "You bet! For 150 bucks a week!"
"Hildy, you're a newspaper man! Not some faggot writing poetry about brassieres and laxatives," Burns says. 

This departure falls right as a big story involving the hanging of Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton), a scrawny wimp of a leftist dweeb with Communist sympathies, is about to explode. Williams had previously been inserting propaganda demanding the release of murderer anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti into a fortune cookies. 

Well, somewhere in the process, Williams had "accidentally" murdered a police officer. 

Now, he's on death row waiting for his turn at the gallows. 

As Hildy is saying adios to the newswriting business, Earl Williams escapes prison the night before his execution. 

Not only does he escape, but he also secretly makes his way right into the courthouse next door to his jail. Even more specifically, Williams crashes into the courthouse pressroom where Hildy is sitting by himself after he and his old press buddies have one last hurrah! The rest of the reporters scamper off like a pack of hungry wolves to find Williams. 

Hildy can't resist this whopper of a story in the last few moments of his journalism career. 

It's just him and Williams, and a typewriter. 

Well, Williams's romantic fling, Mollie Malloy (Carol Burnett), an "angel of the pavement" to put it nicely who lurks around the press room to yell at the reporters, barges in to find Williams there with Hildy in the pressroom. 

Hildy dials up Burns to tell him what just landed in the palm of his hand (not referring to Mollie, of course). He gets to writing the biggest story he's ever written all while trying to hide Williams from the police as well as trying to make it to the train station with Peggy to catch a train to Philadelphia for their wedding and honeymoon. Peggy, growing more and more ticked, is willing to catch that train on her own if Hildy doesn't shake a leg.  

I'm biased when it comes to my love of this movie as I was once a news reporter for a paper in Junction City, Kan. I had a few reporting stints before then, but the JC paper is where I really fell into place. 

I'm comfortable in a newsroom. There's something about providing people with news and information that appeals to me. So, "The Front Page" is a movie I love. Plus, having Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in it makes it perfectly cast. 

Carol Burnett stars alongside Lemmon and Matthau. As far as I'm concerned, she's one of the best (if not the best) female comedian! And if Lemmon and Matthau had a third member to their unofficial act, it would and should be Carol Burnett.  

In an interview with Conan O'Brien, Burnett said of her performance in this movie, "I was terrible in it. I was just awful." 

Sorry, Carol. Maybe I don't know good acting from bad, but I enjoyed watching you play off Lemmon and Matthau. Maybe there was more your character could have done. Or you could have shared more screen time with them. The chemistry is there. At least it could have been a jumping off point to more projects with them. 

Watching her play against Matthau and Lemmon still feels like a true golden movie moment. She's a perfect addition to Lemmon and Matthau. 

Speaking of Matthau, his performance as a gruff editor is spot on. Editors don't care about the personal problems of their writers. A writer could have a story on deadline and wind up comatose in a hospital or unconscious in a ditch. It's in an editor's nature or mindset to hound the writer regardless to get the story done. Don't die now. There's space in the paper that needs filled.

During my stint at the paper, I once had to take a story home to work on it as my wife was heading out for the night and I needed to watch the kids. I still needed to finish a big feature I was working on. I was already passed deadline. So people were waiting for me. Right in the middle of things, my poor wife hit a deer. She was ok. And our newborn who was with her was also ok. But her car wasn't. My editor was sympathetic but frustrated as hell because my feature needed to land on the front page. And the paper needed to be put to bed. 

I finished my story with a lot of sweat on my brow and some choice words muttered under my breath. Mea culpa. 

Anyways, Matthau captures the nature of a newspaper editor wonderfully. They're a bunch of cold, heartless, self-righteous know-it-alls. Cigarettes and booze were invented with news writers in mind first because they work for editors. 

Editors! Their paychecks get them out of bed and the minute hand keeps them going. 

Once, someone pointed out some grammatical errors on this platform. I told this guy "Sorry. I'm a writer. Not an editor."

"Well, why don't you get an editor?"

"What! And take the fun out of blogging?"

The lines and back-n-forth jargon and yelling between Walter and Hildy holds the comedy as Walter schemes to keep his best reporter on. 

"You'd wreck my marriage just to keep me on that crummy paper of yours," Hildy tells Burns.

And the best line Lemmon delivers - "I wouldn't cover the last supper for you if they held it in the pump room of the Ambassador East." 

The supporting cast of news writers are some yellow journalists with a matter of fact, what ya see is what ya get demeanor. News writing is second nature to these clowns, except for Bensinger (David Wayne) who's the dandy storyteller of the bunch. Woo, woo!

You've seen "His Girl Friday" right? Of course you have! I just watched it last night before finishing this post. So, let's compare. 

Vince Gardenia as Sheriff "Honest Pete" Hartman fits the role well. The character is a real stooge for the mayor (Harold Gould). Gardenia matches the kind of character Hartman is - a yes-man who thinks he's a master at hiding his corruption concerned at hiding his corruption and is more concerned at being useful for the mayor than for the taxpayers. 

Gene Lockhart plays the same character in "His Girl Friday", but his depiction is less unlikeable. He isn't as much of a buffoon, though he's still a buffoon, as Gardenia's portrayal. 

"The Front Page" has a lot of humor but with just enough energy to make it entertaining. 

"His Girl Friday" tells a ever-so-slightly different story with Hildy being played by Rosalind Russell, a former wife of Walter Burns and still working as his reporter. So, there's more of a romantic plot. However, "His Girl Friday" has a lot more energy behind it, and just enough humor to hold it up. 

Cary Grant's performance as Walter Burns in "His Girl Friday" goes from his being the jerk of jerks (you know... a typical editor) to likeable (also, typical editor for some fluke reason). 

Matthau in the same role pulls off that same sort of performance with not as much energy as Grant. He makes up for it with hilarious gruffness and a hard exterior. 

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon are just as much of a perfect cast for this story as they are in "The Odd Couple" and their later comedy "Grumpy Old Men." 

The image of Jack Lemmon sitting in front of a Royal manual typewriter pounding out a story with sweat glistening his brow, a cigarette dangling from his lips, liquor bottles staggered in front of him, and his tie and collar undone while Walter Matthau looms over him, saying "atta boy, Hildy" is iconic. Their chemistry carries on in their respective performances as a hard-shelled selfish editor and a reporter who'll get the story any way he can.

Lemmon and Matthau are a raucous version of Laurel and Hardy, sort of, in this newsroom comedy. I could easily see Walter telling Hildy, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." Instead of crying, Hildy would shout back, "Listen, you lousy baboon. You better start wearing cast-iron shorts because the next time I see you, I'm gonna bury my shoe up your ass, so help me."

No one else could fit this scenario as well as these two guys. "The Front Page" is an underrated classic.