As part of my efforts to watch every film ever nominated for best picture, I recently watched 1931’s The Front Page (which lost to Cimarron, the first western to ever win best picture). 

The Front Page, which is based on a broadway play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, is the story of Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou) and his favorite reporter, Hildy Johnson (Pat O’Brien).  Hildy is planning on retiring from the newspaper business so he can get married and take a job in advertising.  Walter is determined to keep his star reporter.  Walter’s attempts to keep Hildy from quitting are played out against a larger background of civil corruption, cynical reporters, and an escaped death row inmate who ends up hiding out at the newspaper. 

It’s odd to watch a film like The Front Page today.  It’s not just the fact that the movie is technically primitive but that the film is such a product of its time and a lot has changed since 1931.  This is one of those old films where African-Americans are continually referred to as being “colored” and the modern-day audience cringes in discomfort and tries to figure out the correct way to react.  As a reviewer, I guess I’m supposed to explain how you should react but I really can’t say.  Personally, I look at a film like this as a reflection of its time and the casual, unthinking racism that was a part of the culture back then.  Then again, I’m not the one being called “a pickaninny.”  This is also another one of those old films where women are presented as distractions and the only work that’s worth doing is man’s work.  Oddly enough, the sexism didn’t surprise me as much as the racism.  Then again, sexism is still socially acceptable while our modern, patriarchal society now insists that people, at the very least, pretend not to be racist.

Still, as dated as many of the film’s attitudes may be, the movie’s cynicism and it’s portrayal of journalists as essentially being a bunch of biased, blood-sucking leeches does give the film a slightly more contemporary feel than most films from the 30s.  As Hildy and Walter, Pat O’Brien and Adolphe Menjou are both well cast and the rest of the film’s characters are played by a strong collection of character actors.  A surprisingly large amount of the cynical one-liners still work and, once you get used to the film’s pre-CGI style of filmmaking, it occasionally show some genuine visual flair.

Personally, I think that The Front Page makes a lot more sense once you acknowledge the unstated fact that Walter and Hildy are former lovers.  Hollywood realized the same thing because The Front Page was later remade as His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell taking over the Hildy Johnson role.

Anyway, for the curious, here’s The Front Page…