FILM REVIEWS

Howard Hawks' masterpiece of l940 is a splendid comedy remake of the quintessential “newspaper movie” of the l930s, The Front Page.

The screenplay, marked by a snappy dialogue and a major change in journalist's gender, was written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer.

The incomparable Cary Grant plays the conniving editor and ex-husband of Hildy (Rosalind Russell), his star reporter. Ralph Bellamy is cast as Russell's fiance, a mama-boy type, whose goal is to settle down into a quiet, domestic life in Albany!

The lunatic comedy is set amid a hot murder story that needs to be covered. Guess who gets to do the job Terrific character actors add sparkle to a must-see film that has become a cult work and one of the best examples of American screwball comedy.

Director Hawks keeps the pacing so fast, you need to see the film twice to really get the hilarious one-liners. Though his specialties were screwball comedies (Twentieth Century, Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire) and Westerns (Red River, Rio Bravo), Hawks's only Oscar nomination was for the war biopicture, Sergeant York.

Ron Howard's “The Paper” (l994) borrowed a lot of thematic and visual elements from both The Front Page and His Girl Friday.

Running Time: 92 min