The Front Page

The Front Page is a 1931 American pre-Code screwball black comedy film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on the 1928 Broadway play of the same name by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The supporting cast includes Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton, Walter Catlett, George E. Stone, Mae Clarke, Slim Summerville, and Matt Moore. At the 4th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Picture, Milestone for Best Director, and Menjou for Best Actor. In 2010, this film was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film is in the public domain. Two versions of the film exist, each made up of different takes, one for the international market and director Lewis Milestone's preferred version for its original U.S. domestic release. Both versions are available on home video. Plot In an unnamed large city with multiple daily newspapers, star reporter Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson and his Morning Post editor, Walter Burns, hope to cash in on a big story involving an escaped convicted murderer, Earl Williams. Williams is scheduled to go to the gallows at 7 o'clock the following morning for an anarchist-related murder of a black policeman. Esteemed newspaperman Johnson is about to quit the journalism trade and is on his way to marry his sweetheart Peggy Grant and relocate to New York City where an advertising job awaits him. Not surprisingly, his unscrupulous boss Burns does not want him to quit. He wants Johnson to remain on his staff so he can cover the major news story for the Morning Post.