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The Front Page [1931]

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Director:Lewis Milestone
Writer:Bartlett Cormack
Length:101 minutes
(1 hour 41 minutes)
MPAA Rating:UR
Sorting Category:Drama
IMDB Rating:7.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating:90%
Amazon Rating:3.5/5 stars
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are subject to change
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Classifications:
  • Drama
  • Family
  • Comedy
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Synopsis: Hildy Johnson, newspaper reporter, is engaged to Peggy Grant and planning to move to New York for a higher paying advertising job.


Reaction: It's okay. A bit odd at times and at times a bit too frantic.


Personal Rating: 5/10

Select Cast and Crew
Lewis Milestone => Director
Bartlett Cormack => Writer
Ben Hecht => Play
Charles MacArthur => Play
Adolphe Menjou => Walter Burns
Clarence Wilson => Sheriff Peter B. 'Pinky' Hartman (as Clarence H. Wilson)
Clark Gable => Reporter with hat at table in the prison. (unconfirmed) (uncredited)
Dorothea Wolbert => Jenny
Edward Everett Horton => Roy V. Bensinger
Effie Ellsler => Mrs. Grant
Eugene Strong => Endicott (as Gene Strong)
Francis Ford => Carl, a Detective (uncredited)
Frank McHugh => Mac' McCue
Fred Howard => Schwartz (as Freddie Howard)
George E. Stone => Earl Williams
Gustav von Seyffertitz => Professor Max J. Engelhoffer (uncredited)
James Gordon => Fred, the Mayor
Mae Clarke => Molly Malloy
Mary Brian => Peggy Grant
Matt Moore => Ernie Kruger
Maurice Black => Diamond Louie
Pat O'Brien => Hildebrand 'Hildy' Johnson
Phil Tead => Wilson
Richard Alexander => Jacobi (uncredited)
Slim Summerville => Irving Pincus
Spencer Charters => Woodenshoes
Walter Catlett => Jimmy Murphy (as Walter L. Catlett)

Random Trivia For This Title:

  • [Academy Award Theater] broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on June 22, 1946 with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien reprising their film roles.
  • The play The Front Page opened at the Times Square Theater on August 14, 1929, and ran for 276 performances.
  • The journalists are all based on actual reporters who were Chicago colleagues of authors Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with most working alongside them at the courthouse. The real names were only slightly changed: Hildy Johnson was based on the real-life reporter [?] Hildebrand Johnson, Walter Burns was based on the editor [?] Walter Howey, and Mac McCue was based on reporter [?] Buddy McHugh.
  • [?] Louis Wolheim was originally cast to play Walter Burns, but Adolphe Menjou got the part when Wolheim died suddenly.
  • The last line of the play had to be partly obliterated by the sound of a typewriter being accidentally struck because the censors (even of that day) wouldn't allow the phrase "son-of-a-%!&{" to be used in a film.