--- title: "The Front Page" year: 1974 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-front-page" fi1m_score: 60 critics_score: 49 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-19T21:47:22.072083+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T21:47:36.361349+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Front Page (1974) Directed by Billy Wilder · 1h 45m · MPA PG · Comedy **Fi1m score: 60** · Critics 49 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Everyone in the press room is shouting; Matthau is the only one worth listening to > The third screen version of the Hecht and MacArthur newsroom play gives Walter Matthau the film’s one great part and shouts most of the rest. Funny in bursts, coarse in between, and slower than a farce can afford to be. ## Synopsis Chicago, 1929. In the press room of the Criminal Courts Building, a pack of reporters plays cards and waits for Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton), a timid man convicted of shooting a policeman, to be hanged at dawn. Hildebrand Johnson (Jack Lemmon), the paper’s star reporter, has come in to say goodbye: he has quit to marry Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon) and take a job in Philadelphia, and their train leaves tonight. His editor Walter Burns (Walter Matthau) has no intention of letting him go. The Sheriff (Vincent Gardenia) and the Mayor (Harold Gould) want the hanging on schedule, with an election days away. Then a psychiatrist, Dr. Max J. Eggelhofer (Martin Gabel), arrives to examine the prisoner, and the evening stops going to plan. ## Review Billy Wilder and his long-time writing partner Diamond have taken the Hecht and MacArthur play about Chicago newspapermen, the one Howard Hawks turned into [*His Girl Friday*](https://film.one/film/his-girl-friday) in 1940, and filmed it more or less as written: two men, one press room, one night. Hildebrand Johnson (Jack Lemmon), the star reporter, has handed in his notice so he can marry Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon) and move to Philadelphia; Walter Burns (Walter Matthau), his editor, intends to stop him. Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton), a frightened little man convicted of shooting a policeman, is due to hang in the morning, and the Sheriff (Vincent Gardenia) and the Mayor (Harold Gould) need him hanged on time because there is an election coming. It runs 105 minutes, and Wilder plays it as farce with the volume up. Matthau is the reason to watch. His Burns lies to Johnson, lies to Peggy, lies to the police and to a psychiatrist, and does it with the patience of a man who has never been caught and does not expect to start now. He has one long telephone scene, running a newspaper from a filthy press room while pretending to be somebody else, and we laughed harder there than anywhere else in the film, because Matthau never raises his voice while everyone round him is screaming. Wilder has the sense to leave the camera on him. Lemmon has the harder job and does less with it. Johnson is meant to be the best reporter in the city, a man who cannot walk past a story, and Lemmon plays him as a man who cannot walk past a doorway without hitting it. He looks too old for the character’s problem, which is whether to grow up and leave the trade. He and Matthau still work well together; the rhythm of their rows is the rhythm of two actors who have done this before and like each other. But we never once believed Johnson would get on that train to Philadelphia, and a farce needs the threat. The rest of the press room is filled with faces worth having. Charles Durning, Herb Edelman and Allen Garfield play cards, telephone in lies and treat a man’s death as a filing deadline, and the film is at its best when it simply watches them. David Wayne’s Roy Bensinger is the one member of the pack with any manners and is punished for them. Pendleton’s Williams is a small, blinking man who cannot understand how he got here; when he explains his politics to a doctor who is not listening, we felt a pity the rest of the picture has no room for. Sarandon has almost nothing to play and plays it with grace. What has gone wrong is tone. Wilder and Diamond have kept the play’s bones and roughened the dialogue, so the reporters swear where they used to insult, and they sound cruder for it, not funnier. Jordan Cronenweth lights the press room in a flat brown cigar-smoke glow that suits the period, and Burton Miller’s suits and hats sit right, but what happens inside those frames is loud: doors slam, men trip, the telephone rings over the punchline. Ralph E. Winters cuts briskly, yet there are stretches where five people are shouting at once and we could not hear the joke. We were tired by the hour mark, and a farce should not tire you. Wilder made [*Ace in the Hole*](https://film.one/film/ace-in-the-hole) in 1951, a cold, clear film about a reporter, and next to it this looks like a man returning to a subject he had finished with. Next to *His Girl Friday*, the comparison nobody can avoid, it is slower and meaner and less in love with its own talk. Most critics have found it wanting on both counts, and we do not think they are wrong; we simply had a better time than they did, nearly all of it when Matthau is alone with a telephone. Watch it for Matthau, for Pendleton, and for a room full of good character actors given cigars and a deadline. Watch it at home, where you can turn the sound down to a level at which the lines come through. The 12 certificate is mostly for the language, which is the least funny thing in it. *Fi1m score 60, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews lean negative, with four of the seven judging Billy Wilder’s version of the Hecht-MacArthur play the least of its screen adaptations. Where praise gathers, it gathers on the cast. Walter Matthau’s scheming editor is singled out again and again, and his pairing with Jack Lemmon is thought to work even by critics who dislike the film around it. The period settings and Wilder’s soundstage staging draw some warmth too. The complaints cluster on the comedy itself: forced slapstick, coarsened dialogue, noise where the play had rhythm. Several critics measure it against Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday and find it redundant. The spread is wide. Paste is the one admirer, preferring it to the Hawks film for keeping the male leads and dropping the romance. The New York Times is the mildest of the doubters, finding it uneven but often funny. The Playlist adds that Wilder himself was reportedly not proud of it. ### Reviews we read (7) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (60/100, inferred): The film is uneven but shows Wilder's characteristic giddy bitterness and is often extremely funny. It preserves the play's core story and setting while updating the dialogue somewhat roughly, with standout performances from Walter Matthau as the ruthless editor and Austin Pendleton as the condemned man. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/19/archives/wilders-uneven-film-of-front-pagethe-cast.html) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (50/100, inferred): Wilder's adaptation of the classic play feels dated even at release, with the satire blunted by changing times and Lemmon struggling in his role. Matthau delivers a scathingly comic performance as the scheming editor. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/front-page-review/) - **The AV Club**, Ryan Vlastelica (40/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as superfluous, an unnecessary adaptation of the play that lacks the romantic spark of Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday. It is not bad, with strong chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, but the story feels like overkill without the gender-flipped element. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/where-to-start-with-the-films-of-billy-wilder-1798280633) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (40/100, inferred): The movie is enjoyable on a low level as a broad, noisy comedy but diminishes the play's style and distinction through rewritten dialogue, chaotic overlapping sound, and added acrid elements that turn it into something more like Three Stooges fare. It succeeds commercially but sacrifices the original's precise, intoxicating rhythm and wit for broad appeal. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/01/27/hardboiled-valentine) - **Time Out**, GA (40/100, inferred): This is the weakest of the three film adaptations of the Hecht-MacArthur stage comedy. It leans too heavily on profanity, forced slapstick and shallow cynicism compared to the superior Hawks version, though the strong ensemble cast stands out. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-front-page-1) - **Paste**, Oktay Ege Kozak and Paste Staff (90/100, inferred): The critic calls this their favorite screen adaptation of the Hecht-MacArthur play, preferring it over His Girl Friday for sticking to the original male protagonists and avoiding the romance subplot and dated sexism. They single out the strong Lemmon-Matthau chemistry and Wilder’s nostalgic, soundstage-bound old Hollywood aesthetic. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/ranking-the-films-of-billy-wilder) - **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff ([B]): The critic finds the film a redundant remake that lacks the zip and energy of His Girl Friday despite solid chemistry between Lemmon and Matthau and some pleasures in the period settings. It is viewed as a decidedly minor effort that the director was not particularly proud of. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-films-of-billy-wilder-a-retrospective-20120327/6/) ## Details - **Director:** Billy Wilder - **Director:** Billy Wilder - **Screenplay:** Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond - **Cinematography:** Jordan Cronenweth - **Editor:** Ralph E. Winters - **Costume design:** Burton Miller - **Producer:** Paul Monash - **Cast:** Jack Lemmon as Hildebrand Johnson; Walter Matthau as Walter Burns; Susan Sarandon as Peggy Grant; Vincent Gardenia as Sheriff; David Wayne as Roy Bensinger; Allen Garfield as Kruger; Austin Pendleton as Earl Williams; Charles Durning as Murphy - **Runtime:** 1h 45m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 18 December 1974 - **Genres:** Comedy - **Budget:** $4 million - **Box office:** $15 million ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, CH, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HU, IE, IL, IN, IT, LT, NL, NO, PL, SE, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *His Girl Friday* (1940), Fi1m 90: The same play with the star reporter as a woman, played faster than seems possible. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/his-girl-friday.md) - *Ace in the Hole* (1951), Fi1m 87: Wilder on newspapermen without the jokes; Kirk Douglas sells a trapped man for headlines. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ace-in-the-hole.md) - *The Fortune Cookie* (1966): Lemmon and Matthau’s first pairing, with Matthau as an even more shameless liar. - *Sweet Smell of Success* (1957): Manhattan press agents and columnists at night; the cruelty here is meant to sting. - *The Day the Earth Caught Fire* (1961): A Fleet Street newsroom covers the end of the world with British understatement. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-front-page