Critics’ reviews

The Front Page (1974)

7 reviews from 7 publications. Critics’ score 49: 1 positive, 2 mixed, 4 negative.

Positive

Mixed

Negative

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.

The New York Times

19 December 1974 · Vincent Canby

60*

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.

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Empire

5 April 2006 · David Parkinson

50*

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.

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The AV Club

5 June 2015 · Ryan Vlastelica

40*

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.

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The New Yorker

20 January 1975 · Pauline Kael

40*

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.

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Time Out

10 September 2012 · GA

40*

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.

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Paste

20 July 2018 · Oktay Ege Kozak and Paste Staff

90*

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.

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The Playlist

27 March 2012 · [B] · The Playlist Staff

30*

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.

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Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate