The Front Page (1974)

          Item No. 1: Vienna-born writer-director Billy Wilder made his name co-writing delightful screwball comedies such as 1941’s Ball of Fire. Item No. 2: Adapted from the 1928 Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur stage play The Front Page, Howard Hawks’ 1940 film His Girl Friday is one of the unassailable classics of the screwball-comedy era. Item No. 3: If anyone had the qualifications to remake His Girl Friday, it was Wilder.

          Well, qualified or not, Wilder botched the job.

          One of the key elements of His Girl Friday (and great screwball comedies in general) was the clever use of euphemisms to slip outré material past censors. Wilder’s remake of The Front Page dumps the subtle approach in favor of tiresome vulgarity. Worse, Wilder’s remake ditches the best contrivance of His Girl Friday—Hawks’ movie flipped the gender of one of the play’s leading characters, transforming the original Hecht-MacArthur story about feuding frenemies into a crackling love story. Sure, Wilder had at his disposal two leading men with whom he’d achieved great results before, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, but dropping the battle-of-the-sexes angle was a bad call.

          As in the original play (Wilder’s movie retains the Hecht-MacArthur setting of the late ’20s), the story concerns gruff newspaper editor Walter Burns (Matthau), who wants his star reporter, Hildy Johnson (Lemmon), to cover the impending execution of a political revolutionary. Alas, Hildy has picked this day to quit the journalism business and get married, so Walter unscrupulously manipulates events to keep Hildy working. Meanwhile, the revolutionary escapes and seeks refuge in the courthouse newsroom, so Hildy shifts from covering a story to hiding a fugitive.

          In any incarnation, the Hecht-MacArthur script is filled with wonderful zingers, but Wilder and frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond dilute their adaptation with pointlessly crude additions. For instance, journalists remind a hooker (Carol Burnett, miscast and terrible) that if she hits the streets for money, doing so will cause “a lotta wear and tear on your ass.” She replies with equal sophistication, calling them “shitheels.” Elsewhere, Hildy excoriates Walter by saying, “The only time you get it up is when you put the paper to bed,” and Walter says that if Hildy takes a job writing ad copy, he’ll be a “faggot.”

          One cannot impugn the film’s technical execution, since Wilder uses limited sets effectively and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth gives the picture a fine polish; similarly, the Lemmon/Matthau bickering-buddies routine was among the smoothest in the business. But so what? All of this good effort was put in the service of a poorly conceived and totally unnecessary retread of material that, in at least two previous incarnations (the original stage play and the Hawks film), was already considered classic.

The Front Page: FUNKY

Rolling Thunder (1977)

          Based one of the many violent scripts Paul Schrader penned during his breakthrough period (Heywood Gould rewrote the screenplay), Rolling Thunder concerns Air Force Major Charles Rane (William Devane), a Vietnam vet who returns home to Texas after years in P.O.W. captivity. Numbed by torture, Rane has difficulty reintegrating into normal life, a problem exacerbated by the fact that his son doesn’t remember him and by the fact that his wife, who thought Rane was dead, is now engaged to another man. Thus, when thugs murder Rane’s family and mutilate him, Rane focuses his anger into a bloody revenge mission. Considering that Rane also has a hook for a hand throughout most of the movie, this is awfully pulpy stuff. Had Rolling Thunder been produced by, say, Roger Corman instead of Lawrence Gordon—who was just beginning a long career making smart, big-budget action flicks—the film could have become gruesome and sleazy.

          Instead, Gordon recruited sophisticated collaborators including director John Flynn, cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, and composer Barry DeVorzon, and the team created a thriller of unusual restraint. Rolling Thunder is a character-driven slow burn, because the film spends as much time depicting the hero’s devastated mental state as it does showcasing his lethal force. So, while generating tension is always the priority—witness several bloody brawls, as well as the unforgettable scene in which bad guys jam Rane’s hand into a kitchen-sink garbage disposal—Gordon’s team also makes room for nuance.

          For instance, the visual style that Cronenweth employs, which anticipates the tasty mixture of deep shadows and piercing beams of light that he later brought to Blade Runner (1982), is a strong presence—it’s as if the movie’s characters swim through an ocean of danger and menace. Furthermore, the Gould/Schrader script features terse dialogue exchanges that reflect Rane’s anguished mindset.

          Playing one of his few leading roles in a big theatrical feature, Devane is perfect casting. With his downturned mouth and heavy brow, he looks bitter even when he’s smiling, so once his eyes are hidden behind the aviator glasses he wears in many scenes, he seems believably dangerous; the sight of him in full bloodthirsty flight, a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a hook in place of the other, is hard to shake.

          Flynn surrounds Devane with equally well-chosen supporting players. Linda Haynes is naturalistic and tough as a waitress who becomes Rane’s travelling companion; reliable figures including Luke Askew, James Best, and Dabney Coleman infuse small roles with texture; and Tommy Lee Jones nearly steals the movie with his icy performance as Rane’s trigger-happy sidekick. In fact, Jones’ chilling delivery of the line “I’m going to kill a bunch of people” epitomizes the film’s clinical aesthetic, just like the priceless scene of Jones enduring inane family-room chatter crystallizes why some vets find it impossible to adjust once they’re “back in the world.” (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Rolling Thunder: GROOVY