*Chicago Restoration Premiere*

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1928 play is one of the most durable comedies in the American repertory and Lewis Milestone’s 1931 brash and brisk screen adaptation deserves a place of pride alongside it. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, this cynical valentine to the ink-stained wretches of the world chronicles ace reporter Hildy Johnson’s fitful efforts to get married, settle down, and leave his yellow profession behind. But Hildy’s hard-assed editor, Walter Burns, can’t lose his best scrivener, especially when the imminent execution of a Red rabble-rouser is worth its weight in column inches. The play would be adapted for the screen another half-dozen times (including formidable efforts by Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder), but Milestone’s 1931 version with Pat O’Brien and Adolph Menjou comes closest to matching Hecht and MacArthur’s devil-may-care immediacy; it’s not a period piece, but a vulgar salute ripping through the air.

Contemporary reviewers lavished THE FRONT PAGE with superlatives: Harry Alan Potamkin named Milestone as the first major cinema innovator since D.W. Griffith and Pare Lorentz urged his readers to see his “extraordinary movie” before “Mr. Hays, Mr. Akerson, or the Republican Committee on Humor burn all the available prints.” No prints were burned, but we have had to suffice with a toned-down version prepared for British audiences from alternate takes -- until now. Finally restored to the original American release version for the first time in decades, THE FRONT PAGE is a pre-Code marvel with a machine-gun stride.

Restored in 2016 by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation. Restoration funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation. Elements for this restoration provided by The Howard Hughes Corporation, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas College of Fine Arts, Department of Film and its Howard Hughes Collection at the Academy Film Archive. (KW)

35mm from Academy Film Archive