From hack to
Hound of Heaven
Hotshot reporters as all-action heroes have been any director ’ s dream ticket ever since the talkies started . Philip Josse picks over the entrails of press movies that have hit the Hollywood headlines
Hollywood fell in love with the press as the Roaring Twenties drew to a close and the age of the talkies arrived . And , of course , it was a newsman who sparked the affair . Chicago Daily News reporter Ben Hecht had quit grubby sensationalism to try his hand at legit writing – playwriting ! And his The Front Page was an instant theatre hit in 1928 .
It didn ’ t take long for Hollywood to get in on the act . Hecht ’ s hit was purloined , and became one of the first of the talkies when it was released in 1931 .
Tinseltown , knowing a good story when it saw one , decided to add some glamour .
Director Howard Hawks reconfigured its characters , switching sexes of the protagonists ( now ex-spouses ), and a remake was released in 1940 as His Girl Friday , with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell starring .
Hot on their heels in 1941 came Orson Welles who ushered in big , bad Press tycoon Citizen Kane based on America ’ s first press baron William Randolph Hearst who believed news had to be sculpted to fit the actualité .
At the turn of the 19th century , he built America ’ s largest newspaper chain based on “ yellow journalism ” - sensationalised stories of dubious veracity .
Hearst was credited with the legendary instruction to a top illustrator sent to cover the Cuban war of independence against Spain , who telegraphed Hearst there was no fighting . Hearst responded : “ Please remain . You furnish the pictures and I ’ ll furnish the war .”
Fast forward to 1974 , and Hollywood does another Front Page makeover , reverting to type , and arguably the better for it . The genius was in the casting , with Walter Matthau playing irascible , conniving editor Walter Burns and Jack Lemmon as star reporter Hildy Johnson - who ’ s on the point of doing a Ben Hecht and quitting the scumbag newspaper business .
The genius of Hecht ’ s script was condensing the ultimate secret of the killer intro into one , eternal line , Matthau ’ s
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