The Front Page is a 1974 American comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's play of the same name , which has inspired several other films. Chicago Examiner reporter Hildy Johnson has just quit his job in order to marry Peggy Grant and start a new career when, shortly prior to his scheduled execution, convicted revolutionary Earl Williams escapes from death row in the Cook County Jail and secretes himself in a rolltop desk in the Criminal Court Building press... room. In reality, Earl is an impoverished, bumbling leftist with a penchant for stuffing fortune cookies with messages demanding the release of Sacco and Vanzetti, but the yellow press of Chicago has painted him as a dangerous threat from Moscow and as a result the city's citizens are anxious to see him put to death. Mollie Malloy, the condemned man's girlfriend and a self-described "$2 whore from Division Street", reveals his hiding place to Hildy, who is unable to resist the lure of what could be the biggest scoop of his soon-to-be-over career in journalism.
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| Release date: | December 17, 1974 |
| Directed by: | Billy Wilder |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 105 Minutes |
| Producer: | Paul Monash |
| Editor: | Ralph E. Winters |
| Music by: | Billy May |
| Cinematography: | Jordan Cronenweth |
| Screenplay by: | Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, Billy Wilder |
| Estimated budget: | $4,000,000 |
| Adapted from: | The Front Page |
| Genre: | Comedy |