I'm a fan of Billy Wilder's 1974 remake of the movie The Front Page, done this time with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Many of you will disagree with me when I say I prefer it to the 1931 version with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien, and I also prefer it to His Girl Friday, the 1940 remake with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. (Well, you can't disagree that I prefer it over them but you might feel that no sane person would…)
I think Lemmon and Matthau are both sensational and I don't mind the changes in the original play that give Walter Burns (the character Matthau plays) a larger role. I also think that, Carol Burnett aside, the casting of the other roles is spot-on. Vincent Gardenia darn near does the impossible when he comes within scoring distance of stealing a Lemmon and Matthau movie from Lemmon and Matthau.
But it's one of those films that's never gotten its due. It didn't fare well at the box office because, I think, it was just ill-timed for the marketplace. Films in 1974 had to be a little less conventional, a bit edgier. I remember taking a date to it at a theater in Westwood and after it, she told me that she thought at first it was an old movie and only realized it was new when Burnett came on the screen.
It's been available for some time on home video but it's about to get a fancy, much-deserved Blu-ray release which, I'm told, will look splendid and will serve the superb Art Direction better than ever. The release will also contain the theatrical trailer and interviews with a couple of folks involved in the production, one of them being Austin Pendleton, who was also so good in it. There's also an audio commentary by film historian Mike Schlesinger and me. I had a bad cough the day we did this and I hope the sound editors cleaned most of it out. It might have been better if they'd cleaned me out.
It'll be out from the fine folks at Kino Lorber in August and you can advance order a copy here. I will, of course, mention it again in August.