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 the 1928 play of the same title by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, which was previously adapted for the screen under its original title in 1931 and as His Girl Friday in 1940. The play also served as the inspiration for Switching Channels in 1988.
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...