The Front Page - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Front Page or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Front Page

[sara]

Mae Clarke also appeared that very same year as the Original Elizabeth, Fiancee to Colin Clive's Dr. Frankenstein, in Frankenstein (1931).

[manuel]

Director of photography Tony Gaudio was replaced by Hal Mohr who in turn was replaced by Glen MacWilliams.

[kristen]

When the sheriff is handing out an information sheet about Communism, Wilson indicates it's all old information. The sheriff asks, "Ain't ya gonna use that?" and Wilson, heading to the bathroom with the piece of paper, says, "Sure!" meaning he'll use it for toilet paper.

[terry]

Louis Wolheim was originally cast as Walter Burns but died suddenly. He had been in rehearsals for six days before succumbing to stomach cancer. That's when Adolphe Menjou stepped in and got the part.

[liam]

Osgood Perkins created the role of Walter Burns on the Broadway stage. His son Anthony Perkins would later gain iconic fame for his starring role in Alfred Hitchcock 's legendary masterpiece Psycho (1960).

[carla]

The telephone mouthpieces in the newsroom are missing because there was a general belief that these candlestick phone mouthpieces were a source of tuberculosis germs. Bensinger is the only character who has his own mouthpiece that he guards from everyone else using. The glass mouthpiece he uses was considered to be less prone to germs.

[manuel]

In his uncredited appearance here, the renowned screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, of Citizen Kane (1941) fame is shown knocking on the door of a speakeasy looking for Hildy Johnson. Mankiewicz was known as a hard-drinking guy, but also as an even harder worker, and in this same year he produced the The Marx Brothers's picture Monkey Business (1931).

[darrell]

Continuing a practice common to the silent era, the film was shot with three cameras at the same time. This created three different negatives. The best negative was used for the US version. The second best was used for the UK version. And the final negative was used for the general international version. Additionally, some scenes were re-shot with different dialogue for the international markets.

[gerald]

The last line of the stage play had to be partly obliterated in the film version by the sound of a typewriter being accidentally struck because the censors --even of that day--wouldn't allow the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" to be used in a movie.

[harry]

On the walls of the newspaper room, there are topless photographs of female models. Before the Production Code was implemented a few years later, such background nudity was relatively commonplace in motion pictures.

[tom]

Different takes were used in different versions for distribution. In the scene where Kruger is calling in his story quoting the governor, he insults the mayor and the sheriff while they're listening in. Then he hangs up, leaves, and says, "Hi, your honor," and flips his middle finger at them. This shows up in the international version but not the US version.

[melinda]

Pat O'Brien had played Hildy Johnson in a stock company production of the play. He later titled his autobiography "Thank You Alexander Graham Bell" in reference to how excited he was to receive a phone call from producer Howard Hughes offering him the part.

[mathew]

Some consider this the first screwball comedy.