​Media satire classics on Blu-ray double-feature

Lately (especially over the past year) media coverage has been almost as much about biased media coverage as it is about the stories that the media typically cover. But a cynical view of how slanted and exploitive media reports can be is nothing new.

Less than two years ago, Lewis Milestone’s newspaper genre classic “The Front Page” (1931) finally came out in a high-quality Blu-ray edition from Kino Video.

Based on a darkly satiric hit 1928 Broadway play, the double-plot deals with jaded journalists covering a politically-motivated execution (of an unemployed anarchist who shot a black police officer) and a conniving editor’s extreme attempts to prevent his star reporter from resigning in favor of marriage and a comfortable advertising job.

Playwrights Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur had both been Chicago reporters and based their script on actual events they experienced, reporters they worked with, and political corruption they observed first-hand.

In 1939, director Howard Hawks had the script rewritten to turn the star reporter into a woman and the editor into her conniving ex-husband, resulting in the classic screwball comedy “His Girl Friday” (1940), which many find to be as good as or even better than the original.

Early this year “His Girl Friday” made its Blu-ray debut from the Criterion Collection in a newly-restored edition.

By unusual coincidence, shortly after the release of Kino’s “The Front Page” Blu-ray, an alternate cut of the film was discovered in the archives of its producer Howard Hughes, and it became evident that this was the original U.S. cut preferred by the director and the cut on the Kino disc was made for the international market using alternate takes and in some cases alternate dialogue and slightly different editing.

The Criterion Blu-ray release is a double-disc set that includes the newly-restored director’s cut of “The Front Page” as well as the romantic-comedy remake “His Girl Friday.”

Both films are as timely today as when they were made.

“The Front Page” intentionally kept the romantic angle subdued in order to concentrate on its satiric look at the peculiarities of individual newspaper reporters, the media’s shamelessly biased reporting of what it wants its readers to believe happened and the way it wants them to react to it, and of course corrupt city and county governments.

“His Girl Friday” touches on all that as well, but at its heart is a romantic comedy focusing on a pointed battle of the sexes as much as the battle between the media and a corrupt establishment, and the battle between one newspaper and all the others to break a story first.

“The Front Page,” by contrast, implicitly and explicitly considers romance as a nuisance getting in the way of people trying to do their jobs. In this case their jobs revolve around widespread corruption and subterfuge (both political and journalistic), whether to profit by it, exploit it, expose it, be cynical about it, be angry about it, or all of the above.

“The Front Page” premiered in March 1931, but looks years more advanced than typical filmed stage plays of that early talkie era. Rather than a stationary camera recording the performances, director Milestone uses an almost constantly moving camera and occasional bursts of rapid-fire editing that gives the film a cinematic appearance more in line with techniques of the silent cinema at its peak (just a few years before).

Among the excellent ensemble cast, Pat O’Brien largely carries the film as fast-talking reporter Hildebrand “Hildy” Johnson, with Adolphe Menjou in fine form as his conniving editor Walter Burns (Oscar-nominated for his role).

For “His Girl Friday” director Hawks made the fast-paced dialogue even faster by having the actors overlap each other’s lines, establishing a style later adopted by other filmmakers, such as Orson Welles in his own darkly satiric newspaper drama “Citizen Kane” and Preston Sturges in his fast-paced screwball comedies.

Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant are ideal as Hildy and Walter, providing a perfect antagonistic romance in place of the love-hate “bromance” of the original version.

The picture quality on Criterion’s Blu-ray of “His Girl Friday” is very good to excellent, restored mostly from a new master positive struck from the original nitrate negative. Sound quality is also quite good, restored directly from the original nitrate optical sound negative.

Bonus features include two new HD featurettes, including an in-depth analysis by film historian David Bordwell and archival interviews with Howard Hawks, plus four 1999 SD featurettes, as well as two trailers (in HD) and an hour-long radio adaptation starring Claudette Colbert (who had originally turned down the film role) and Fred MacMurray.

Picture quality on Criterion’s “The Front Page” Blu-ray is reasonably good, but notably softer and darker than the alternate cut on Kino’s 2015 Blu-ray. However, the sound on Criterion’s version of “The Front Page” is drastically better than that on Kino’s edition, having been remastered from the original metal disc masters for the sound-on-disc audio, as all the surviving optical sound elements were inferior copies of copies.

Bonus features include two new documentaries, one on the discovery and restoration of this version and one on writer Ben Hecht, plus two different radio adaptations of the play. Criterion’s release also includes illustrated program notes, essays, and credits for both “His Girl Friday” and “The Front Page” cleverly printed as an eight-page newspaper-style tabloid.

Criterion’s Blu-ray of HIS GIRL FRIDAY -- Movie: A / Video: A / Audio: A / Extras: A-

Criterion’s Blu-ray of THE FRONT PAGE -- Movie: A / Video: B+ / Audio: A- / Extras: A-

Kino’s Blu-ray of THE FRONT PAGE -- Movie: A / Video: A- / Audio: B- / Extras: B-