As anyone who’s been following the news knows, the fourth estate has taken quite a beating lately: fake news, accusations of bias, trial by Twitter and the arrival of ‘alternative facts’. Seen in this climate, the magnificent Broadway revival of The Front Page, now in its last week at the Broadhurst Theatre, is more than […]
The Six People You Meet in a Screwball Comedy
Watch enough screwball comedies and you might notice a pattern: the same people turn up over and over again. I don’t just mean actors—though Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Melvyn Douglas were ubiquitous—but characters. Blame it on endless plot recycling or the assembly-line nature of the studio system, but in the thirties and […]
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!: Journalism at the Movies
Late nights, fast talking and even faster typing. To celebrate me making it through my first month of journalism school, here is a fleeting look at the fourth estate on film. His Girl Friday (1940) The gold standard of newspaper comedies. Wily editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is horrified when his star reporter and ex-wife, […]