Front Page Woman *** (1935, Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns, Winifred Shaw, J Carrol Naish) – Classic Movie Review 4907

Bette Davis and George Brent star as reporters for rival newspapers, agony aunt Ellen Garfield and ace scoop-hound Curt Devlin, trying to outwit each other when their respective editors send them on the same big fire story, in director Michael Curtiz’s 1935 comedy drama Front Page Woman. It is a typically breezy Thirties screwball movie, now largely forgotten, but a pretty good one anyway.

Naturally Davis and Brent’s Ellen and Curt have a romantic thing going on, but Davis’s Ellen makes a strike for women’s lib since Brent’s Curt is an old male chauvinist pig.

Ellen refuses to marry Curt till he agrees she is as good as any man. Then Curt tricks Ellen into misreporting the verdict of a murder trial, getting her the sack. But she scoops him by getting the guilty Inez Cordoza (Winifred Shaw) to confess to the crime.

Richard Macaulay’s warm-hearted, familiar story is not always entirely credible. But the stars and director Curtiz keeps it all fizzling along at a cracking pace, especially as there are plenty of amusing one-liners in the screenplay by Laird Doyle, Lillie Hayward and Roy Chanslor, and a taut running time of just 82 minutes that doesn’t allow any slack.

Also in the cast are Roscoe Karns, Winifred Shaw, J Carrol Naish, Walter Walker, Dorothy Dare, Joseph Crehan, Joseph King, J Farrell MacDonald, Addison Richards, June Martel, Selmer Jackson, Gordon Westcott, Walter Walker, DeWitt Jenings, Huntley Gordon, Adrian Rosley, Georges Renevant and Adrian Morris.

The screenplay is based on the 1934 The Saturday Evening Post story Women Are Born Newspapermen by Richard Macaulay [billed as Richard Macauley]. Laird Doyle is credited for screenplay and dialogue, Lillie Hayward and Roy Chanslor, for screenplay, so Laird Doyle must be credited for the amusing one-liners. A similar story is told in the 1937 Back in Circulation and the 1938 Blondes at Work.

Front Page Woman was released by Warner Bros on 20 July 1935.

It is one of three films Davis and Brent made together in 1935. They were paired 13 times. It is Davis’s fourth film with Curtiz. They worked together seven times.

It is the first acting role of I Stanford Jolley (though uncredited).

The cast are Bette Davis as Ellen Garfield, George Brent as Curt Devlin, Roscoe Karns as Toots O’Grady, Wini Shaw (Winifred Shaw) as Inez Cordoza, Walter Walker as Judge Hugo Rickard, J Carrol Naish as Robert Cardoza, June Martel as Olive Wilson, J Farrell MacDonald as Hallohan, Dorothy Dare as Mae LaRue, I Stanford Jolley, George Chandler as Reporter, Adrian Morris as Guard, Walter Walker, Joseph Crehan, Joseph King, Addison Richards, June Martel, Selmer Jackson, Gordon Westcott, DeWitt Jenings, Huntley Gordon, Adrian Rosley, and Georges Renevant.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 4907

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