The Front Page: A Play in Three Acts - Softcover

Ben Hecht; Charles MacArthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0573609128 ISBN 13: 9780573609121

Publisher: Samuel French, Inc., 2010

Synopsis

Comedy / Characters: 17 males, 5 females

Set Requirements: Interior

An irresistible comedy with thrills and derring do set in the news room. Hildy wants to break away from journalism and go on a belated honeymoon. There is a jailbreak and into Hildy's hands falls the escapee as hostage. He conceals his prize in a rolltop desk and phones his scoop to his managing editor. Their job is to prevent other reporters and the sheriff from opening the desk and finding their story. Some hoods are enlisted to remove the desk, but they get mixed up with a Boy Scout troop and the mayor and a cleaning woman, among others. It's a whirlwind wrap up with Hildy finally making his breakaway, but the cynical managing editor has him arrested before he leaves town for having stolen a watch he planted on Hildy.

"Gorgeously melodramatic. One of the funniest and most exciting of American plays." N.Y. Times.

"Fast, explosive, funny." ABC TV.

About this title

About the Author:

Ben Hecht (1894-1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood," he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of the most entertaining screenplays and plays in America.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From the introduction by Jed Harris...

"..here is a play which reflects miraculously the real as well as the literary personalities of the playwrights. Every line of it glows with a demoniacal humor, sordid, insolent and mischievous to the point of down right perversity, in which one instantly recognizes the heroic comic spirit of its authors.

Both Hecht and MacArthur owe their literary origins to the newspapers of Chicago. Famous crime reporters, their talents were first cradled in the recounting of great exploits in arson, rape, murder, gang war and municipal politics. Out of a welter of jail breaks, hangings, floods and whore-house raidings, they have gathered the rich, savory characters who disport themselves on the stage to Times Square Theatre.

And though they would be the last to acknowledge it, because they are terrified of the word "charm", they have nevertheless written "The Front Page" with a more innocent and unsynthetic charm than I have ever found..."

About this edition

• Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0573609128
• ISBN 13: 9780573609121
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 143