The Dryden will screen The Front Page (Lewis Milestone, U.S. 1931, 101 min., DCP) as part of the United Artists Centennial series.

Howard Hughes produced this first adaptation of Ben Hecht's play to an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. A precursor of screwball comedic wit and timing, the film stars Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou as an ace Chicago reporter and the editor that will do anything to see that he doesn't retire for married life. When a scheduled execution at the prison goes off the rails, Menjou convinces O'Brien to cover the event. Caught between the work he loves and his departing fiancée, O'Brien finds himself in life-or-death situations that seem to be out of his control. Later gender-swapped and remade as His Girl Friday, this early example of screwball comedy was a coup for United Artists.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2019-Apr-1]