Switching Channels

This umpteenth version of the Front Page story made the quite appropriate adaptation from newspaper journalism to television.

Although the character names have been changed we have no problems identifying the main characters of the Front Page. As in His Girl Friday, Hildy is played by a woman and Kathleen Turner was the ideal choice for this role at the time. Burt Reynolds takes on the Walter Burns character, but he neither has the charm of Cary Grant [His Girl Friday] nor the comic timing of Walter Matthau [Front Page, The (1974)] - but then, who has? The only serious miscasting is Christopher Reeve who just can't match the whimpish Ralph Bellamy.

All in all it's not as good as the previous (excellent) versions, but it is still quite enjoyable. A story with that many remakes normally has a stinker amongst the lot, but this one has not (so far).

The Front Page is one of those theater properties that apparently is not tiring with the public any time soon. Either remaking it as a period piece the way Billy Wilder did or updating it like this film and switching it to broadcast television journalism the laughs are there and the issues are the same. The Broadway play and first film adaption with also talked about bloviating politicians who campaign on law and order. If anything it's worse now.

Howard Hawks saw the possibilities in The Front Page as a boy/girl romance by making the original role of the reporter as a woman. What he got was one of my favorite Cary Grant films. Switching Channels is a remake of His Girl Friday and the roles Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Bellamy played are now done by Burt Reynolds, Kathleen Turner, and Christopher Reeve. And of course Reynolds is now a news producer, Turner his ace reporter, and Reeve the handsome rich doofus she wants to marry.

Again it's an outrageously corrupt Ned Beatty playing the Cook County District Attorney who primarying the ineffectual Governor of Illinois Charles Kimbrough. He got a conviction on Henry Gibson for murdering a cop and he's looking to see that as Gibson burns in the electric chair, he can become governor and more. Kimbrough is the kind who takes a poll before he goes to the bathroom. But Gibson escapes on the night he's to die and sets off a whole chain of events in which elected officials are toppled, romance gets redirected, and corruption exposed.

It is fascinating how on track Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur were when they wrote The Front Page. We could remake it again updating it with internet journalism without too much of a change in the plot.

Start thinking of who could be the stars in yet a 21st century remake of this classic.

Christy is a news anchor on SNN, an all-news channel in Chicago. Her boss John "Sully" Sullivan is also her ex. Christy must go do lots of silly stories as part of her role as a journalist, and eventually she decides to take a vacation. That's where she meets Blaine, who is rich and perfect in every way, and Christy wants to move with him to New York City and host a morning show. Sully hates him and plots against him. Meanwhile, Christy has a chance to do something important before she moves on from real journalism. Ike Roscoe is on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Roy Ridnitz is running for governor but played a role in putting Ike away, and it would not benefit him politically if Ike got freed.

So how will Ike be rescued from his fate? The second half of this movie is nothing short of insanity, a wacky adventure that really makes this movie worth seeing.

Kathleen Turner and Burt Reynolds are good, if not necessarily great. Ned Beatty is over the top. Chris Kimbrough as the governor who could give Ike a reprieve is a moron. And Henry Gibson is great as the poor man who must be rescued because, after all, he didn't do it.

Christopher Reeve, on the other hand, is more Clark Kent than Superman. He just never quite achieves what he should. I didn't know who he was, but he didn't quite look like Richard Gere, or David Hasselhoff, or John Corbett. I just never could enjoy his character, except for the bizarre scene where Sully get his revenge.

The romantic comedy at the beginning is okay. It's the adventure toward the end that really makes this work.

Anyone can make any sort of commentary on how this film didn't live up to its heritage as the "umpteenth" remake of the movie "His Girl Friday", or the original "The Front Page", but in this case, I prefer to take the film on its own merits, especially in light of how things have been since its release.

First of all, no one has to get on a soapbox and talk about how the chief supporting actor of this film (Chris Reeve) has been in the time since its release. The movie "Speechless", with Mike Keaton and Geena Davis in my opinion stands as a much better reference point, if one is looking for one, for Mr. Reeve's work before his accident. Instead, I like to look at his role in this as seeing how he was moving away from his Superman stereotype. The man has worked with some of Hollywood's A & B list leading men over the last twenty years, ranging from Michael Caine to Morgan Freeman. While he was no Ralph Bellamy in this film, I don't recall anyone saying he was supposed to be when the film was made. After all, he was only supposed to play the type of character Ralph played in the earlier remake, and if they had wanted Ralph's nod on the film, (Especially since he was the only surviving castmember) why didn't they get him to play the Network Owner's part?

Then there is Burt Reynolds' character. While I don't think they gave him the best lines they could have in some scenes, I felt, and still feel that he played the part of the Station Manager/ex-husband in a role that was not out of range for him. However, if you want to sit there and compare him to Cary Grant's role, I ask that you do one thing before you do so. Go out and rent "His Girl Friday", and then fast forward to the scene where Cary goes "Oh, Walter!", and then try to imagine how easy it would have been to get Burt to do that scene in the same way.

Finally, but in no means last, there is the heroine of the movie, played by Kathleen Turner. Ms. Turner has always played capable women who can be independent when they need to be, and continued to do so here. One scene of note in this movie is her reaction to the story about kazoo players and the President of the United States at the beginning of the film. When you consider the fact that Hollywood has repeatedly told us that modern broadcast journalism's motto is "if it bleeds, it leads", and they seem to be living up to that on the local news broadcasts, I as a viewer would want the person giving me the news to crack up on a story about Kazoo players, long before they ever did about someone going postal at a Luby's Cafeteria.

The point in the movie where one can draw a strong similarity between the original remake and this one begins in the the interview at the prison. The scene here does not play out as a remake of the same lines and dialogue as the original said by new people, and one does have to admit that you can't exactly go in too many different directions with that as part of your storyline.

Also, in my opinion, the story does demonstrate much more detail about one thing that the Grant-Russell movie only touched on. There is a changing of the guard going on in the business. The older seasoned journalists in the main story have or are changing positions. Sully has moved on to Producer, and is now fighting a constant battle over lead stories, rather than deadlines. An example of this is where he makes the comment to his boss, in jest, about having a team going all over Chicago looking for "Smutless fires". Christy is also following the "grass is greener" principle, as she is leaving SNN for a job as morning anchor in New York, a show with a Willard Scott-type weatherman and fake furniture.

In my opinion, the only ones who really weren't well-developed as well as they could have been were Ned Beatty and Charles Kimbrough's characters. While it was interesting to see a man who would later go on to play a television journalist in a long running TV series (Kimbrough was "Jim Dyle" on Murphy Brown), the portrayal of them as a simple-minded Governor, and a crooked-dealing DA both running for governor seemed to me to be a mixed message over which story should have been covered. Everyone likes a good political debate, but at what cost, or should that be whose cost?

This is my favorite comedy from the 1980's. I really wish this movie was out on DVD but for now I have to settle for my old VHS of it. It is a remake of the old Cary Grant "His Gal Friday" movie from the 1940's. Christopher Reeve, Burt Reynolds & Kathleen Turner play off one another and have great chemistry together. One funny scene has Christopher Reeve in a glass elevator having a panic attack because he has a fear of heights. This movie also stars Chris Reeve's "Superman I & II" co-star Ned Beaty as a crooked politician running for governor. All in all, this a highly fast passed, really funny comedy. I very much recommend renting this from your local video store.