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Billy Wilder's 1974 The Front Page is the third movie based on the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur play of the same name, following The Front Page (1931) and His Girl Friday (1940). I have just got to say - see them all.

Wilder's 1974 version cleaves pretty close to the original. Same set (prison press room), same characters, same plot. Crack reporter Hildy Johnson was originally a guy (Adolphe Menjou), then a dame (Rosalind Russell), now a guy again (Jack Lemmon). Walter Matthau plays the Pat O'Brien/Cary Grant part of his editor, Walter Burns. The parts could be custom made for them. Susan Sarandon doesn't get to do much as Hildy's intended, but Carol Burnett has a great role as the hooker who loves the condemned man.

And there's my hook: this movie is exactly faithful to the original, but without censorship. Carol Burnett can be an outright hooker, not a shopgirl. Here's a better example: the first scene of the movie:

The prison guards are building a scaffold for the hanging, and a reporter sticks his head out of the press room window to yell, "Keep it down, we're trying to work up here." This scene is in all the versions. But in Wilder's film, a guard can respond, "Get screwed!"

So, if you liked the other films, but wanted more hookers and swearing... No, that's not right, this is an honest film version of the play, written by Wilder and his frequent partner I.A.L Diamond (Trivia: I.A.L stands for "International Algebra League", a pseudonym he thought sounded intellectual). Lemmon and Matthau do it proud, the rest of the cast are great, and it's a nifty movie all around.

In conclusion, His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks, was probably better.