Old Play in Manhattan, Sep. 16, 1946

The Front Page (by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur; produced by Hunt Stromberg Jr. & Thomas Spengler) is still, after 18 years, a good show. Last week it proved it the hard way—by withstanding a half-botched production. Despite rather limp staging and several performers who seemed in the wrong roles or even in the wrong profession, Hecht's and MacArthur's rowdy salute to their Chicago newspaper days has brash, improbable life and gaudy, slapdash color.

It had lost something, of course; but much of its humor still clicked and much of its melodrama still crackled. It caught the atmosphere of a press room...

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