Hildy, You're a Newspaperman: Collecting Screen Scribes

This I-hope-it's-useful page is in response to a journalism educators' e-mail list discussion of films that might help inform students about the culture of journalism and newsrooms.  A few people have put a lot of time and energy into creating Web sites about journalism-related films, so I'm providing a few links to them, then my own list.

• Paul Schindler has a larger collection, with comments...
  http://psacot.typepad.com/ps_a_column_on_things/journalism-movies.html
  

• The Journalism History Jhistory e-mail list has discussed this topic more than once, and has searchable archives going back to 1997 at "h-net.org." You can search by going to  http://www.h-net.org/logsearch/,  picking "jhistory" from the list, and adding a key word or two.  There was a healthy discussion of both novels and movies in January '99, if you want to browse by date.  
  
  
• The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture project at Annenberg/USC has a members-only database of 26,000 items at http://www.ijpc.org/introdatabase.htm

Bob's own list (and notes):

• All the President's Men
• Park Row
• Citizen Kane
  
• Absence of Malice
• The Year of Living Dangerously
• Broadcast News
• Network
• The Paper
• Teacher's Pet
• The Front Page
• His Girl Friday
• Five Star Final

One film I never see on anyone's list is "Doctor X," an uneven 1930-something thriller in which the reporter not only climbs a drainpipe to look in a window, but crawls under a sheet to impersonate a corpse (complete with toe-tag) and eavesdrop on conversations at the morgue.  Skills to remember! There was a (not very good) "Return of Dr. X" too, also with a reporter as the main character, but with Humphrey Bogart in the title role. The reporter's ethics are bad to the point of poor citizenship. He calls the paper with a murder story without telling the police he's found a body! (He may even say "let them read about it.")

More seriously, my own suggestions to journalism students are "All the President's Men" to dramatize investigative work and high purpose, followed by "Absence of Malice" for discussions of libel law and press responsibility. I'm going to show a history class "Park Row" and the documentary discs that come with the DVDs of Kane and All the President's Men.  (On the international-news and  broadcast side, I'd go for "The Year of Living Dangerously,"  "Broadcast News" and "Network.")

"The Paper" does a good job at capturing a page-one ethical dilemma, and provides a pretty good snapshot of newsroom profanity and weirdness. Some of the older films are as good or better reminders that not all editors are as wise and just as Ben Bradlee (or Jason Robards).  "Teacher's Pet" also might be fun for students, with a learned-it-all-on-the-job city editor (Clark Gable) facing off with a young journalism professor played by Doris Day. 

I also like the original "The Front Page" -- and the "His Girl Friday" remake, which involved a sex change for reporter Hildy Johnson from Hildebrand to Hildegarde, but kept the mile-a-minute give-em-Hecht dialogue. (The heading on this page is a slight misquote.)

Personal cult (of one?) favorite: Turner Classics has "Five Star Final" (1931) with Edward G. Robinson as a compulsively-hand-washing editor and Boris Karloff as his star scandalmonger, complete with fake Roman collar... based on a play by the second editor of the Evening Graphic, my favorite Roaring Twenties tabloid. (http://stepno.com/unc/graphic/)  One of the first editor's novels, Hot News, also became a movie, called either "Hot News" or "Scandal for Sale." If you ever see a copy of the film, tell me where!

Turner Classics has plenty of other films with newspaper people in them. For example, these were scheduled for a 12-hour broadcast marathon Sept. 19, 2003. (Other than the first, the descriptions are Turner's): 

• Five Star Final (1931) Tabloid revives old scandal to boost circulation. Edward G. Robinson, Boris Karloff.
    
• Front Page Woman (1935) Rival reporters try to scoop each other while covering a fire. Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns.
   
• Back In Circulation (1937) A reporter tries to win her editor's heart by solving a murder case. Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell.
   
• Front Page, The (1931) A crusading newspaper editor tricks his retiring star reporter into covering one last case. Pat O'Brien, Adolph Menjou.
   
• Libeled Lady (1936) When an heiress sues a newspaper, the editor hires a gigolo to compromise her. Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy.
   
• Nothing Sacred (1937) When a small-town girl is diagnosed with a rare,  deadly disease, an ambitious newspaper man turns her into a national heroine.  Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Walter Connolly.
   
• Meet John Doe (1941) A reporter's fraudulent story turns a tramp into  a national hero and makes him a pawn of big business. Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold.
   
• Philadelphia Story, The (1940) Tabloid reporters crash a society marriage.  Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart.

© Copyright 2009 Bob Stepno. Last update: 7/27/09; 3:57:22 AM.