On the eve of the biggest story in Chicago in the 1920s, star journalist Hildy Johnson (Jack Lemmon) tells his editor, Walter Burns (Walter Matthau), that he's quitting his job to get married to Peggy (Susan Sarandon). Burns is as determined to keep his best journalist as Johnson is to leave, and tries various schemes to get him to write the story and keep him in the paper.
This is one of the many film remakes of a Broadway comedy by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and unfortunately, the stage origins of this film are rather obvious in this version. The acting is exaggerated and is uncomfortably shrill in moments, and the staging is obvious. It's only in the frantic climax does the film go beyond its origins.
Still, it's always fun to watch Lemmon and Matthau bounce off each other like the old pros that they are. Credit should also go to Jordan Cronenweth's luminous cinematography which brightens what would have otherwise been a dingy setting.
3 out of 5 stars.
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