The Front Page

Chicago Examiner reporter Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson (Jack Lemmon) has just quit his job in order to marry Peggy Grant (Susan Sarandon) and start a new career, when convict Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton) escapes from death row just prior to his execution. Earl is an impoverished, bumbling leftist whose offense was stuffing fortune cookies with messages demanding the release from death row of the equally overblown murder convictees Sacco and Vanzetti. The Yellow press has painted Earl as another Communist threat from Moscow, meaning that Chicago citizens are anxious to see him also put to death.