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Category: Comedy
All Genres: Comedy
Release Year: 1931
Country: USA
Runtime: 101
Rating: 4.1 (0)
Languages: English
Director: Lewis Milestone
Sound: Mono
Taglines:

Takes its place among the greatest pictures ever made!

Writing by: Ben Hecht - (play) and
Charles MacArthur - (play)
Bartlett Cormack - (adaptation)
Charles Lederer - (additional dialogue)

Produced by: Lewis Milestone - producer
Howard Hughes - producer (uncredited)

Cast: Adolphe Menjou - Walter Burns
Pat OBrien - Hildebrand Hildy Johnson
Mary Brian - Peggy Grant
Edward Everett Horton - Roy V. Bensinger
Walter Catlett - Jimmy Murphy (as Walter L. Catlett)
George E. Stone - Earl Williams
Mae Clarke - Molly Malloy
Slim Summerville - Irving Pincus
Matt Moore - Ernie Kruger
Frank McHugh - Mac McCue
Clarence Wilson - Sheriff Peter B. Pinky Hartman (as Clarence H. Wilson)

Music: Howard Jackson
Official Website: Visit Website

Plot Outline: Hildy Johnson, newspaper reporter, is engaged to Peggy Grant and planning to move to New York for a higher paying advertising job...
Plot: Hildy Johnson, newspaper reporter, is engaged to Peggy Grant and planning to move to New York for a higher paying advertising job. The court press room is full of lame reporters who invent stories as much as write them. All are waiting to cover the hanging of Earl Williams. When Williams escapes from the inept Sheriff, Hildy seizes the opportunity by using his $260 honeymoon money to payoff an insider and get the scoop on the escape. However, Walter Burns, the Posts editor, is slow to repay Hildy back, hoping that he will stay on the story. Getting a major scoop looks possible when Hildy stumbles onto the bewildered escapee and hides him in a roll-top desk in the press room. Burns shows up to help. Can they keep Williams whereabouts secret long enough to get the scoop, especially with the Sheriff and other reporters hovering around?

Crazy Credits: We know about 1 Crazy Credits. One of them reads:
The end credits consist of Walter and Hildy above a big THE END, covering a large question mark, while the sound of the train is heard and music plays. There is also laughter, presumably coming from Walter Burns.

Goofs: We know about 1 goofs. Here comes one of them:
Continuity: The position of the pool/billiard balls changes between shots in both the pool hall scene and the billiard room scene (obviously to set up the trick shots that follow).

Trivia: There are 4 entries in the trivia list - like these:
Louis Wolheim was originally cast to play Walter Burns, but Adolphe Menjou got the part when Wolheim died suddenly.
The last line of the play had to be partly obliterated by the sound of a typewriter being accidentally struck because the censors (even of that day) wouldnt allow the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" to be used in a film.
The journalists are all based on actual reporters who were Chicago colleagues of authors Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with most working alongside them at the courthouse. The real names were only slightly changed: Hildy Johnson was based on the real-life reporter Hildebrand Johnson, Walter Burns was based on the editor Walter Howey, and Mac McCue was based on reporter Buddy McHugh.