Switching Channels

This umpteenth version of the Front Page story made the quite appropriate adaptation from newspaper journalism to television.

Although the character names have been changed we have no problems identifying the main characters of the Front Page. As in His Girl Friday, Hildy is played by a woman and Kathleen Turner was the ideal choice for this role at the time. Burt Reynolds takes on the Walter Burns character, but he neither has the charm of Cary Grant [His Girl Friday] nor the comic timing of Walter Matthau [Front Page, The (1974)] - but then, who has? The only serious miscasting is Christopher Reeve who just can't match the whimpish Ralph Bellamy.

All in all it's not as good as the previous (excellent) versions, but it is still quite enjoyable. A story with that many remakes normally has a stinker amongst the lot, but this one has not (so far).