Post by london777 on Jul 22, 2018 3:23:41 GMT
Let us have some movies showing the workings of a newspaper office. I am not looking for stories of reporters out in the world doing their stuff. There are a million of those, too easy. Or of just the odd scene in a newspaper office as part of, say, a crime story. But films that show the office routine as well as the main plot-line and where the newspaper men are among the main characters.
My feeling is that newspapers have usually been shown in as sympathetic light, defenders of our democratic freedoms, etc. This is especially the case in Westerns, where the newspaper owner/editor/printer/reporter is usually wise, upright and sometimes courageous, promoting the spread of law and civilization. (And he often has a pretty and feisty daughter). Whereas these days we may been inclined to view them more critically or even with hostility. I would be interested in your comments enlisting films as being in one camp or the other.
In recent decades traditional printed papers have been fighting a (usually) losing battle against the encroachment of newer media, but even in much earlier films we see our heroes often fighting on two fronts. Trying to right a wrong or expose villains against a ticking clock, because their paper is in imminent danger of being closed down, merged, or converted into a despicable red-top.
Deadline - U.S.A. (1952). Written and directed by Richard Brooks and starring Humphrey Bogart. Bogie has some great sardonic lines. He is the editor, trying to complete his expose of the local crime boss, played less than menacingly by Martin Gabel, before the owner, Ethel Barrymore, sells up. The crime story is token, but the newspaper workings are excellent.
The Paper (1994) dir: Ron Howard. A film which I suspect was much influenced by my preceding selection. Michael Keaton is the editor trying to clear a wrongly accused man while being pulled in different directions by a man-eating financial director (Glenn Close) and his pregnant and hysterical wife (Marisa Tomei). The crime investigation is better done here, but I think the personal life stuff causes some loss of focus.
Zodiac (2007) dir: David Fincher. Newspapermen Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr., sometimes in alliance with cop Mark Ruffalo, try to solve the real-life Zodiac murders. A frustrating film to watch, with the stop-start investigation and numerous blind alleys, but this was Fincher's way of making us feel what the investigation was really like. The murders remained unsolved.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) directed by Val Guest, and written by him and Wolf Mankowitz, was one of those Brit sci-fi B-movies which worked wonders on a minuscule budget. The lead character (Edward Judd) is an unsuccessful reporter who stumbles on the big story. (End of the World - stories don't get much bigger than that, unless the Kardashians have been up to something). Really a reporter out in the (wilting) world movie, so hardly meets my criteria, but I have included it as the newspaper office scenes were shot in the actual Daily Express building, and the paper's then editor, Arthur Christiansen, played fictional editor 'Jeff' Jefferson. In the last scenes, as the world awaits the result of a last desperate attempt at a solution, the paper has two front pages made up in readiness, one headlined "WORLD SAVED" and the other "WORLD DOOMED".
My feeling is that newspapers have usually been shown in as sympathetic light, defenders of our democratic freedoms, etc. This is especially the case in Westerns, where the newspaper owner/editor/printer/reporter is usually wise, upright and sometimes courageous, promoting the spread of law and civilization. (And he often has a pretty and feisty daughter). Whereas these days we may been inclined to view them more critically or even with hostility. I would be interested in your comments enlisting films as being in one camp or the other.
In recent decades traditional printed papers have been fighting a (usually) losing battle against the encroachment of newer media, but even in much earlier films we see our heroes often fighting on two fronts. Trying to right a wrong or expose villains against a ticking clock, because their paper is in imminent danger of being closed down, merged, or converted into a despicable red-top.
Deadline - U.S.A. (1952). Written and directed by Richard Brooks and starring Humphrey Bogart. Bogie has some great sardonic lines. He is the editor, trying to complete his expose of the local crime boss, played less than menacingly by Martin Gabel, before the owner, Ethel Barrymore, sells up. The crime story is token, but the newspaper workings are excellent.
The Paper (1994) dir: Ron Howard. A film which I suspect was much influenced by my preceding selection. Michael Keaton is the editor trying to clear a wrongly accused man while being pulled in different directions by a man-eating financial director (Glenn Close) and his pregnant and hysterical wife (Marisa Tomei). The crime investigation is better done here, but I think the personal life stuff causes some loss of focus.
Zodiac (2007) dir: David Fincher. Newspapermen Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr., sometimes in alliance with cop Mark Ruffalo, try to solve the real-life Zodiac murders. A frustrating film to watch, with the stop-start investigation and numerous blind alleys, but this was Fincher's way of making us feel what the investigation was really like. The murders remained unsolved.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) directed by Val Guest, and written by him and Wolf Mankowitz, was one of those Brit sci-fi B-movies which worked wonders on a minuscule budget. The lead character (Edward Judd) is an unsuccessful reporter who stumbles on the big story. (End of the World - stories don't get much bigger than that, unless the Kardashians have been up to something). Really a reporter out in the (wilting) world movie, so hardly meets my criteria, but I have included it as the newspaper office scenes were shot in the actual Daily Express building, and the paper's then editor, Arthur Christiansen, played fictional editor 'Jeff' Jefferson. In the last scenes, as the world awaits the result of a last desperate attempt at a solution, the paper has two front pages made up in readiness, one headlined "WORLD SAVED" and the other "WORLD DOOMED".
