base on the hecht macarthur play and a newspaper editor and his ace reporter battle each other while fight civic corruption in chicago . you good be in good shape if you wan na survive this one . be it just me or do i miss something here . nearly two hour of badly record shouting in this early talkie with barely intelligible dialog and absolutely exhaust . but perhaps it just the bad transfer on the dvd . the fact that this film receive three academy award nomination and best actor and best director and best picture and be illustrative for the difficulty regard sound in the these early stage of sound in film making . these technical deficiency come with the period and might be easily forgive and if there be something of cinematic interest to be find and but this be not film making . it a filmed play and a bad one at that . badly shot and badly light and the stagy act style doesn not help either and with just about everyone shout their line to the ceiling or the window and wherever the microphone be hidden . i guess the material be ok and base on the late adaptation of he piece and but it almost impossible to figure it out and so distracted be the viewer by the constant clamoring . i know it an early talkie but that no reason to ignore the far too many shortcoming of this film . if you like the material and remade infinitely well by howard hawk a his girl friday ( 1940 ) and good but not brilliant by billy wild a the front page ( 1974 ) and yet again a switch channel ( 1988 ) with kathleen turner and christopher reeve . save yourself a headache and watch these instead . camera obscura negative .