In January 2012, a West Coast Newspaper Reported What Movie to Deal in "Illicit Fun, Not Substance"?
There'south a reason Clark Kent went to work for a major metropolitan newspaper. Newsrooms are where the action is. Clark knew that Superman had to be close to the heartbeat of Metropolis and that was the Daily Planet. When crime broke out, the newsroom knew information technology. Plus, newspaper intermission rooms are the best places to find mean solar day-old pizza and that last half of a donut that someone advisedly cutting off with a plastic knife considering a whole donut was simply too much. Newspapers and crime are a natural fit, as anyone who's watched a newspaper movie will tell you. Has there ever been a newspaper motion picture without a crime plot? If and then, I don't desire to hear about it. And so here's a look at newspaper offense movies, filtered through the perspective of someone who worked in newsrooms for decades. Article continues after advertisement To start with the near obvious instance – which is at the same non entirely obvious because it'southward not a murder mystery like many newspaper criminal offense films – there'south "All the President'south Men," director Alan J. Pakula's 1976 version of the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein book recounting their reporting at the Washington Mail in the early days of Watergate. While there'due south never been a newspaper reporter as handsome as Robert Redford, the motion-picture show gets so many things right: reporters desperately trying to get sources to provide documentation, slogging through records hoping to detect a smoking gun, beseeching insiders to corroborate some facts and sitting at a desk, writing on borderline equally everyone else in the newsroom is crowded effectually a Tv watching history unfold. I've literally walked up to people's doors asking them to implicate a political figure, so those things they testify in the moving picture really happen. Everyone who knows me has grown tired of hearing me talk about "Ace in the Pigsty," managing director Baton Wilder's 1951 film about an unscrupulous reporter (played by Kirk Douglas) desperate to piece of work his way dorsum to a big-city paper. He covers a cavern-in in a small New Mexico boondocks but manipulates the circumstances to hype his coverage. Chuck Tatum is not a role model for reporters, but he sure is a familiar figure in journalism. It's an obscure i, but the 1959 Jack Webb movie "– 30 –" is every bit entertaining as it is accurate. Webb, almost famous for "Dragnet," plays the managing editor of a Los Angeles newspaper on a peculiarly news-filled nighttime: On a nighttime when a rainstorm is pounding the metropolis, a piffling daughter gets lost and it's assumed she's been swept into a storm drain. Every bit deadline approaches, Sam Gatlin and his staff try to nail downwards the story even as they're wrestling with personal crises: Veteran reporter Lady Wilson'due south grandson is trying to set a speed record in an experimental aeroplane and Gatlin and his wife are adopting a child, a step that Gatlin might non exist ready to take. Bonus points for William Conrad, later famous for playing TV individual centre "Cannon," as a sarcastic city editor who makes life hell for junior staffers. Webb delivers 1 of the most famous speeches about newspapers e'er filmed. Speaking of speeches: There'southward no snappier dialogue in movies than that that flowed from the typewriters of Charles Lederer and Ben Hecht, who wrote the 1940 Howard Hawks classic "His Girl Friday." Yous know the story: Conniving editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) tries to get 1 last story out of his star reporter, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) earlier she gets married and leaves journalism. And it only so happens that a bedevilled cop killer is about to be executed. The press room scenes at the courthouse are the virtually fun in whatsoever newspaper movie. If in that location'south any journalism movie that'south better, information technology just might be the 1974 Billy Wilder remake "The Front Page" with Walter Matthau as Burns and Jack Lemmon every bit Johnson. If you lot don't love these movies, I will gladly refund the money you paid to read this cavalcade. Article continues after advertisement "The Mean Season" is probably forgotten by many, fifty-fifty by those who follow crime movies nigh journalism. But the 1985 thriller directed by Phillip Borsos is a standout. Kurt Russell plays a Miami newspaper reporter covering a series of slayings who starts hearing from the killer himself. "The Mean Season" has the sweaty intensity this kind of story cries out for. In that location's no newspaper offense movie with a killer contacting a reporter that'south better than "Zodiac," of course. Manager David Fincher's 2007 film dramatizes the hunt for the Zodiac killer from the perspective of San Francisco newspaper reporters. Zodiac killed and assaulted his victims in the Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s and sent letters to police and paper staffers played in the picture show by Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. The motion-picture show is equally tense every bit whatsoever docudrama-fashion presentation could be, and that cast: Besides Gyllenhaal and Downey Jr., at that place's Marking Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards as cops, Brian Cox as chaser Melvin Belli, Chloe Sevigny, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue and the astonishing John Carroll Lynch, best known equally the affable husband in "Fargo," but whose moments here will make you shudder. This film in particular emphasizes the price that a story can take on journalists. While we're talking almost the most realistic depictions of reporters, acknowledgement must be fabricated of "The Paper" and "Spotlight." "The Newspaper," director Ron Howard's 1994 drama with humor about a large New York Urban center newspaper, starred Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall and Marissa Tomei. There's a murder plot and newspaper intrigue simply the impression information technology left with newspaper people who watched it was a confirmation of what nosotros already knew: there'southward no thrill as good as breaking a big story … only a life in newspapers ways no life outside the newsroom. Or is that lesson "a life in newspapers means no life outside the newsroom … but there'south no thrill as good every bit breaking a large story?" There'southward a difference. As well, "Spotlight," director Tom McCarthy's 2015 look at the real-life investigation by The Boston Globe's Spotlight squad into systemic child corruption by Boston priests. "Spotlight" brought the appurtenances: An astonishing cast led by newspaper movie veterans Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton besides as Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery and Stanley Tucci. The film recreated the methodical, meticulous steps the Spotlight squad took in perhaps the second nearly realistic newspaper procedural after "All the President's Men." All of us in the paper business especially marveled that the film's costume designer perfectly captured the standard newsroom uniform: Khaki pants and button-down Oxford shirts. Article continues after ad There are so many more newspaper crime movies that might be someone's favorites, but these are mine. And there just might be no entry in the genre that is purer than "The Nifty Muppet Caper." And at the same time, information technology tells a story of two brothers – Kermit and Fozzie – who become investigative reporters for a big newspaper. Sure nosotros've seen brothers who split up the dark side and light side, 1 falling on the side of crime and the other on the side of good. Simply two difficult-hitting investigative reporters? Mild kidding aside, there'southward no genre the Muppets haven't conquered and this newspaper crime film proves that. Plus, Jack Warden is their editor and I choose to believe he'due south nonetheless playing his character from "All the President'southward Men." ___________________________________ Keith Roysdon worked for newspapers for 40 years and nonetheless works for newspapers sometimes. Inquire him to one day tell you about the time Jesus Christ walked into the newsroom. His offense novel "Seven Angels" won the 2021 Hugh Holton Award for best unpublished novel from Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter. He writes for several sites including CrimeReads, his online habitation abroad from dwelling house. 
Source: https://crimereads.com/whats-the-greatest-newspaper-crime-movie-ever-made/