Who plays editor Walter Burns in Wilder's 1974 film The Front Page?

Who plays editor Walter Burns in Wilder’s 1974 film The Front Page? Walter Matthau. He plays the ruthless managing editor who tries to stop reporter Hildy Johnson from leaving the newspaper.

Matthau’s Walter Burns is an egomaniacal, manipulative editor at the Chicago Examiner. When Hildy, played by Jack Lemmon, plans to quit journalism and marry Peggy Grant, Burns uses every tactic available to keep his star reporter on the story of condemned prisoner Earl Williams. Their frantic professional relationship supplies much of the film’s comic energy.

The casting reunited Matthau and Lemmon after their first pairing in The Fortune Cookie, for which Matthau won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Their chemistry helped make them one of American cinema’s best-known comedy duos, though The Front Page is an ensemble newsroom farce rather than a conventional romantic comedy.

The role also connects Wilder’s film to the 1928 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Walter Burns was already the editor character in the stage version, and the story had previously reached the screen in 1931 and in the gender-swapped 1940 film His Girl Friday. Wilder’s version returned to the original male reporter-editor setup.