MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Switching Channels’ Is No ‘Front Page’

On the surface, there might seem to be some reason to drag the weary but honorable bones of “The Front Page” out for one last hurrah, but the over-amped hysteria of “Switching Channels” (selected theaters) is not it.

Jonathan Reynolds’ screenplay straddles the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play of 60 years ago and “His Girl Friday,” the 1940 Hecht-Charles Lederer revamping for Howard Hawks. You can feel a little wishful corporate thinking that this might be the “Broadcast News” of the cable business, but it’s the same kind of wishful thinking that produced the Alexander Haig presidential campaign.

As in the play, the film’s background is the news biz, this time a cable news network run by salty, irrepressible John L. Sullivan IV (Burt Reynolds). He answers to “Sully”--although “Silly” might be closer to the mark. As in “His Girl Friday,” high-risk reporter Hildy Johnson has undergone a sex change: The character is now anchorwoman Christy Colleran (Kathleen Turner), who is Sully’s ex-wife. Apparently indestructible, we see her in a daredevil opening sequence reporting--with that great Turner throatiness--on every situation except mining coal or giving birth.

Christopher Reeve has the most thankless role as Christy’s brand-new fiance, Blaine Bingham. Since we know from their first growled exchanges that the only permanent pair in sight are Sully and Christy, Bingham is utterly expendable. At the same time, he’s got to have something about him so we don’t think that Christy has lost her marbles by falling in love with him. The script makes him a billionaire owner of a chain of sporting goods stores, and Reeve, checking his newly blonded hair in every stray mirror, makes the most of him. Unfortunately, since Reeve gives a sly spin to Bingham’s self-absorption, his character simply implodes into wimpiness.

The standout of the large supporting cast is Henry Gibson. He’s genuinely affecting as the plaintive little killer, railroaded to the electric chair for political reasons and the subject of a weepy interview by Christy in the best Geraldo Rivera tradition. Somehow, with all around him in a frenzy of overacting, Gibson keeps himself admirably low-key and lovable.

Some of screenwriter Reynolds’ updates work: A cranky Underwood typewriter becomes a hiccuping duplicating machine; the famous roll-top desk, which concealed a missing murderer, becomes an office copier, and there’s a pleasant enough running gag as the TV station hands must kick their satellite dish to spur it back into action.

Best are the derisive gibes between the newspaper and TV reporters, gathered for a very politically sensitive execution. (“The TV guys are always in a hurry,” one print reporter says sourly, eating the dust of the departing TV hordes. “That’s why they make so many mistakes.”)

But you find yourself grasping at straws to list the pluses in this frantic, slapstick activity. The real culprit is Ted Kotcheff, who has directed all his cast at a breakneck cartoon pitch. (A few of his actors, particularly Reynolds and Ned Beatty, didn’t need extra encouragement in this direction.) Every reaction is telegraphed, every action broad as a pratfall. It blunts what fun there is in the dialogue, and it makes this marvelous original material into an enervating, joyless endurance course.

‘SWITCHING CHANNELS’

A Tri-Star release of a Martin Ransohoff production. Producer Ransohoff. Executive producer Don Carmody. Director Ted Kotcheff. Screenplay Jonathan Reynolds, based on the play “The Front Page” by Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur. Camera Francois Protat. Editor Thom Noble. Music Michel LeGrand. Production design Anne Pritchard. Art direction Charles Dunlop, set decoration Mark Freeborn, Rose Marie McSherry, Lynn Trout (Montreal). Sound David Lee, Bernie Blynder (Miami). With Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, Henry Gibson, George Newbern, Al Waxman.

Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

MPAA-rated: PG (parental guidance suggested).