The Great McGinty **** (1940, Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff, William Demarest, Muriel Angelus) – Classic Movie Review 2624

Writer-director Preston Sturges grabs his first chance to direct a movie in a project from his own screenplay that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Writing Original Screenplay. He sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $1 on condition that he could direct the film. Paramount provided Sturges a budget of $350,000, a three-week shooting schedule and inexpensive stars.

Told in flashback, his delightfully funny 1940 American political satire stars Akim Tamiroff as the malaprop-laced The Boss, a greedy criminal local political boss and Brian Donlevy as Dan McGinty, the Depression-era bum he recruits to help with vote fraud. McGinty’s great success in crooked politics brings him rapid promotion, as The Boss shoves him up the political ladder as the nominally reform candidate for new mayor.

His candidacy requires being married, and his honest secretary Catherine (Muriel Angelus) proposes a marriage of convenience, but this proves the beginning of the end for the dishonest McGinty.

The cynicism, the pace and the brightness of the playing are dazzling. And there are smashing turns from William Demarest as Skeeters the Politician, Arthur Hoyt as Mayor Wilfred T Tillinghast, Louis Jean Heydt as Tommy Thompson, Allyn Joslyn as George and Thurston Hall as Mr Maxwell among the character support.

Sturges uses many of the actors who became part of his unofficial stock company, a group of character actors within the studio system. Appearing in McGinty are George Anderson, Jimmy Conlin, Byron Foulger, Harry Hayden, Esther Howard, Arthur Hoyt, George Melford, Charles R. Moore, Frank Moran, Emory Parnell, Victor Potel, Dewey Robinson, Harry Rosenthal and Robert Warwick.

It was not a large hit but was profitable, sparking Sturges’s career.

Sturges wrote the original story The Story of a Man in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind, apparently inspired by the career of William Sulzer, who was impeached and removed from office as governor of New York.

Tamiroff and Donlevy returned as The Boss and Dan McGinty in Sturges’s 1944 comedy The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.

In the UK the film was retitled Down Went McGinty, one of its numerous original working titles.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2624

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