Confessions Of A Stand-Up Guy-Preston Sturges’ The Great McGinty-A Film Review  

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Great McGinty, starring Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff, 1940  

Recently I wrote in a review of another of Preston Sturges’ films, the dark comedy Unfaithfully Yours that those readers familiar with my music, book and film reviews in this space know that when I come across musicians, authors and movies that I go crazy over I tend to go out and grab every available other piece of material done by them. So in a short period of time, for example, you would get maybe ten reviews running of the legendary hard-boiled detection writer Dashiell Hammett’s work (and maybe more for older work as some previously unknown work like some of Hammett’s very early writing see the light of day whether they should have or not). Right now I am “hot” on the trail of the “king” of the 1930s and 1940s romantic screwball comedy writers and directors Preston Sturges after having viewed his classic Sullivan’s Travels with Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake (she of that then 1940s fashionable tuff of hair hanging over the right eye) and now several other offerings.

The film under review, a short writer-director “political/social commentary” film The Great McGinty, is not anywhere in the same league for political and social commentary as the formerly mentioned McCrea-Lake film, but had a rather good performance by lead actor Brian Donlevy as the literally rags-to-riches-to rags McGinty of the title and another stand-out performance by Akim Tamiroff as the world weary and wise big city boss running the politicians like a yo-yo. Although the film lacked enough subtle and witty dialogue to, well, pay off a single grafter.    

That “single grafter” reference as was the “concert hall” reference in Unfaithfully Yours (and the “cup of coffee” reference in another recently reviewed Sturges film, Christmas In July) was no accidental remark since this film centers on the ups and downs, that rags to riches to rags career mentioned above of the great McGinty. That career started out simply enough when the “from hunger” Great Depression hobo McGinty was recruited to “vote” for the current mayor in a big city and get paid for doing so. The trick: whomever he was voting in place of was dead, gone from town or incapable of voting for some other reason adding measurably and an surely to the mayor’s election. A favorite and time-tested trick in the old times of ward-heeler politics. McGinty’s trick: vote early and often and in the process make a small killing, small killing for a “from hunger” hobo which brought him to the attention of Mister Big, the boss of bosses, in city politics (the role played by Tamiroff remember).

That “beautiful friendship would lead McGinty to some fame and fortune, mainly fortune as he rose in the political world all the way to Governor of the state, if you can believe that. Of course the down side as I already telegraphed with that rags to riches to rags wa that McGinty was telling of his ups and downs story down in some sunny South American spot where he had been forced to flee to in order to avoid going to jail for signing all those sweetheart contract for “bridges to nowhere” and the like. He was telling this autobiographical to a fellow ex-pat who was also on the lam for some illegal caper along with his girl as McGinty served them drinks. By the way guess who was sitting in that same barroom. Yeah, that Mister Big who also had to take it on the lam when the heat came down. A cautionary tale for sure.         

But wait a minute as I pointed out above (and elsewhere as well) this is a Preston Sturges vehicle and down below the surface plot is a tale about getting ahead in this wicked old world, about big cloud dreams, and about America being different, that last best hope of democracy that Lincoln was always going on and on about. But also about romance, a staple of Sturges’ films. The romance here centered on an ambitious secretary, a divorcee with kids, whom McGinty married originally as a marriage of convenience for an up and coming politician (although the divorcee part in real life would have been problematic in those days) but flowered into a real romance. Of course when McGinty was forced to flee south of the border he was forced to give her and the kids up too. Another cautionary tale. An okay film but see Sullivan’s Travels if you want Sturges’ best witty political and social commentary on the goings-on in the Great Depression 1930s in this country.