The Great McGinty

Dan McGinty is a homeless man who earns money by voting thirty-two times on an election night. Hearing about it, the party boss takes him on. McGinty starts by collecting protection money, gets onto the council, becomes mayor and finally governor. All of it with the boss's permission. Then one day he decides to behave honestly and everything collapses. The subject is not corruption but honesty breaking the system. McGinty does the right thing once, and that single decision finishes both him and his boss; the film delivers it as irony rather than as a lesson. The form is fast and sardonic: political rallies, back-room bargains, overlapping dialogue. The narrative opens in a bar in flashback. The production story is told as often as the film. Preston Sturges had been unable to sell the script for years and finally sold it to Paramount for ten dollars, on the single condition that he direct it. It was his first film as a director and it won the first Oscar ever given for original screenplay. The script's title had changed several times over the years. Brian Donlevy plays McGinty and Akim Tamiroff the boss. Who it is for: viewers who like political satire and classic American comedy. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a long-form narrative; the film is short and some passages go by fast.