Preston Sturges #1: "The Great McGinty" (1940)

Becoming increasingly fed-up with wallowing in the unpredictability of studio screenwriting, the then 42 year-old Preston Sturges sold the script for “The Great McGinty” for a mere $10 to Paramount so long as he was allowed to direct the film himself.

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The story of a rise-and-fall bum-turned-politician, “The Great McGinty” is far more social drama than satire, examining the ugliness of corrupt government officials through one man’s meteoric rise to the Governor’s chair (the title character, played by Brian Donlevy).

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Told in flashback from an undisclosed barroom over a few drinks, the film hardly glamorizes or preaches the virtues of standing up to dirty politics in the public domain a la Frank Capra’s wonderfully idealistic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939). No, according to Sturges, doing so will only get you a kick in the teeth and a low-end job serving beers from one flame-out to another.

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“The Great McGinty” unfolds like an early 30’s Warner Bros. gangster film – grisly, succinct, cautionary – and it ends with our hero doomed not by his present day good intentions, but by his dirty past, consisting of beating up store owners late on their payments and fixing city elections.

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But Mr. Sturges brings rare warmth to McGinty’s transformation in the relationship between he and his wife Catherine (Muriel Angelus), who at first is merely just a political partner before slowly winning his heart. These scenes are touching, thoughtful character moments that bring heartache to the film’s conclusion, including a touching farewell phone call from husband to wife in the final reel.

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If there is one thing to say about "The Great McGinty" it's that Sturges' penchant for satirizing condemnable social inconsitencies, in this rare instance, feels slightly off-kilter. At times, the film plays like a tragic satire, sliding in-and-out rather uncomfortably between solemn misfortune and political lampooning.

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It wouldn’t take Sturges long to find his satirical groove (his films quickly grew more feverish and wily), but as it stands, “The Great McGinty” is a modest, heartfelt and cleverly topical debut that won Sturges his first screenplay Oscar at the 1941 ceremony, the first award ever handed out to the now segregated “Original Screenplay” category. [B-]
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Paramount Pictures; 83 mins.