Sturges at the beginning of his great career as writer/director

Preston Sturges's first film as writer AND director (he sold the script to the studio for $10 for the privilege to direct it), and although the script won the Academy Award, it's a tribute to just how great Sturges's movies are that this one is not up to the wackiness of his later ones, though for anybody else it would be a gem.

A poor young tough guy, Dan McGinty (played by Brian Donlevy) gets himself noticed by some mob bosses after he votes 37 times in an election for two bucks a pop. He begins working for the boss (Akim Tamiroff) as a collector of payoff money, and is then pushed into politics. Eventually he gets himself elected mayor and then governor; but then he has a turn of heart and decides to cut out the graft and go straight. Of course, this doesn't wash and he is forced to flee the country for South America (where he tells his story in flashbacks) or face jail time in the States. It would take Sturges a couple of pictures to really hit his stride - he seems restrained here where later he would let it all hang out - but it's a terrific comedy anyway. Well worth a watch.

We need more Preston Sturges on DVD!
Preston Sturges was one of the great directors. This movie is not his best but gives such a taste of things to come. It's so good to see Brian Donlevy play something besides a heavy; he's wonderful playing a complicated man. Akim Tamiroff is so funny. What a great political film. I vote for this and all Preston Sturges to be on DVD and I hope it's soon!

Saw this after Hail the Conquering Hero & immediately
saw where the pattern of Sturges movies began. Take a good solid concept, in this case, political corruption, write a good script around it & satirizes. This formula can work for a long time if you don't take it too seriously & become preachy. Stuges doesn't, he makes it entertaining & funny in the style of its time. Briefly, in this case a bum, literally, thru cunning, intrique, shady dealings, & the help of stupid politicians rises to the heights of political power. It's your rags to riches to rags story. Some of the slapstick shtick is just silly, so I give it 31/2 stars instead of four.

As fine an opening 30 minutes as you are ever going to see.
But after that I think that 'McGinty' is a nice film, well done, but certainly not as richly written as 'Hail the Conquering Hero' and others.

The lead female character is lacking in chrisma and spark, and the film feels that it is groping along to a nice, funny little ending.

But, I do love two shots in this movie, one is where McGinty is calling on a 'Interior Decorator' (a lug) to get him to pay some protection money, he rings the bell and Sturges cuts to him as seen from the inside of the glass door, its just a cool little shot.

The second is the shot from the interior of a moving call as McGinty exchanges punches with the Boss in the backseat as the car rolls up to a Hotel. A interior shot from the insider of a real moving car was very rare in those days. You can see that Sturgis was just full of little ideas of camera placement in this film.

Preston Sturges' directorial debut
After writing several sucessful Hollywood scripts, hotshot Preston Sturges took his first crack at directing, in this crisp, typically cynical, intelligent 1940 debut. The Great McGinty is one Dan McGinty, a down-and-out, yet tough-as-nails tramp who finds opportunity handed to him on a silver platter when a the boss of a big political machine sees McGinty's potential, and taps him to be one of his many henchmen in a statewide graft ring. Affable, savvy, and ruthlessly ambitious, McGinty rises to the top, eventually riding into the governor's office on a hypocritically-fashioned "reform" ticket. Naturally, a woman softens him up, and brings his downfall. As usual, it's difficult not to compare Sturges with the equally populist director, Frank Capra, especially as the plot of this film closely mirrors that of Capra's "Meet John Joe," and other Capra films. How do they stack up? Well, Sturges's story is in certain regards darker, in others less harrowing. His bum-made-reformed-conman starts way more corrupt, and never really softenss to the degree a Capra hero would... He finds his moral center, but not his actual salvation, and the film doesn't have what you'd exactly call a "happy ending," at least not for the hero himself. Other elements are similar, though, particularly in the skillful use of supporting character actors. Particularly appealling here are Akim Tamiroff as the political boss and William Demarest as the stooge who first recruits McGinty. Brian Donlevy, as McGinty, is adequate, but hardly as appealing as some of the actors Sturges would work with later on. Still, a nice example of the Sturges formula at work.