The Great McGinty

The Great McGinty is a film written and directed by Preston Sturges in 1940 and, like most of Sturges's films, it is a struggle between cynicism and romanticism.  In Sturges's best films --The Lady Eve, Unfaithfully Yours -- this struggle comes close to being resolved, while in other films -- Christmas in July, The Great Moment --it is painfully unresolved.  I have often said that the best comedies are the most serious and The Great McGinty is serious indeed; it a film about a corrupt politician who ruins his career by allowing his wife to influence him to do good.  One sign of a good director is how vivid even the most minor supporting actors are and in The Great McGinty we see the beginning of Sturges's stock company, second only to John Ford's in powerful impression with little screen time:  William Demarest, Frank Moran, Jimmy Conlin, et al.  And, typically for Sturges, the best lines are tossed off so carelessly one is likely to miss them, with the visual and verbal combined ("I got a new suit" followed by "it looks more like the suit's got you.").  One of the reasons I think some are still so romantic about the Kennedy era is because the Presidents who followed him can only inspire cynicism --  Johnson, Reagan, Clinton, Bush -- and the one guy who was decent, the way McGinty tried to be, was Carter and he was chewed up and spat out.  Currently I am reading Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes, about the 1988 Presidential campaign, and it is a fairly romantic book, about how anyone can become President if they are willing to pay the price. And I am also watching on Netflix Beau Willimon's House of Cards, which suggests that the price of success in politics is everything from dissembling to murder. 
The Great McGinty was Sturges's first film as director and he was able to do it, albeit on a small budget, because he sold the screenplay to Paramount for $10; he was tired of seeing his screenplays misunderstood by directors.  Sturges's success paved the way for other writers, particularly John Huston and Billy Wilder, to also become directors.