“The Great McGinty” (1940)
With his directorial debut, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, Preston Sturges’ kicked off his career with a bang (legend has it, he sold the idea for ‘McGinty’ to Paramount under the condition he direct it). A diverting and ironic little political satire by way of cautionary tale, the picture stars Brian Donlevy as the titular “hero” — a bum on the breadline with a thuggish streak. When he hears that a group of corrupt politicos are paying $2 per vote for a figurehead patsy mayor, he votes a whopping 37 times and catches the attention of these gangsters. Tickled by his clueless, brutish approach as he mouths off to them and everyone around him, the boss (Akim Tamiroff) hires him to collect past-due protection money. McGinty passes every test with flying colors, and eventually becomes his political protege, graduating to alderman, mayor and eventually governor — all the while being the puppet on the end of the mob’s strings. But when he falls in love with his secretary/fake wife Catherine (a charming Muriel Angelus) — the sham wedding only occurred so he could get the female vote when he was running for mayor — things begin to change. She and her children awaken a caring, compassionate side in McGinty and press him to quit being the stooge for his crooked bosses. Refusing to bend to their wishes and erect expensive monuments that line their pockets, McGinty is headed for a fall from grace. Whipsmart, engaging and funny, “The Great McGinty” is an entertaining parable and a sign of only greater things to come from Preston Sturges [B+]
“In The Loop” (2009)
Writer/director Armando Iannucci’s scathing political satire, loosely based on/spun-off of his BBC television series “The Thick of It,” which ran for six half-hour episodes and two specials from 2005 to 2007 (and has since had another series, with another on the way in 2012), is so on-the-money and realistic that we’re able to forgive its biggest flaw: it’s shot in the handheld, zoom-intensive documentary style we’ve all grown overly familiar with. Think “The Office,” except there is no acknowledgment of the camera here, so it’s more like a fly-on-the-wall approach to the material. But shooting style aside, it’s the vicious, vitriolic black humor that shines through. The jokes, one-liners and visual gags spew forth at a rapid rate; like those strobe-heavy anime cartoons known to induce fits of epileptic seizures to the viewer, so does “In The Loop” with guffaws. An endless barrage of pop culture references (we recall nods to “The Shining,” “The Omen,” “Eraserhead,” “The Crying Game,” ‘Harry Potter’ and many more we missed while in hysterical bouts of laughter) and a ridiculously high joke quotient, are reminiscent of “Airplane!” but with a realistic story. While “In the Loop” is apocryphal, it’s impossible to not draw comparisons to political events of this decade. We don’t see the highest government officials, we see the people who work behind the scenes where everyone is looking to gain an edge for their next career hurdle. Semantics is everything in this world. This is a sapid, smart, dark and mean-spirited comedy in the vein of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “Dr. Strangelove,” with an ending that feels almost as apocalyptic, at least for the characters. Further proof of the film’s Kubrickian style is evident in ‘Loop’’s trailer as well, using the sped-up version of the William Tell Overture in a direct homage to “A Clockwork Orange.” But this film truly belongs to Peter Capaldi (“Local Hero”) as Malcolm Tucker (the only recurring character from “The Thick of It”), giving such a believable performance you’d swear he was this guy in real life, not a fantastic satirical creation. Every character he comes across falls in his wake of mean-spirited barbs. The rest of the cast is top-notch as well; all of them create fully-realized characters, and more importantly, avoid any semblance of caricature, which would’ve happened in the hands of less-capable filmmakers. [A-]
“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962)
What better way to tap into the nation’s Cold War anxiety than with a political thriller about communists brainwashing American soldiers? John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film follows Frank Sinatra as Major Bennett Marco, a man plagued by constant nightmares involving men of his platoon being killed by their Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey). After pursuing an investigation, it’s revealed that the troops were brainwashed by communists, with Shaw poised to follow any orders so long as he is shown a Queen of Diamonds. The forever-old Angela Lansbury plays his mother (despite being only three years older than Harvey), a secret commie who hopes to execute a plan allowing her to influence the U.S. President with her ideology. It’s a solid puzzle of a story chugging along with powerful forward momentum; incredibly absorbing even if both Soviet-paranoia and Sinatra-lead films usually find modern audiences uninterested. The 2004 update with Denzel Washington wasn’t badly received, but the original stands head and shoulders above, thanks to its weirder passages: Marco and love interest Eugenie (Janet Leigh) have such an odd conversation about states, railroad lines and old Chinese men that many concocted a “brainwashing theory” over the scene. There’s also the nightmare sequence, in which the soldiers are drugged to think that a presentation by Communists showing off new assassin Shaw is actually an informational meeting about hydrangeas, attended only by older housewives. The reality and dream images are cut together disturbingly, going back and forth in a dissonant, maniacal fashion. It’s a pretty ingenious, expertly handled scene, and you can’t really remake that. [A]
“Meet John Doe” (1941)
The creative cinematic marriage of Frank Capra and his screenwriter Robert Riskin ended in divorce after “Meet John Doe,” and on the evidence of this film it’s not difficult to imagine why. Here is an oddball, largely unpalatable hunk of Capra-corn, a cock-eyed anti-fascist parable pure and naked, which defies the comparatively comfortable trajectories of the director’s earlier “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Mr Smith Goes to Washington.” With her journalistic career on the skids, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) pens a pseudonymous farewell letter under the by-line “John Doe,” and has her creation spout missives about the dreariness of contemporary existence — “I protest the state of civilization” – and concludes the column by declaring Doe intends to kill himself on Christmas Eve. Roping in a bumpkin who dreams of being a baseball player (Gary Cooper), Stanwyck’s wily scheme sprouts legs after a platitudinous radio speech made up of treacly homilies (“Wake up, John Doe. You’re the hope of the world!”) and we’re asked to believe a spontaneous political movement is born overnight; ready-made to be destroyed by the very people who created it. With Walter Brennan screaming about “healots” throughout the entire film’s running time, Cooper’s “yokel appeal” — indicative of what critic Richard Corliss dubbed a streak of “rube psychosis” in Capra’s work – is key to the entire duplicitous shebang. But the ethical quandary is bunk (why should the people invest in a folk hero invented by a journalist, and a careerist one to boot?), even if the intent is admirable. “Meet John Doe” is a worthwhile film which, like Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole” after it, harkens back to a mythical age of journalism where reporters were expected to adhere to a set of ethical editorial standards. But it’s also an inescapably flawed, vaguely condescending one – though Stanwyck and Cooper are typically dependable, the sizzling chemistry between the pair on display in the same year’s “Ball of Fire” has mysteriously vanished. [C+]
“Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” (1939)
James Stewart’s filibuster at the end of “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” is one of the finest scenes of his career and one of the most memorable moments in classic American cinema. And while it’s now considered by some to be somewhat quaint and naively idealistic, in the way that Frank Capra films generally are, it’s easy to forget that at the time politicians branded the film as anti-American and pro-Communist, and revisiting the movie now, it’s surprising just how affecting it still is. Marking the second collaboration between Stewart and Capra, following their charming “You Can’t Take It With You,” the story follows wide-eyed Jefferson, a Boy Rangers leader who is suddenly ushered into the U.S. Senate when his state representative dies. Crooked political boss Jim Taylor thinks the green Jefferson will be easily manipulated when he finds himself in over his head, but is surprised when Jefferson fights back when some proposed legislation will build a dam on the site of a campground. Backed up against a wall by the seasoned political power players and boxed in by a frame-up that his rivals hope will bounce him out of office, the film hinges on that last, great speech by Jefferson, and with Capra and Stewart working their magic it’s impossible to resist. With Jean Arthur cheering on from the gallery and Harry Carey’s seasoned mug as the President of the Senate smiling on, more than seven decades since it was first released, and in this era of deeply partisan and cynical government, you’ll wish there was someone as passionate and principled Jefferson Smith stomping the halls of Washington. “Will the Senator yield?” Hell, no. [A]
