The Great McGinty.

Review #2381: The Great McGinty.

Cast: 

Brian Donlevy (Daniel McGinty), Muriel Angelus (Catherine McGinty), Akim Tamiroff (The Boss), Allyn Joslyn (George), William Demarest (Skeeters), Louis Jean Heydt (Thompson; "Tommy"), Harry Rosenthal (Louie), Arthur Hoyt (Mayor Wilfred T. Tillinghast), and Libby Taylor (Bessy) Written and Directed by Preston Sturges (#188 - Sullivan's Travels, #431 - The Palm Beach Story).

Review: 

"It's taken me eight years to reach what I wanted. But now, if I don't run out of ideas – and I won't – we'll have some fun. There are some wonderful pictures to be made, and God willing, I will make some of them."

Call it spring cleaning, call it overdue, it does seem right to return to the beginning of a worthwhile career with Preston Sturges as a director. Born in Chicago to parents that divorced when he was young, he actually served as a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Service in the late 1910s but did not see action in World War I. He had become a published writer when his essay about humor was printed when in camp, but he became an actual playwright later, after, well, a litany of stuff done that ranged from developing a kiss-proof lipstick to stage manager. The Guinea Pig, premiering in January 1929, came on a suggestion. Sturges apparently was spurred to come up with a play because a woman he was dating apparently was trying to write her own play. She wasn't actually writing a play, but Sturges and his efforts paid off with a small run on Broadway. He did a few plays but soon went to doing scripts-for-hire. Among the first scripts Sturges contributed as a writer-for-hire in Hollywood was the dialogue for The Big Pond in 1930. Probably his most noted script of the time came with The Power and the Glory (1933), a movie that happened to involve a recollection of the life of a now-dead tycoon by the people that knew him. So, how did Sturges become a director? Well, he had a script that seemed interesting to Paramount Pictures, and he sold it to them for apparently $10 with the stipulation that he direct it. The script originally was written in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind, but it had been unsuccessfully shopped around (even the Saturday Evening Post rejected it); apparently, Sturges was inspired by the tenure of William Sulzer as Governor in New York, where he was elected in 1912 as a Tammany Hall machine guy before he decided to pursue reform and was soon impeached and removed in nine months. The movie was shot in roughly a month, and the result was that Sturges won the first ever Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for his work here. Sturges would have a busy next couple of years, with this film being followed months later with Christmas in July. While his career would peak in 1944 because of quibbles with producers, Sturges ultimately directed twelve movies prior to his death in 1959 at the age of 60, such as The Lady Eve (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). Donlevy and Tamiroff would reprise their roles for The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1942). 

Sure, of course this is the kind of movie that starts with a text screen: "This is the story of two men who met in a banana republic. One of them was honest all his life except one crazy minute. The other was dishonest all his life except one crazy minute. They both had to get out of the country." What you get is a recollection of grafting and the mockery that comes in seeing waste and corruption on display for the public that reminds you that the past wasn't merely just "the good ol' days" for everyone. Granted, we don't go around giving money to the bread-liner who votes, but who is going to say that people are more aware of their local politicians playing the grift game? But then again, how many honest people do you see in public anyway? In that regard, Donlevy makes for a quality lead performance, one that can be smooth in his ways of words that can bully/sweet talk plenty of people in the film because of how he makes it sound. In other words, when you get the chance at a hustle, you might as well jump at it in full force. Of course, it just so happens he does fall for Angelus because, well, there is a certain type of interest that she generates in her casual nature of normalcy even when playing a part in the initial scam of a happy family. Tamiroff* happens to make for quite the booming figure of the man behind the strings, a baron of his surroundings with plenty of timing to match in what you might call good ol' boy bluster. The 83 minutes passes through with ease and a worthy sense of biting wit for the ridiculousness that comes through in politics and people in general with what they believe is worthy for the people to see from the public and the real price of truth and power. The movie chuckles along with itself in the manner of someone who knows a cynical ditty and is all the more ready to make a yarn about it, and this is a worthwhile debut for Sturges and company, managing to be a funny film of grifts and grafts gone by the wayside of influence that is a neat gem for those to encounter all these years later.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars. 

*Orson Welles once called him "the greatest of all screen actors."

The Kid from Cleveland.

Review #1857: The Kid from Cleveland.

Cast: 

George Brent (Mike Jackson), Lynn Bari (Katherine Jackson), Russ Tamblyn (Johnny Barrows), Tommy Cook (Dan "The Kid" Hudson), Ann Doran (Emily Barrows Novak), Louis Jean Heydt (Carl Novak), K. Elmo Lowe (Dave Joyce), John Beradino (Mac), with Bill Veeck, Lou Boudreau, Tris Speaker, Hank Greenberg, Larry Doby, and many more. Directed by Herbert Kline.

Review: 

Let's be honest: the baseball material is the only drawing point of curiosity. That isn't to say that detailing the history of a young role for Russ Tamblyn is a bland experience, but one really does have to strain hard to not just immediately ask about how the Cleveland Indians (now known as the Guardians) got their own feature film. Well, I'm sure the answer is simply just Republic Pictures thinking that the 1948 club, who won the World Series over the Boston Braves, would possibly draw in a few local profits, complete with select footage utilized from the Series and bit lines from the stars on that team (along with certain moments with the 1949 team, who finished 3rd). Truthfully, the only reason I picked this movie was to talk about the 75th anniversary of Larry Doby making his debut in Major League Baseball, the second African American to play in the league and first in the American League. The Camden native had played five seasons for the Newark Eagles in black baseball before Cleveland owner/club president Bill Veeck signed him to a contract. The day of July 5, 1947 was three months after the debut of Jackie Robinson, and Doby's debut was serving as a pinch-hitter that saw him strike out on four pitches (contrary to Veeck's statement at the end of this film, Joe Gordon did not strike out after Doby to save face for his teammate, as Gordon was on base when Doby struck out). The next day, in the second game of a double-header, Doby started his first game in MLB at first base at Comiskey Park in Chicago, collecting his first hit and RBI. Doby had a tough first year, but he bounced back in 1948 to bat .300, and he was the first black player to hit a home run in the World Series in Game 4. Combining his statistics from his first season in 1942 to his last in 1959, he collected 273 home runs with 1,094 runs batted in while being named an All-Star eight times; after a long wait, Doby was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998, finally cementing his place as one of the best players of his era and certainly the most underrated player. 

The film was written by Herbert Kline and John Bright (a founder of the Screen Writers Guild). Born in Iowa, Kline started his career as an editor for a magazine called New Theater before moving to New York to join the Photo League. Over time, he did manage to make a couple of features alongside documentary work, such as his work involving covering political crises in Europe such as the Spanish Civil War; he once described himself as a "foreign correspondent of the screen". The Fighter (1952) and the aforementioned Cleveland film are likely his most noted features, owing to his blacklisting in the 1950s due to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The movie went by "The Cleveland Story" and "Pride of the Indians" before finally settling on the title we know now, which is a pleasant snooze in all of the average ways possible. Did I mention that this is a movie about a troubled teenager that finds help from the baseball team? This seems like it could have been made about any random sports team, even with all of the location shots of Cleveland Stadium and bits of League Park sprinkled in (which only begs the question if someone would have gone with "The Kid from Boston" if the Braves had won the Series instead?). For me, I would rather be sitting at Cleveland Stadium watching six future Hall of Famers try to play actor (to go with more interesting baseball footage) than watching Tamblyn trying to play juvenile delinquent. This was his first credited role for the Los Angeles native, who was fifteen years old when this film came out, although it would be a couple of years before he didn't have to go by "Rusty" Tamblyn. At any rate, his performance isn't much to write home about, probably fit for a morality play or an unintentional comedy than this hodgepodge. Brent and Bari don't exactly lend a hand to help either, since neither really elevate the drama beyond first gear nor generate interest in the material that a broomstick would do. Doran and Heydt don't exactly move the needle either in parental figures to Tamblyn. One knows exactly what they are going for in 89 minutes with no real particular surprises present, no matter how they try to play the juvenile angle or the inevitable custody battle.

The reason to maybe see the movie is to see the Cleveland of yesteryear, to see a winning ball club that had star power with distinct names and faces, whether that involved player/manager Lou Boudreau, or star batter Joe Gordon, or Doby, or star pitchers Bob Feller (a Hall of Famer and also a guy who devised a sign-stealing plan with fellow legend Bob Lemon involving a telescope) and Satchel Paige (who is seen depicting his hesitation pitch for one scene). Of course, they come off pretty stiff when a camera is focused on them besides baseball, but maybe the curiosity factor about their baseball stories can forgive some of that. Bill Veeck, the revolutionary showman owner, is probably the most curious presence in the film, even if one knows they are watching a showman rather than an actor. As a whole, it is more interesting to talk around the movie known as The Kid from Cleveland than it is to actually watch it, which is not a ringing endorsement unless one is a sentimental Clevelander. Average may be better than a portion of bad movies, but it still isn't enough to recommend over other (better) baseball movies.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.