Preston Sturges series: Screening of "The Great McGinty" March 22 at Daystar Center

Preston Sturges series: The Great McGinty
Where: The Venue 1550 at the Daystar Center, 1550 S. State Street, Chicago, IL
When: March 22, 2016
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Stephen Reginald

The Great McGinty (1940)  is the movie that began Preston Sturges’s writer/director career. Supposedly Sturges sold his script to Paramount for $10 in a deal so he could direct his first film. The Great McGinty won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and stars Brian Donlevy as a tramp who rises to political power with the help of a corrupt political boss (Akim Tamiroff). The cast also includes Muriel Angelus, Allyn Joslyn, Thurston Hall, and Sturges stock company player, William Demarest.

The suits at Paramount gave Sturges a B-picture budget of $350,000 and a three-week shooting schedule, as well as cheap talent under contract to the studio. Donlevy, a staple in films for almost a decade, was perfect for the role of McGinty, a man who goes from bum to city mayor and then state governor. It’s a wild ride, along with boss Tamiroff, who plans every step of McGinty’s political career. Eventually, the corruption and deal making catches up with both The Boss and McGinty. Will they both go down for the count?

The Great McGinty was a hit when it premiered on August 15, 1940 in New York City. Popular with both moviegoers and film critics, it was named on of the 10 best films of 1940 by the New York Times.

For a preview of the film, check out the clip below. Could McGinty be from Chicago?

Have some Joe and Enjoy the Show!
Before the movie, grab a cup of coffee from Overflow Coffee Bar, located within the Daystar Center. You can bring food and beverages into the auditorium; we even have small tables set up next to some of the seats. General Admission: $5 Students and Senior Citizens: $3.

Join the Chicago Film club; join the discussion
Twice a month we screen classic films and have a brief discussion afterward. For more information, including how to join (it’s free), click here. The Venue 1550 is easily accessible by the CTA. Please visit Transit Chicago for more information on transportation options.

Stephen Reginald is a freelance writer and editor. He has worked at various positions within the publishing industry for over 25 years. Most recently he was executive editor for McGraw-Hill’s The Learning Group Division. A long-time amateur student of film, Reginald hosts “Chicago Film Club,” a monthly movie event held in the South Loop, for the past two years. Reginald has also taught several adult education film classes at Facets Film School, Chicago.


Daystar Center located at 1550 S. State St. works through a grassroots network of collaborations and partnerships with individuals and other nonprofit organizations. Through this web, they’re able to provide educational, cultural, and civic activities that enrich and empower their clients, guests, and community members. To learn more about classes and events offered at the Daystar Center, please visit their Web site.

Preston Sturges: Master of the Cockeyed Caravan, Part 3

A writer-director is born
As the story goes, Sturges sold the screenplay for The Great McGinty to Paramount for $10, under the condition that he would also be allowed to direct. Since this seemed like a fairly reasonable risk for the studio, they acquiesced.

The Great McGinty (1940) didn't have big stars to pack the movie palaces, but it did have good reviews from some of the top critics of the day. New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther said this: "In the trade they call them 'sleepers'—these pictures which come drifting in without benefit of much advance publicity and which turn out delightful surprises." And a delightful surprise it was, and with its success, Sturges was on his way to the big leagues. At the 1941 Academy Awards, Sturges took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Without taking a breath, it seems, Paramount released another film in 1940 written and directed by Sturges,  Christmas in July. Again, the film had no big stars, and again, Crowther called the film "another of those one-man creations by Preston Sturges for Paramount, is just about as cunning and carefree a comedy as any one could possibly preordain . . . ." Crowther ended his review by saying,  "As a creator of rich and human comedy Mr. Sturges is closing fast on the heels of Frank Capra."

The lady is a champ
It wasn't too long for the folks at Paramount to realize that Sturges as a writer-director was turning into a goldmine. Armed with a big budget and top-flight movie stars, Sturges jumped into production of The Lady Eve (1941) with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, both turning in brilliant performances under his direction. Sturges was at his peak. At the end of 1941, The New York Times named The Lady Eve the best picture of the year, beating Citizen Kane!

Veronica Lake is on the Take
More hits followed in the financial success of The Lady Eve: Sullivan's Travels (1942), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) , and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). In a span of roughly four years, Sturges wrote and directed seven classic films! If you count The Great Moment (1944), a film that Sturges fan Crowther praised, you can make it an even eight classics in four years. It appeared that Sturges could do nothing wrong.

The shooting star crashes to earth
Almost overnight it seemed, things started going south for Sturges. At the height of his fame, he left Paramount and formed California Pictures Corporation with Howard Hughes. Nothing much came from this venture and eventually Hughes shut things down, bought RKO, and left Sturges without a home studio or any projects on the horizon.

Phoenix rising at Fox?
It would be four years before Sturges would release another film. Darryl Zanuck, at Twentieth Century Fox, hired Sturges to write and direct Unfaithfully Yours (1948) starring Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell. The film, although popular in the eyes of some critics (yes, Crowther was still a fan), didn't fare as well with the public at large. The humor, gags, and amazingly complicated narrative were all there, but as Crowther noted, "... a shade of something fatal to a champion may be perceived in his new picture at the Roxy. That's a slip in his timing and his speed. Like a boxer who takes too long a lay-off, Mr. Sturges has slowed up a bit. And this is something which his public will be the first to note and deplore." And the public did take notice and Unfaithfully Yours didn't turn out to be the next great Sturges hit. Sturges had one more chance at Fox with The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949) starring Betty Grable. But by then, the magic had completely rubbed off. The film was a disaster for Sturges and the studio. Sturges fan and supporter, Crowther ended his review of the film with this zinger: "Put out in Technicolor, The Beautiful Blonde looks good. But, to paraphrase the theme song, it looks pretty well shot in the end."

A lasting legacy
Although Sturges's film career basically ended with The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, his legacy lives on in the ground-breaking comedies he wrote and directed at Paramount. The body of work he produced in those four short years is a feat that has yet to be matched.

Preston Sturges was a man of uncommon intelligence and one of the most talented writer-directors to come out of Hollywood. He paved the for other writer-directors like Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder, and most importantly, he left us his wonderful films that still amaze, surprise, and delight us to this day.

Preston Sturges: Master of the Cockeyed Caravan, Part 2

Going Hollywood
In 1932, Sturges went to Hollywood and signed on with Universal as a writer. From the get-go, his writing wasn’t a hit with the studio bosses and his scripts were rejected. On his own, Sturges wrote a screenplay called The Power and the Glory, which he sold to the Fox studios for a fee and a percentage of the gross. During his time as a freelancer, he also wrote the screenplay for The Great McGinty, but no one was interested. It was during this freelance period that Sturges decided he wanted to be a director. Again, no one was interested in his services.

Studio musical chairs
After more writing positions at several other Hollywood studios, including MGM and Columbia, Sturges found himself back on the Universal lot. Assigned to write the screenplay for the Claudette Colbert vehicle, Imitaion of Life. With the success of this film, Sturges was on his way to a successful career as a screenwriter where he found he was in demand by the likes of Sam Goldwyn and Paramount studios. It was at Paramount that he would have his most enduring success.

A Paramount experience
At Paramount, Sturges wrote the screenplay for Remember the Night starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. In spite of the fact that Sturges didn’t like the script changes made by director Mitchell Leisen, the film was an enourmous success. With his stock rising, Sturges was able to finally sell The Great McGinty script for $10, with the understanding that he would not only be the film’s writer, but its director as well. Film history was about to be made.