The Great McGinty (1940) on Netflix
Dan McGinty, a tramp, is paid to vote under a false name at precinct after precinct. A political boss notices, promotes him, and picks him to run for mayor as a reformer.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.2/104,958 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
The city's political machine pays a tramp named Dan McGinty two dollars to cast a ballot under another man's name, and he goes on to do the same at one polling place after another. The boss who runs the machine takes note, makes him an enforcer and then a protégé. With a reform campaign under way, the boss settles on McGinty as his candidate for mayor, and says a credible candidate must have a wife. There is no woman McGinty himself wants to wed, so his secretary proposes a marriage of convenience, which he agrees to. He wins the office and keeps the machine's arrangements in place.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Great McGinty (1940)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Preston Sturges sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on the condition that he direct the film, which became his first film as a director.
- Preston Sturges contracted pneumonia while filming The Great McGinty and needed a nurse on the set; production stopped on January 25, 1940, with one day's shooting left, which was finally shot on April 15, after a first cut had already been made.
- Akim Tamiroff's malaprop-laced performance as the political boss in The Great McGinty inspired the cartoon character Boris Badenov on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
- Jo Ann Sayers, borrowed from MGM, was originally set to play Catherine McGinty, but she was replaced after being found unsatisfactory.
- Preston Sturges wrote the original story, "The Story of a Man", in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind.
