CineMontage

Summer 2015

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17 SUMMER 2015 / CINEMONTAGE the governor's mansion and his fall to tending bar in the tropics. Originally named O'Hara, the main character was based on New York Governor William Sutzer, a Tammany Hall politician impeached and booted from office in 1913. Sturges learned the inside workings of machine politics from an old friend, a retired Brooklyn lawyer and magistrate named Andrew McCreery. The script that eventually became McGinty was written under the title The Vagrant in 1933. He wrote it while 20th Century-Fox was shooting his original screenplay, The Power and the Glory, as a major production. He had started writing for Hollywood in 1929 after the Broadway success of his play Strictly Dishonorable that year. The strength of his Power script had gotten the writer a non-revision clause in his contract with Fox and a percentage of profits, if any. He was even allowed to be present on the set during the shoot. Sturges was confident that Power would be a hit, as he recalled in his autobiography, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words (he died of a heart attack while writing it in 1959; it was published in 1990). So he decided not to sell The Vagrant "unless I was permitted to direct it. It was to be my entering wedge into the profession, my blackjack. After that, it was simple. It only took six years." The Vagrant script was completed in August. The Power and the Glory, starring Spencer Tracy as the industrialist, opened in October. At best, it was an interesting failure. Sturges, though, became the industry's highest paid screenwriter, earning anywhere from $1,000 to $2,500 a week. In 1937, he signed with Paramount, where each of his scripts brought him at least $30,000. In 1939, the writer got the chance to use his "entering wedge." Director Mitchell Leisen made unapproved changes to his original script for Remember the Night (1940) and Sturges threatened to leave the studio unless he could direct The Vagrant. Production head William LeBaron let him do it as a low-budget project. During negotiations, the studio agreed to pay him as director but the price of the screenplay was an issue. Sturges recalled, "LeBaron said, 'I'll OK any price you say, but the less it costs to bring in your first picture, the more it will be admired.' 'How about a dollar,' I said. The legal department changed the one-dollar price to $10, which they felt was more legal." The contract was signed late in August. Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) was set to open in October and this may have helped nudge Paramount into backing a politically themed movie. Paramount assigned the producer role to Paul Jones, who had already produced two comedies Sturges had written for the studio, as he would four more of the writer-director's films. Jones continued to produce mostly comedies into the 1960s, including pictures with Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis. Over October and November, Sturges rewrote the original script to expand key characters and clarify their influence on O'Hara, still the name of the main character. During the rewrite, the title became The Story of a Man and then Biography of a Bum. Jones suggested that O'Hara's name be changed to McGinty and the shooting script was submitted as Down Went McGinty. With a limited budget, Sturges could not afford major stars. "Leading tough guy" supporting actor and B-star Brian Donlevy, familiar to audiences of the time, naturally conveyed McGinty's evolution over the years played out in the story. Another familiar face was Russian Akim Tamiroff, who anchored a scene like his "Boss" ran the city and the state. Their strength in the central roles led Sturges to bring them back four years later for brief appearances as the Boss and the Governor (despite their fate in McGinty) in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). Of equal importance, the director selected a cast of over a dozen character actors, distinctive in appearance and mannerisms, for big and small parts sprinkled throughout the movie. They grew into a reliable stock company he would draw from in all his Paramount pictures, and included the voluble William Demarest, wormy Jimmy Conlin, flighty Esther Howard, burly Dewey Robinson and gravel-voiced Frank Moran. Assistant director George "Dink" Templeton broke down the script for a 36-day shoot starting December 11, 1939. The only major conflict Sturges found on set was with cinematographer William C. Mellor, ASC, who insisted on doing over-the-shoulder shots the director did not want for coverage of conversations. Mellor later would win two Oscars for his work on George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). A more serious concern for Sturges during production was his health. Intent on not wrecking his shot at directing, The Great McGinty. Paramount Pictures/ Photofest

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