Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/551510
18 CINEMONTAGE / SUMMER 2015 THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY he wrote, "I went into strict training. I gave up drinking. I gave up smoking. I gave up late hours. After I started shooting, I had a masseur waiting for me every night… As a result of this totally wholesome and totally unaccustomed manner of living, I was rewarded on the 14th day of shooting with pneumonia." The director's illness coincided with the Christmas break. The studio loved the footage he had already shot and LeBaron assured him no other director would be assigned to the project. Back on the set in 10 days, Sturges wrote, "I gave up not drinking and not smoking and have not been troubled with pneumonia since." The shoot only fell behind four days. Production wrapped on January 25, 1940. The editor assigned to the project was Hugh Bennett, who had cut many major films of the 1920s and '30s, including John Ford's Arrowsmith (1930) from Sinclair Lewis' novel and Frank Lloyd's If I Were a King (1938) from Sturges' swash- buckling adaptation of a play about medieval poet François Villon. Bennett edited 135,000 feet of film down to a swiftly paced 81 minutes. His work effectively points up Sturges' portrayal of big-city politics. Early on, a jaunty montage traces McGinty voting at 37 polling stations in one night. When McGinty runs for governor, editor Bennett deftly intercuts alternate lines of campaign speeches from a politician for him and his opponent against him: "He put 40,000 men to work…40,000 lunch pails, my friends…40,000 happy families…money in circulation, prosperity!" to "He gutted the treasury…raided the city…raised the taxes…built miles of useless buildings, bridges, beaches…" to "…and gave you the most beautiful city in the world!" Sturges and Jones brought the picture in for $368,000 — $4,000 under budget. Sturges was paid $2,750 a week for the six-week shoot and the same weekly salary for three weeks of editing. Bennett made $200 a week for 17 weeks of editing, and his assistant editor $100 a week for 18 weeks. About two months before release, the studio renamed the picture The Great McGinty. Along with box office returns came glowing reviews. For audiences, then and now, its succinct and clear glimpse of how political power works, local and national, is refreshing — like when the Boss gives McGinty the lowdown on how he runs the city: "In this town, I'm all the parties. You think I'm going to starve every time they change administrations?" In his autobiography, Sturges modestly wrote, "For The Great McGinty, I received a statuette of a nude gentleman with a long sword known as Oscar." In fact, he won the first Academy Award ever given for Best Original Screenplay, beating Charles Chaplin for The Great Dictator (1940) and HAVE QUESTIONS? CALL THE TEAM AT AID FOR A FREE Q & A www.AIDinc.com | sales@aidinc.com | 323 845-1155 A ROOM! GIVE US SOME SPACE WE'LL GIVE YOU CONTINUED ON PAGE 59