The Great McGinty

The Great McGinty
UK theatrical poster
Directed by	Preston Sturges
Produced by	Buddy G. DeSylva (uncredited)
Written by	Preston Sturges
Starring	Brian Donlevy Muriel Angelus Akim Tamiroff
Music by	Frederick Hollander John Leipold (uncredited)
Cinematography	William C. Mellor
Edited by	Hugh Bennett
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	August 15, 1940 (NYC premiere) August 23 (general)
Running time	83 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$350,000

The Great McGinty is a 1940 political satire comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff and featuring William Demarest and Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on condition he direct the film. Sturges went on to win the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.

In the U.K. the film was retitled Down Went McGinty.

Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy) is a bartender in a banana republic who recounts his rise and fall to the bar's dancing girl and an American customer. The customer was a trusted bank employee who can no longer return to the United States and his family because he is wanted by the law after falling to temptation and stealing from the bank. McGinty is in a similar situation, but in his case it is due to "one crazy minute" of honesty rather than one of dishonesty. In a long flashback, he explains.

McGinty's career begins when he is a tramp who, offered a $2 bribe to vote under a false name in a rigged mayoral election, does it thirty-seven times at different precincts. This impresses a local political boss (Akim Tamiroff), whose name is never mentioned; although they sometimes almost come to blows with each other, McGinty becomes one of the boss's enforcers, then his political protégé. During a public campaign for political reform, the boss, who controls all the political parties in the city, decides to have McGinty elected mayor as a "reform" candidate. He says a credible candidate must be married, but McGinty has no one he wants to marry. His secretary (Muriel Angelus) then proposes a marriage of convenience, which he accepts. Elected mayor, he continues the political corruption established by the boss, rationalizing that the public still benefits from public works no matter who bribes their way into profiting from them. But then he and his more idealistic wife actually fall in love. He begins to take her views on public service seriously, but says he is not powerful enough to act against the boss in any case.