The Last Hurrah (1958 film)
| The Last Hurrah | |
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U.S. movie poster
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| Directed by | John Ford |
| Produced by | John Ford |
| Written by | Frank S. Nugent |
| Based on |
The Last Hurrah 1956 novel by Edwin O'Connor |
| Starring |
Spencer Tracy Jeffrey Hunter Dianne Foster |
| Cinematography | Charles Lawton, Jr. |
| Edited by | Jack Murray |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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121 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2.3 million |
| Box office | $1.1 million (est. US/ Canada rentals) |
The Last Hurrah is a 1958 film adaptation of the novel The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor. The picture was directed by John Ford and stars Spencer Tracy as a veteran mayor preparing for yet another election campaign. Tracy was nominated as Best Foreign Actor by BAFTA and won the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review, which also presented Ford the award for Best Director.
The film tells the story of Frank Skeffington, a sentimental but iron-fisted Irish-American who is the powerful mayor of an unnamed New England city. As his nephew, Adam Caulfield, follows one last no-holds-barred mayoral campaign, Skeffington and his top strategist, John Gorman, use whatever means necessary to defeat a candidate backed by civic leaders such as banker Norman Cass and newspaper editor Amos Force, the mayor's dedicated foes.
In "a New England city", Frank Skeffington (Spencer Tracy) plans to run for a fifth term. Skeffington rose from poverty in an Irish ghetto to become mayor and former governor, and is skilled at using the power of his office and an enormous political machine of ward heelers to receive support from his Irish Catholic base and other demographics. Rumors of graft and abuse of power are widespread, however, and the Protestant bishop, newspaper publisher Amos Force (John Carradine), banker Norman Cass (Basil Rathbone), and other members of the city's traditional elite the Irish Catholics replaced oppose Skeffington; so do the Catholic cardinal (Donald Crisp), Skeffington's childhood friend, and other Catholics. Skeffington's opponents support the candidacy of Kevin McCluskey (Charles B. Fitzsimons), a young Catholic lawyer and war veteran with no political experience.
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Wikipedia