Das letzte Hurra

John Ford certainly does capture the spirit of how James Michael Curley would like to have been remembered. It's how he wrote his memoirs and how Edwin O'Connor wrote that brilliant piece of fiction.

Curley was a demagogue par excellence. He played ethnic politics to the hilt. He served one term as governor of Massachusetts and that term was noted for an outrageous scandal in which pardons were sold to prisoners who could cough up the money. And he was always the victim of those nasty Yankee patriarchs.

Spencer Tracy does a great job in cleaning up the Curley image and the rest of the cast is fine. I would like to call attention to two actors who typified the cultural divide that James Michael Curley never attempted to bridge in his lifetime, unlike in this film.

Willis Bouchey playing Roger Sugrue, disparagingly referred to as the Papal Knight, is this rabidly bigoted Roman Catholic who is forever finding fault with the rest of humanity and criticizing those of his fellow Catholics who are not as good as he. He nearly has a stroke after seeing a Monsignor played by Ken Curtis on TV playing golf with a rabbi. No wonder Donald Crisp playing the Cardinal refers to him as "that horrible man, Roger Sugrue."

And the other side of the coin is John Carradine playing Amos Force the descendant of old line Puritans who is as bigoted in his way as Roger Sugrue is in his. It's alluded to that back in the 1920s Carradine was in the Ku Klux Klan and you can believe it from Carradine's portrayal.

Bouchey and Carradine are the two best in a cast that is saturated with John Ford favorites. As a lesson in respect for diversity, The Last Hurrah has a lot to say. History it's not though.

They must have had a very good time in the old town when they shot this movie in the late 1950s. Ford's best movies were behind him, but he's gathered a cast of old character actors, enough to have a genuine party, with Ford sobbing in his beer about how the old days are gone forever. O.Z. Whitehead, Edwin Brophy, Basil Rathbone, Donald Crisp, Jane Darwell, Jeff Hunter, Carlton Smith? Some of the names escape me.

Ford's Irishness goes over the top in his puncturing of the WASPS who were his opponents in old Boston. (I suppose Spencer Tracy is supposed to be Mayor James Curley -- as in the campaign jingle, "Vote early and often for Curley.") The movie drips with sentiment and a sense of loss for a more innocent time -- before TV ads. One of the best lines in the movie is when Basil Ruysdael as the Protestant Bishop brings Tracy up short by asking him frankly, "Aren't you being a little TOO Irish?"

The novel was a bit better, as most novels are compared to their transformative expression in film, if only because there is time and space enough for the characters and the story can be more fully developed. The focus of course is on the mayor, a lovable rogue. The last line in the novel is from an admirer, "He was a grand man altogether."

For what it's worth, the political agenda is built around the substory of two political enemies, Tracy and Rathbone (the latter made into a former member of the KKK in case we didn't get the point otherwise) and their sons, each of them failures. Tracy's son is a ne'er-do-well whose only interest is new cars and women and who assures Tracy, "Ah, you'll win, Pop. You always do." Rathbone's son (Whitehead) is a rich dull bulb who is easily manipulated into making a fool of himself so that Tracy can blackmail Rathbone. Whitehead is given a lisp to make him as silly as possible. "Do you do much sailing?" "Oh, yeth. Printhicipally on my thloop."

In the early scene in Skeffington's office we see a row of old photos of bearded men hanging on the wall behind his desk. Prominent among them is probably the best known portrait ever published of Sigmund Freud, taken about 1912. Maybe the prop master recognized it subconsciously for what it was and sensed that it was a photo of a prominent-enough figure to be worth displaying in the Mayor's office. This is known as a Freudian slip.

"The Last Hurrah" is about the end of a political career and also the end of an era in American local government. I first saw the film when I was ready to launch a career in public administration, and I didn't like the sympathy Spencer Tracy gave the role of big city boss. Over the subsequent years, I have enjoyed the film more each time. Now, I thoroughly enjoy and am amused by the way Frank Skeffington manipulates the powerful to champion the underdog.

The film is more drama and comedy than history. Yet, men like James Michael Curley, Richard J. Daley, and David L. Lawrence combined ambition for power with a desire to achieve municipal progress as they saw it. They used their understanding of human nature and the ignorance of the body politic effectively. Skeffington shows how. Today, their successors use other methods for similar purpose.

This movie was based on the novel of the same name by Edwin O'Connor, which in turn was inspired by the career of the colorful 4-time Mayor of Boston (and sometime Governor of Massachusetts and U. S. Congressman) James Michael Curley. Curley, although remembered today as a lovable rogue and a flamboyant old-time politician who made the voice of Boston's despised Irish heard in the halls of power, basically ran Boston into the ground during his tenure as mayor, destroying the city's credit rating, and dividing its people by appealing to old-time Irish-American fears and prejudices.

But, as far as this movie is concerned, that's neither here nor there. Spencer Tracy is outstanding as the mayor (in my opinion, only James Stewart was a better actor among the leading men of the Hollywood studio era) and the supporting players are superb, notably Pat O'Brien, Donald Crisp, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Jane Darwell and especially O.Z. Whitehead, who is brilliantly cast in a small role as the featherbrained son of a crusty Yankee banker. Also noteworthy are the usual patriotic and sentimental touches of director-producer John Ford.

What ever your political opinions may be, this is an outstanding look at old-time politics as it begins to give way to the era of mass media.

Tracy plays Irish-American Frank Skeffington, an old hand re-seeking political office for one last time, with dreams of helping the slums along, and, along with his cronies, leading the victory parade on St Patrick's Day. Will he make it? 'The Last Hurrah' is a tour-de-force, with John Ford's sharp direction, and several old timers making an appearance, such as Basil Rathbone as one of Tracy's more vehement opponents. Tracy of course is as excellent as ever, and there are some nice scenes between him and Jeffrey Hunter (playing his nephew).

Whether showcasing the camaraderie between Skeffington and his supporters, or giving the viewer a masterclass in acting, 'The Last Hurrah' cannot really be faulted. Even if the last half-hour of the film is a bit cloying, Tracy's last line is on target and raises a smile as the end card comes up.

Incidentally, this film was made in 1958, a time when black and white films mixed with those in colour to no-one's detriment. It would be interesting to see if a similar subject would come across as well today, in colour. It makes one long for the return of black and white for some genres.