The Great McGinty Preston Sturges won the 1940 Academy Award for "Best Original Screenplay" for "The Great McGinty", which was named as one of the "10 Best Films of 1940" by both "The New York Times" and "Film Daily". The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Streaming audio The Great McGinty 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 (in her final screen appearance) Muriel Angelus. It was Sturges's first film as a director; he sold the story to Paramount
Preston Sturges critic Ephraim Katz wrote that Sturges films "...parodied with pungent wit various aspects of American life from politics and advertising to sex and hero worship. They were marked by their verbal wit, opportune comic timing, and eccentric, outrageously funny camo characterizations." Film critic Andrew Sarris wrote, "Sturges repeatedly suggested that the lowliest boob could rise to the top with the right degree of luck, bluff, and fraud." Critic Andrew Dickos wrote that "the touchstone of Preston Sturges' screenwriting lies in the respect paid to the play and density of verbal language" and "establishes the standard of eloquence as one of