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 the revamped "Hail the Conquering Hero" had a disastrous preview, Paramount allowed Sturges – who by that time had left the studio – to come back and fix the film. Sturges did some rewriting, shot some new scenes, and re-edited the film back to his original vision, all without pay. He was unable to similarly rescue "The Great Moment", however. The historical biography about the dentist who discovered the use of ether for anesthesia ended up being Sturges' only flop during this period. More significantly, it marked the onset of a downturn from which Sturges did not fully recover. Sturges