Mike Clark
February 3, 2020
The Great McGinty
Kino Lorber, Comedy, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, William Demarest.
1940. It’s a little surprising that it took Hollywood until 1940 to attack the subject of political corruption as directly head-on as in The Great McGinty. However comparably minor it might be compared to the enduring Preston Sturges masterpieces that were shortly to come, McGinty is nonetheless full-throttle instant auteurism and effortlessly identifiable as a Sturges concoction from just about any 30-second excerpt.
Extras: Includes a voiceover commentary by Samm Deighan.
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Watergate
Region 2 British Import
Dogwoof/History Channel, Documentary, $15 DVD.
2019. Charles Ferguson’s four-hour, 21-minute documentary on the scandal that brought down the Nixon administration overcomes, for the most part, its inclusion of mostly unfortunate live reenactments.
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