This film's makers probably were aiming at a kind of political satire that Capra and Sturges sometimes brought off, but a lack of focus and fear of breaching the production code resulted in a script that lurches one way and then another.
Sylvia Sidney is excellent as a female politician, back when such things were rare, doing her best to conceal her ambition and ruthlessness behind an attractive demeanor with a fixed smile. The script doesn't quite know what to make of her. At first she seems not only wholly self-centered but frigid, having driven her husband, whom she married for his wealth and position, into the arms of other women without her much caring about it. Later she becomes more sympathetic for not being corrupt like most of the other pols around her, and for having to walk a fine line between being ladylike and being "one of the boys."
George Raft is his usual stoic self as a hard-bitten political with hinted-at mob connections whose only ideology is winning and graft (or G. Raft).
Sidney's idea is to lure him away from the machine candidate to back her. In one scene she inveigles him into spending the night at her place with apparent intentions of seducing him, but then the movie gets cold feet and the scene fizzles out, as do many others.
Still the film addresses, albeit timidly, political corruption and the ease with which the masses can be manipulated, and also reminds us of the pervasive sexism of that era. Sidney is repeatedly told "you're too attractive to run for office." Was ugliness considered a necessary attribute of female politicians in those days?
As you'd expect, some romantic sparks eventually fly between the two co-stars en route to its wildly implausible ending.
Good cinematography and some lavish interior decoration. If you're the type who enjoys watching old films for a window into the political atmosphere of their times, this is for you.
Sylvia Sidney is excellent as a female politician, back when such things were rare, doing her best to conceal her ambition and ruthlessness behind an attractive demeanor with a fixed smile. The script doesn't quite know what to make of her. At first she seems not only wholly self-centered but frigid, having driven her husband, whom she married for his wealth and position, into the arms of other women without her much caring about it. Later she becomes more sympathetic for not being corrupt like most of the other pols around her, and for having to walk a fine line between being ladylike and being "one of the boys."
George Raft is his usual stoic self as a hard-bitten political with hinted-at mob connections whose only ideology is winning and graft (or G. Raft).
Sidney's idea is to lure him away from the machine candidate to back her. In one scene she inveigles him into spending the night at her place with apparent intentions of seducing him, but then the movie gets cold feet and the scene fizzles out, as do many others.
Still the film addresses, albeit timidly, political corruption and the ease with which the masses can be manipulated, and also reminds us of the pervasive sexism of that era. Sidney is repeatedly told "you're too attractive to run for office." Was ugliness considered a necessary attribute of female politicians in those days?
As you'd expect, some romantic sparks eventually fly between the two co-stars en route to its wildly implausible ending.
Good cinematography and some lavish interior decoration. If you're the type who enjoys watching old films for a window into the political atmosphere of their times, this is for you.