The Great Man Votes **** (1939, John Barrymore, Peter Holden, Virginia Weidler) – Classic Movie Review 11,327

Director Garson Kanin’s 1938 comedy The Great Man Votes stars John Barrymore as widower Gregory Vance, by day a hard-drinking former Harvard professor and at dark a night watchman, battling to keep and support his children, Joan (Virginia Weidler) and Donald (Peter Holden), after his wife dies. He turns out through the kids’ machinations to be the all-important voter at election time with the deciding vote in an election for mayor.

The Great Man Votes is a funny and heartwarming little gem, with witty performances by the great Barrymore, Donald MacBride as a small-time politician, local political boss Iron Hat McCarthy and William Demarest as a campaign promoter, Charles Dale.

There is much wit in the script, too, by John Twist, based on the short story of the same name by Gordon Malherbe Hillman published in the November 1933 issue of American Magazine.

Also in the cast are Virginia Weidler, Peter Holden, Katharine Alexander, Benny Bartlett [Bennie Bartlett], Elisabeth Risdon, Luis Alberni, J M Kerrigan, Granville Bates, Roy Gordon, and Brandon Tynan.

It was a hit, costing $265,000 and taking $432,000 at the box office, but even so it recorded a loss of $10,000 for RKO Radio Pictures.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,327

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