The Great Man Votes

Another recent movie watch for me was one of John Barrymore's final films, The Great Man Votes.

Set in "An American City, 1923", the movie stars Barrymore as Gregory Vance, who has a job as a night watchman at a factory of some sort. He's also got a drinking problem (surprise, surprise), as Manos (a man with a Greek surname, called Macedonian, and played by Catalonian-born actor Luis Alberni; gotta love Hollywood!), a milkman, is able to supply him with booze, this being Prohibition. Vance gets home to his two children, Joan (Virginia Weidler) and Donald (Peter Holden) who are clearly quite independent since they can take care of themselves overnight, their mother having died.

Before sending the kids off to a public school for which Vance has no respect, he asks his kids about Caesar's adventures in England. Apparently Vance was a professor at Harvard back in the day, and presumably lost his job because of the drinking problem, although I don't think that was mentioned. The other kids at school don't like Joan and Donald, especially Davy McCarthy (Benny Bartlett), who is the son of the local ward-heeler Iron Hat McCarthy (Donald McBride).

Davy tells Dad about what Vance's kids did to him, so Iron Hat responds by getting Vance fired. The kids, meanwhile, worried about getting in trouble, go looking for their mother's family the Ainslees out in the country. They find a well-to-do family that provides the milk for the city, and the Ainslees (Brandon Tynan and Elisabeth Risdon) decide that Vance should give up custody of the kids.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is Election Day. The political bosses have this bizarre belief that the 13th precinct is a bellwether, and if they can deliver that precinct to their candidate, the rest of the city will follow. However, in recent years, the growth of factories has led to the loss of residents from the precinct, to the point that there's only one registered voter left in the precinct -- Gregory Vance. Iron Hat has to go hat in hand to Vance to try to get him to vote for Iron Hat's preferred candidate.

The Great Man Votes is a mish-mash that goes all over the place in terms of plot, with the result being a movie that goes all over the place in terms of quality. Barrymore does quite good, with his overacting being put to good use when he's called on to recite stuff. You get the impression of a slightly pompous man who still means well. But there are plot holes galore. Why the bosses didn't know about the 13th precinct until the night before the election, for example, makes no sense. Vance's character engages in shamless influence peddling for which he should probably go to prison. And on, and on.

I'd seen The Great Man Votes show up on the TCM schedule several times, and always thought it was going to be one of those MGM B movies, which are always competently made if boring because they're just too neat. But it's an RKO, and an interesting if very uneven movie. It's availalbe on DVD from the Warner Archive, although I wish it were a little less expensive.