Judge Grant's big hunt Oh, those fairy tales! Oh, these fairy tales!
In ancient Persian and Arab fairy tales, the Shah, or another ruler, from time to time changed luxurious outfits to the robes of a commoner and went to the market, where he learned about the mood of the crowd firsthand. Years later, the Anglo-Saxons inscribed this episode without significant changes in their own mythology. It came at a time for the recreated legendary image of the ideal ruler – King Arthur, borrowed from the defeated Celts. Centuries have passed, but to this day, democratic rulers will now stage a populist cosplay. Not only in politics, but also in the cinema, such a plot move is a frank stamp. Not past this bowl and the screenwriters of the film “Stranger in the city”
Although there are no monarchs or presidents, there is a king and a god of jurisprudence, he is the protagonist - Supreme Justice John Grant. In his team, a charming secretary and a simpleton lawyer, who almost does not win lawsuits, while running for mayor of a provincial town. The idea is almost crazy for a city entangled in networks of corruption, all the ends of which are in the hands of the incumbent mayor and affiliates. But that all changes when Judge Grant arrives for the weekend. His goals are prosaic - to take a break from difficult cases, to shoot wild ducks, which bred in the surrounding lakes apparently invisible. So it would remain the judge is not recognized in the species of hunting suit, but the conflict with the hunting inspector, and then a casual acquaintance with a young lawyer forces him to linger, opening the season for hunting larger game, so there is a reason to keep incognito for the time being. But only until a certain time.
Until a certain time, Roy Rowland shot only short films, but from 1943 things went uphill. Patience and work or competent choice of the bride - the niece of one of the founders of MGM? Whatever. The director released two full-length films at once, one of them - "A Stranger in the City" In the genre it is tragicomedy, with a mandatory melodramatic component. The fight against corruption is a continuation of the theme previously raised by Frank Capra in the film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” Both here and there, the positive hero is a naive idealist, not about Judge John Grant, but about his new friend, a lawyer. The judge himself is an old grated fox, skillfully manipulating a not so experienced colleague, demonstrating to him and the viewer a master class, convincing - an experienced lawyer akin to a talented illusionist and showman. Full of pathos, the final speech about “government from the people, for the people” cements the same idea. The parallel love story is poorly worked out, as if its individual stages were cut from the final version of the film. The main emphasis on comedy, tied to the awkwardness of the lawyer, obvious already at his first acquaintance with the secretary of the judge. At the same time, gags are practically no different from those used in silent films. What seduced an ordinary lawyer into a charming person? Perhaps fearless, but, of course, a hundred points to sexuality added his participation in the election race.
To the credit of the filmmakers, they did not particularly believe in the possibility of eradicating corruption by the private initiative of an individual, albeit a high-ranking citizen. The film is a political satire that mocks the state’s system of struggle against this ugly phenomenon. The main disadvantage of the system is that it simply does not exist. Going back to the beginning of the film, it is easy to see that the judge started the hunt for local corrupt officials after being fined by a local judge. That's the irony of fate. In fact, his further actions are a sophisticated revenge. The authors compare the attempt of one person to fight corruption, with the gambling desire of the hunter to shoot all the ducks. Both are futile. But maybe time heals? After all, so many years have passed, and it is time for corruption to disappear from American soil. It does not disappear, but is cultivated and spread around the world like a Colorado beetle. But that's a different, maybe real story, and we have a fairy tale.