I was just watching the 1940 Cary Grant comedy, “My Girl Friday.”
The plot revolves around a man who is being railroaded to execution because he shot a cop.
But, as the Grant character says, “He was a COLORED cop. You know how that is. That’s a lot of votes.” The shooter was white. We see him in the movie.
A reprieve comes through, but the mayor hires the man who brings it to bribe him from letting anybody know about the reprieve. The mayor goes to prison for attempted murder, thanks to Grant and His Girl Friday.
This is a comedy, so this part of it is forgotten.
At one point the mayor says that if the man is not executed it will cost him two hundred thousand votes.
Can you guess WHICH votes?
This was in 1940.
#1 by Derek on 11/28/2005 - 1:34 pm
White liberal votes I am assuming since I don’t think that blacks had the right to vote then. Could be wrong.
#2 by Elizabeth on 11/28/2005 - 4:46 pm
Yep.
That reminds me of the 1947 movie, “The Farmer’s Daughter.” The main plot
is the love story between Loretta Young’s character and Joseph
Cotten’s character.
One of the major subplots is a special election to fill a Congressional
seat due to the previous occupant’s sudden death. Joseph Cotten plays
the Congressman of a neighboring district.
Ethel Barrymore, who was by then probably THE senior American actress,
played Joseph Cotten’s widowed mother. Ethel Barrymore wasn’t playing
just the male protagonist’s mother: she was also playing Political
Boss. Her character runs a highly-organized political machine when
not doing rich old lady things.