In "a New England city" (that can only be Boston), Mayor Frank Skeffington (Spencer Tracy) prepares to run for his fifth term of office. A poor Irishman made good, Skeffington's an effective Mayor and shrewd politician who's not above scheming or bribery to smooth his way. Skeffington's political enemies team against him, running the colorless war hero Greg McCluskey (Tommy Earwood). Reporter Adam Caulfield (Jeffrey Hunter) covers the race: he's Skeffington's nephew, but his wife (Dianne Foster) is the daughter of Skeffington's chief rival (Willis Bouchey). Watching McCluskey's smooth but vacuous campaign, Skeffington realizes his days are numbered.
Adapting Edwin O'Connor's novel, The Last Hurrah shows the same ambivalence as Ford's later Westerns. Skeffington loves his city, knows every constituent by name and does much good: throughout the film he's trying to raise money for a housing development. Simultaneously however, he reveals cutthroat ruthlessness. He raises campaign funds at a friend's wake and blackmails a hostile banker (Basil Rathbone) by appointing his dunderhead son (O.Z. Whitehead) fire chief. As a self-made man with a tragic back story (like many Ford heroes, he obsesses over his dead wife) Skeffington retains our sympathy.
Compared to his idealized frontier communities, Ford's City is unusually jaundiced. There's heavy resentment between the Irish and blue-blooded Brahmins: newspaperman Amos Force (John Carradine) bristles at the thought of Protestant-Catholic intermarriage. (For good measure, a throwaway line labels him an ex-Klansman.) The Establishment resents Skeffington's rise and connive to put him in his place. Skeffington can't count on the fickle public, who parade for Skeffington in the film's opening but later march for McCluskey.
Hurrah's most effective scenes satirize the "new politics" of television and vapid talking points. Ford scores big laughs with McCluskey's TV ad: his wife reads cue cards while a Checkers-like dog barks throughout the broadcast. McCluskey's deemed a "mealy-mouthed maneuverable piece of dough," manipulated by Skeffington's enemies. This distrust of youth extends to Skeffington's own son (Arthur Walsh), a brainless playboy. By film's end, Skeffington morphs into a typical Ford hero: the indispensable iconoclast who outlives his time.
Nostalgia's always tricky, especially with politics. We're inclined to damn our leaders against their idealized predecessors, even if they were corrupt or incompetent. O'Connor based Skeffington on James Michael Curley, the Boston Mayor and Massachusetts Governor twice jailed for fraud. Praising crooked machine politics seems problematic, to say the least, even if the alternative's a moron like McCluskey.
Thankfully, Spencer Tracy assuages any reservations. At first glance Skeffington seems akin to Tracy's other late career founts-of-wisdom, proffering sage advice to callow observers. Yet Tracy relishes Skeffington's rounded personality: his sincere sentimentality, slick humor, resentful ruthlessness and weary resignation. Tracy's pitch-perfect throughout, tough yet amiable, down to his excellent kiss-off line.
Jeffrey Hunter makes a friendly but bland foil. The John Ford Stock Company turns out in force: Willis Bouchey plays a pompous rival, John Carradine a scheming journalist, Ken Curtis a priest, the ubiquitous Jack Pennick a policeman. Even Jane Darwell from The Grapes of Wrath makes a cameo. Donald Crisp gets the best role, playing a cardinal exasperated by demands for his endorsement; Edward Brophy is a slow-witted but devoted ward boss. Pat O'Brien, James Gleason and Dianne Foster also feature.
The Last Hurrah isn't readily identifiable as a John Ford movie. Pictorially it's rather straightforward, aside from a beautiful scene where Skeffington silently ponders his defeat. Certainly the big city setting and political satire seem anomalous. But Hurrah merely transports his concerns to 20th Century America. His cynical idealism fits 20th Century politics as well as the Old West; only Frank Skeffington's opponents could be more dangerous than any Comanche.