I have been to the Etrange Festival in Paris and the director Jean-Pierre Mocky talked about this movie, he told as it's the rarest film of John Ford in France but it's his best for him. I didn't know John Ford and i never heard of this film before this festival. He gave me the envy to watch it so i did.I read a bit about John Ford and i understood as i mostly made western movies than political ones. I really wanted to watch it. The movie itself is interesting, we follow the life of a old man who wants to be a mayor another time in a town of United States of America. Many peoples don't know about how someone is elected as Mayor and we can see exactly all the stages.I highly recommend you this film if you like John Ford.

John Ford produced and directed this well-cast but overlong, cumbersome and set-bound political melodrama, adapted from Edwin O'Connor's novel by Frank Nugent. Spencer Tracy is the over-confident New England mayor who resorts to dirty tricks in order to get re-elected, while his competitors come off like rubes with little experience. Some of the intentional humors--such as a banker with a pronounced lisp or a politician's wife caught off-guard for a television interview--are awfully broad for such a stately film, and many of the supporting bits are curiously over-played (as if Ford wasn't sure what tone to aim for). Tracy's innate professionalism and sincerity as a performer makes the picture worth-watching for his admirers, yet the Columbia studio-sets look artificial and the suburban surroundings (more California than New England) are barely exploited for their satirical possibilities. Remade as a TV-movie in 1977. ** from ****

Spencer Tracy stars as a beloved mayor making his last run for re-election. Tracy is fun to watch as always, there are a few nice shots and some crisp dialogue. The situations are fairly compelling. But once again, Ford's love of myth-making gets in the way, as the protagonist is built up as The Swellest Guy in the World while his opponents are all either snakes or boobs. The mayor is a working class hero who can do absolutely no wrong, always does the right thing for the right reasons, and the bad guys are crooked, selfish, out of touch bluebloods. And of course, there's the wacky oafish sidekick. This film is the answer to everyone who thinks MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON lacks nuance. I suppose some people are comforted by such a black and white view of the world, it just makes me roll my eyes.

In his lifetime, Spencer Tracy received nine Academy Award nominations. Winning twice, in 1937 for "Captain's Courageous" and in 1938 for "Boys Town", he was the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars.In 1958 two films, both based upon best selling novels were released. The first of these was a screen adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", the story of a lone, Cuban fisherman and his solitary fight to 'land the big one.'The second film was a transcription of Edwin O'Connor's look at Irish-American politics in "The Last Hurrah!", Tracy received an Oscar nomination for the former, but should he have been honoured for the latter instead?In "The Old Man and the Sea", Tracy is alone for most of the film's 86 minute running time. A glorious opportunity to show off one's acting chops, having that much screen time to yourself is also a major challenge because it requires the actor to dig deep to maintain our interest since there is no one off of whom he can play. With "The Last Hurrah!", the opposite is true as Tracy is surrounded by a veteran group of scene-stealer's (Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Edward Brophy, Donald Crisp, Jane Darwell and Anna Lee just to name a few) who challenge him (and us) to keep the focus where it belongs. In each film, loneliness and isolation is a central metaphor. In the Hemingway story, the old, Cuban fisherman, in his rickety, old boat must land 'the big fish' alone and then, alone, fight off 'the sharks' who want to rob him of it. As O'Connor's Mayor Frank Skeffington, he is still alone and isolated, from the modern (and crass) world of his son and political opponents plus he is also unable to give up the old ways that propelled and kept in office even though he knows the days for those old ways are numbered. That he becomes all- too-acutely aware of the accuracy of his perceptions is brilliantly confirmed in one of the cinema's most stunning shots, Skeffington's walk home, alone, after the results of the election are in.For this viewer at least, Hemingway's old man is a skeletal, boring, old man, thus robbing Tracy, gifted actor though he was, of the tools he needed to make him cinematically interesting. O'Connor's Frank Skeffington, on the other hand is much more finally nuanced. A flesh and blood, skin and bone, sinew and tissue firebrand, he is at times almost repulsively sentimental, harsh, kind, churlish, generous, vindictive and opportunistic. In other words, there is real meat here with Tracy, the consummate actor making a feast of it. Was Spencer Tracy nominated for the wrong film in 1958? Yes, I would say he was even though I doubt he would have defeated winner David Niven for his brilliant turn in "Separate Tables".