****SPOILER**** Political corruption and under the table payoffs at their worst is depicted in the film "Washington Merry-go-Round" with crusading first term Congressman Button Gwinett Brown, Lee Tracy,taking on the big boys in and out of the US Congress in order to bring the US back to it's original ideals that the Founding Fathers risked and in many case gave their lives for. Based on a book by political reporter Drew Pearson the film was not only released at the height of the Great 1930's Depression but just a day before, on Novermber 7th, the 1932 elections that put FDR, Franklin Deleno Roosevelt, into the White House.
It doesn't take long from Button Brown to get to work in first double crossing the political powers who put him, with election fraud, into office and start giving hell to those in the Congress and their big money and behind the scenes supporters. One of them is king-maker Ed Norton, no not the sewer guy in the TV "Honeymooners" series, played by Alan Dinehart who has more power then even the President or house speaker. Norton is determined to have a shipment of 20 million dollars worth of booze, this during probation, smuggled into the country with him getting a 15% to 25% cut of the profits.
It was the hand picked by Norton man in charge of the Probation Agency Carl Tilden, Willis Clark, who refused to go along with his scam which ended up costing him his life. After being blackmailed by Norton in how he got the job through a series of payoffs that he had no idea about Tilden blew his brains out to avoid any suspicion of scandal on his part. Before Tilden did himself in he wrote a suicide note explaining why he killed himself addressed to his good friend the now US Congressman Button Brown that in the end turned out to be Ed Norton's death sentence.
Ahead of its time political movie much like the later "Mister Smith goes to Washington" but far more realistic and on target in how things are for the most part run in the nation's capital. We get to see what was going on at the time that the film was made in the suffering of the WWI veterans who's promised bonuses were withheld from them because of the financial mess that the US politicians got their country into. The film also, and in the audiences face, brings out the corrupt US foreign policy that had it send US Marines to fight and die mostly in the Caribbean for big business interests! Just like what's going on now,in 2013, in the Middle and Near East; Times never changes do they!
There's also a number of quotes inserted into the movie by US Marine Let. General Smedley Butler from his book "War is a Racket" comparing the US Governments actions overseas to those of Chicgo hoodlum Al Capone in only that Capone's actions were small potatoes compared to those of the US Government. A quote that was practically taken out, almost word for word, from Gen. Smedley's classic previously mentioned anti war book "War is a Racket".
***SPOILERS*** With the help of the army of bonus marchers who infiltrated Norton's office where he conducted business Button Brown finally got the goods on him. Not only in his responsibility for Carl Tilden's suicide but also Senator Wylie also one of Norton's blackmail victims, played by what looked like a pushing 90 but 45 years old Walter Connolly, murder. Facing total ruin and a long stretch behind bars if not worse Norton did the only good thing he ever did in his life. Something he should have done years earlier before made his mark in the Washington D.C political arena.
It doesn't take long from Button Brown to get to work in first double crossing the political powers who put him, with election fraud, into office and start giving hell to those in the Congress and their big money and behind the scenes supporters. One of them is king-maker Ed Norton, no not the sewer guy in the TV "Honeymooners" series, played by Alan Dinehart who has more power then even the President or house speaker. Norton is determined to have a shipment of 20 million dollars worth of booze, this during probation, smuggled into the country with him getting a 15% to 25% cut of the profits.
It was the hand picked by Norton man in charge of the Probation Agency Carl Tilden, Willis Clark, who refused to go along with his scam which ended up costing him his life. After being blackmailed by Norton in how he got the job through a series of payoffs that he had no idea about Tilden blew his brains out to avoid any suspicion of scandal on his part. Before Tilden did himself in he wrote a suicide note explaining why he killed himself addressed to his good friend the now US Congressman Button Brown that in the end turned out to be Ed Norton's death sentence.
Ahead of its time political movie much like the later "Mister Smith goes to Washington" but far more realistic and on target in how things are for the most part run in the nation's capital. We get to see what was going on at the time that the film was made in the suffering of the WWI veterans who's promised bonuses were withheld from them because of the financial mess that the US politicians got their country into. The film also, and in the audiences face, brings out the corrupt US foreign policy that had it send US Marines to fight and die mostly in the Caribbean for big business interests! Just like what's going on now,in 2013, in the Middle and Near East; Times never changes do they!
There's also a number of quotes inserted into the movie by US Marine Let. General Smedley Butler from his book "War is a Racket" comparing the US Governments actions overseas to those of Chicgo hoodlum Al Capone in only that Capone's actions were small potatoes compared to those of the US Government. A quote that was practically taken out, almost word for word, from Gen. Smedley's classic previously mentioned anti war book "War is a Racket".
***SPOILERS*** With the help of the army of bonus marchers who infiltrated Norton's office where he conducted business Button Brown finally got the goods on him. Not only in his responsibility for Carl Tilden's suicide but also Senator Wylie also one of Norton's blackmail victims, played by what looked like a pushing 90 but 45 years old Walter Connolly, murder. Facing total ruin and a long stretch behind bars if not worse Norton did the only good thing he ever did in his life. Something he should have done years earlier before made his mark in the Washington D.C political arena.