A screen classic of political satire is The Great McGinty, the first movie American jewel Preston Sturgess both wrote and directed (famously selling the screenplay to Paramount for $10 even as he was the highest-paid Hollywood writer on the condition that he be allowed to direct).  Brian Donlevy  (left) plays the improbable political sensation and Akim Tamiroff (right) plays his string-pulling political boss. Take a look at it and see if maybe, just maybe, it reminds you of somebody's bombastically cynical political journey to world citizenship in Berlin... minus the laughs.