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Popular Culture Review
are irrelevant cinematically. Be that as it may, both films retain hints of
Marquand’s impulse to unseat the Proper Bostonian from his cultural easy chair.
John Ford’s The Last Hurrah, true to the spirit of Edwin O’Connor’s novel
sends up the Proper Bostonian for purely comic effect. Later, more lacerating
depictions of the Proper Bostonian, in Love Story and The Verdict, will offer the
superficial traits of Boston Brahminism as evidence of villainy.
From Hollywood’s perspective, “Boston” is very much a foreign country;
its inhabitants, whether Boston Brahmin or Boston-Iri