Magic Town
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Magic Town | |
---|---|
Directed by | William A. Wellman |
Written by | Robert Riskin Joseph Krumgold(story) |
Starring | James Stewart Jane Wyman Kent Smith |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date(s) | 1947 |
Running time | 103 mins |
Country | USA |
Language | English |
IMDb profile |
- For other meanings, see Magic city.
Magic Town is the name of a 1947 comedy film directed by William A. Wellman, starring James Stewart and Jane Wyman.
It is remarkable as one of the first films about then-new science of public opinion polling. The movie was inspired by Middletown studies.
Lawrence 'Rip' Smith (played by James Stewart) and his assistants are pollsters, and Stewart believes there is a perfect community in the middle of United States that can be used for polling its citizens. He has finally found a town where the percentages of the opinions of the citizens perfectly mirror those of the American people as a whole. Stewart goes to the town and sets up undercover with the intention of using the citizens as his poling guinea pigs, but he gets involved with town inhabitants. When his plans are revealed, the town goes crazy. Their sudden unofficial power goes to their heads, and instead of giving the sensible polling answers to questions they give outlandish ones. This causes the crash of their reputation and failure of Smith's plan.