John Ford’s lifelong disaffection for Boston may have something to do with the peculiar detachment of his 1958 adaptation of Edwin O’Connor’s novel about the final campaign of a political boss of the old school (Spencer Tracy). The results are recognizably Fordian, but not as energetic as his best work, despite the interesting secondary cast: Pat O’Brien, Jeffrey Hunter, Basil Rathbone, Edward Brophy, James Gleason, Dianne Foster, John Carradine, Ricardo Cortez, Frank McHugh, and Jane Darwell. 121 min. (JR)