The Films of Frank Capra
 

I just watched You Can't Take It With You with my daughter, who has never seen it. It makes sense that I should start a Frank Capra thread, yes? The Similar Thread Doohickey said it was OK. :cool:

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Frank Capra was born in Sicily, and his family immigrated to America when he was six. His age would be pretty much comparable to that of Don Corleone (from The Godfather) when his family migrated to NYC, although the Don was probably a little bit older. Capra actually enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1918, but illness prevented him from ever leaving the country. His family moved to Los Angeles, and he was naturalized in 1920 and went to work at the film studios as a prop man. It didn't take him that long before he was directing silent films with Harry Langdon and then some war adventure films involving submarines and dirigibles.

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Eventually Capra became the Saviour of the low-budget Columbia Studios and soon enough, he found himself the most popular filmmaker of the Depression era. His films were so wildly popular that he was seen as the forerunner of that AntiChrist, Steven Spielberg. Capra's films were definitely populist, and even if he truly believed in the American Dream, he could tell that a land where few were rich and many were poor would quickly become a poor country, at least spiritually, so sometimes, he's considered a socialist. His attacks on big business are well-known, but when he, and his main screenwriter, Robert Riskin, present their points so cogently, it's difficult for anyone to cheer the capitalist who wants to crush the common citizen just to make a few extra million dollars which he will never ever need. Capra's films do tend to be fables presented to a country of poor people to enable them to follow their own Muse. However, I'm quite sure that if the U.S. moviegoers didn't have the same hopes as those of the characters in Capra films that our wonderful country may have had a much more difficult time during the 1930s, and then we would have been even less prepared for our involvement in World War II. As a sidenote, Capra was a President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and used his position to advance the nomination process, including allowing foreign-language films and honoring supporting actors.

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Anybody who is crazy enough to question Frank Capra's patriotism should be told, here and now, that he rejoined the Army in 1941 and went on some of the most dangerous missions of WWII. The results? The incredible Why We Fight series of films, which he supervised, photographed and edited, and which were shown to the public in the U.S. and the U.K. during the war. After the war, Capra made what turned out, in retrospect, to be his most popular film, It's a Wonderful Life (early revisionism), and he made an equally significant political satire, State of the Union, which may will be Tracy and Hepburn's best film together. Capra continued to make films up to the '60s, but they never met with the acclaim or popularity of his earlier films, and he even remade two of his lesser-known, but better, films (Lady For a Day and Broadway Bill) in the final decade of his career.

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Capra died in 1991, 30 years after he directed his final film. Even so, anyone who is a true film buff would find most any of his films, especially those made from 1931 to 1948, as essential examples of films with strong plots, characters and incredible craftsmanship. Some of his earlier and later films are well worth watching, but not until you avail yourself to such masterpieces as The Bitter Tea of General Yen, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe and Arsenic and Old Lace. My next post will discuss You Can't Take It With You, a film which won Best Picture and Best Director in 1938 (Capra won three Best Director Oscars in the 1930s). Hopefully, somebody else has watched Capra and has an opinion, even if it's different from mine. :)

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Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

I didn't do a complete search, but I did find these . . . .

His First Flame (1927) ~ Writer

Meet John Doe (1941) ~ Director

Why We Fight ~ The first eight links

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

This is probably the craziest Capra film written by Robert Riskin, even if it is an adaptation of a George S. Kaufmann-Moss Hart play. The reason it's so crazy isn't that it advocates people doing what makes them happy (even if they never earn money from it). It's just packed with such a large cast of characters all pursuing their loves and all doing it under one roof. One second, you have Dub Taylor playing a xylophone while his wife Ann Miller twirls around the living room with her Russian dance instructor Mischa Auer claiming "She stinks!"; at the exact same moment, an African-American couple, played by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Lillian Yarbo, are jiving to the music in the kitchen, while the patriarch of the family (Lionel Barrymore) is explaining to an IRS auditor (Charles Lane) why he never has and will never pay any income taxes. This is going on while Grandpa's daughter (Spring Byington) is typing her latest play; why is she a playwright, you ask? Because nine years earlier someone accidentally delivered a typewriter to the wrong address. The playwright's husband (Samuel S. Hinds) is down in the cellar making fireworks with another oldtimer (Halliwell Hobbes), and the newest member (Donald Meek) of the extended family is also down there "making up things", such as a cute mechanical rabbit who pops out of a basket while music plays.

That's basically the supporting cast. The principal story involves wealthy munitions manufacturer Kirby (Edward Arnold) who wants to buy up a huge area of homes and businesses, but there's one person who is a holdout. Unbeknownst to Kirby, that man is Grandpa. Kirby's son Tony (James Stewart) is the vice president of his company, and he's madly in love with his secretary Alice (Jean Arthur) who just happens to be Grandpa's granddaughter. When Tony announces that he's engaged to Alice, he arranges for his father and snooty mother (Mary Forbes) to have dinner at Alice's house. The sneaky thing is that Tony brings his family a day early because he doesn't want Alice's family to behave any differently than normal for his wealthy parents. Needless to say, things don't go as planned.

If you're like me, you'll laugh and cry at the film. You'll also find its message to be just as pertinent now as it was in the Depression and at the dawning of WW II. There are allusions to solar power, the world about to go to war again, a community rallying together to keep its dreams in the face of the powers-that-be, the fact that money can't buy you happiness and that happiness can exist without money. It has some very romantic moments between Jean Arthur and James Stewart, who reteamed with Capra the next year in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This film isn't as well known today as Mr. Smith, It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, but if you want to be enveloped in Capracorn, one of the very best kinds of "popcorn" films, you could do a lot worse than watch this film.

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Instead of writing something different, here's what I said about Lost Horizon in the Movie Tab:

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Hello mark f,
Mrs. Darcy and I were watching the same film last night, while on MoFo.
We didn't finish it.
I liked it as far as we got.
It wasn't Zulu or Armageddon but refreshing.
It looked like a fun house to live in with all the people you mentioned doing all those activities at once.
I think that's as far as we got.
What I would like to comment on, is the changes we have made since the movie.
The lady was typing on a typewriter.
The big receivers on the phone.
Asking an operator to connect you. Must have been a party line.
Stamp collecting. With a magnifying glass.
Things like this stand out in movies to me.
The people in the movie were happy without modern electronics.
I'd rate what I saw...

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Nice thread Mark. I love Capra. I had my daughter watch You Can't Take It With You as well. I loved the cast and alot of things about it (the message, the quirky characters, the acting), but I can't say I loved it the way I love some of his others like It Happened One Night or Arsenic and Old Lace for some reason. I dunno...the others I was immediately hooked on the story and this one sort of took awhile for me to get hooked. I still like it alot though and want to see it again. :)

My favorites of Capra's are It Happened One Night, Arsenic and Old Lace, It's a Wonderful Life and State of the Union(besides Hepburn and Spencer working so well together, I loved seeing Angela Lansbury as a scene stealer in this). It's been awhile since I've seen Lost Horizon and should get it again. I remember liking it alot too as well as loving Ronald Colman in it.


BTW....Nice reviews and both movies Mark. If you have anymore on Capra you should post them. :)

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

I plan to add some more details to this review for this thread, but I don't want them to be "Spoilers". Who else has seen this, and what did you think?

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Sometimes I get so jealous of people that have seen so many of these great older flicks and then I realize that I'm still alive and I may even live another 40 years or more and with a little luck I too will be able to enjoy these flicks.

I haven't seen very many of his films of the few I have seen I've really enjoyed them. I watch It's A Wonderful Life every Christmas, sometimes twice... it's that good. There is a good reason why its on every year multiple times, I says.

As of now Arsenic and Old Lace is still probably my favorite Capra film, it just agrees with me. It has everything I could want. Cary Grant, a love story an insane killer (well, killers I suppose if you include the aunts) and bugle music. Who doesn't love a good bugler? It truly is brilliant and I would challenge anyone who thinks that movies where "all they do is talk" are boring, to watch this flick and see if it doesn't "do it" for you.

I recently got to see It Happened One Night not to long ago and that was also terrific. Most of the flicks on the lists are on there for a reason and that one friends, is a good egg. :)

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Don't really have much to add about Capra's films just now, but I wanted to relay the famous Robert Riskin story for those who may not have heard it. It may well be apocryphal, but it's one of the most fondly recited tales of old Hollywood by screenwriters of every generation. And like the fella in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance said, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

So...

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Robert Riskin was the playwright turned screenwriter who collaborated on many of Capra's best-known and best-loved films, including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, Lady for a Day, Platinum Blonde, You Can't Take it with You and It Happened One Night, winning the Oscar for the last one I listed there. By the early '40s Capra had become such a known commodity that his films were being billed with his name in the title, such as Frank Capra's Meet John Doe. The legend goes that after years of this increasing sentiment and after either an advertisement or interview, depending on who's telling the story, referenced "That famous Capra touch" neglecting to mention Robert or any other writer, Riskin is said to have stormed into Frank's office, thrown down a hundred and twenty blank pages bound together and screamed, "Put the famous Capra touch on that!"

Whether or not this ever happened is in dispute, but it is a perfect example of the generally and perpetually devalued worth and respect of the screenwriter in the Hollywood system...especially as perceived by screenwriters.

Whether the exchange ever went down quite like that or Riskin and other bitter screenwriters have embellished it or simply made it up out of whole cloth over the years, it's true that Capra and Riskin did have a falling out after Deeds, though Capra did direct a few more of Riskin's credited scripts...without the writer's one-on-one input. A couple years ago there was a biography published about him, In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin.

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Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Great thread. :)

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In my top 250 movies I have :

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
It's a Wonderful Life
Arsenic and Old Lace
It Happened One Night

Capra's movies, more than any other directors, led to my love for the movies.

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True that, ucon. :cool:

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

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This Robert Riskin-scripted film couldn't be simpler in its plot, but it still packs a wallop as both a hilarious comedy and a powerful look at greed. I still laugh and cry, almost nonstop, during the film. Gary Cooper plays Longfellow Deeds, a simple resident of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. His favorite things in life are playing his tuba, chasing fire engines and writing greeting cards to earn the modest amount of money he needs to support himself. However, a distant relative dies and leaves him $20 million, and remember, we're talking about the Great Depression here. (If 20 mil isn't enough for you, in today's dollars, that's at least 250 mil!) Deeds goes to New York City where lawyers, "relatives" and everyone you can imagine try to get a piece of his pie, but the funny thing is that Deeds doesn't want the money. He just wants to make sure that as many people who need it get some and that those who don't need it don't get any of it.

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Among the characters Deeds meets in NYC are his dead relative's smarmy chief lawyer John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille) who mistakes him for a simpleton, Cedar's assistant 'Corny' Collins (Lionel Stander) who likes Deeds so much that he basically "defects" to Deeds' side, and up-and-coming reporter 'Babe' Bennett (Jean Arthur) who is pushed (not all that hard) by her editor (George Bancroft) to get all the juicy news on Deeds while she poses as a "damsel in distress" (since Mr. Deeds really wants to save one of those). It's Babe's up-close-and-personal articles in the newspaper which turn Deeds into something of a laughingstock, even though he's very attracted to her, and most all of his "misDeeds" could be explained by not understanding his big city surroundings, trying to be a gentleman knight or having too much to drink with somebody who isn't really his friend (yet).

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Since Mr. Deeds actually has a plan and wants to give his money to those he sees as the deserving poor, his lawyers construe to have him declared "crazy", supported by 'Babe''s stories, and he's brought to trial to decide if he should be in charge of his new fortune or should it be the lawyers, who basically want it all for themselves. The trial would be wonderful if it only had the terms "pixilated", "doodler" and "O-filler", but of course, it has so much more. :cool:

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Capra got the second of his three Best Director Oscars in the '30s for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Riskin got his third of four nominations for the film. It may well show a simpler world, but it still shows a resonant one, which any movie buff should feel free to avail oneself, not only to see how sophisticated a 1930s film could be in direction, script and acting, but to also just reaffirm that people 70 years ago (including your own great grandparents) weren't really that different from you on the inside, even if they didn't play video games, have cell phones or spend godawful amounts of time on the computer (guilty!). There are so many wonderful scenes in the movie, but the trial is really the high point and foreshadows the trial in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington three years later. This film certainly contains one of Gary Cooper's best performances, just as Mr. Smith has one of Jimmy Stewart's. Summing it up, I'd say that when Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, it's a win-win situation for both the (long-gone) filmmakers and all past and future film watchers.

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Great thread, mark f. Glad I found it looking back. You Can't Take It With You is one of my favorite all-time movies. I loved Frank Capra's work with Jean Arthur. She's at the top of my actresses list. I also love Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. It Happened One Night was one of the films I watched that really got me into old movies.

Plus, there is no Christmas film better than It's A Wonderful Life

A Christmas Story is a better Christmas film, but then I don't view It's a Wonderful Life as a Christmas film at all.

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Yeah but you're Harry Lime, so uh, there you go.

I caught Rain or Shine (1930) a few weeks back and I really thought it was terrific! Joe Cook who played Smiley Johnson apparently was quite the Broadway star and was nicknamed 'The One Manned Vaudeville'. Anyway, he was pretty great and I loved the movie.

I'm sure you've seen it Mark, has anyone else here seen it? It's a hoot. Especially if you like circus movies. Which I do.

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I have every Capra talkie movie copied off of TCM and several silents too, so yep, I'd recommend that one. Capra was always way ahead of his time.

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Pirate!

You're absolutely right, Mark. Capra was a hell of a director--made possibly the funniest film ever in Arsenic and Old Lace and likely the best ever romantic comedy, It Happened One Night. That's just two in a long string of classic hits and distinguished films. He was truly one of the best.

I was particularly glad to read your praise of Capra's "incredible Why We Fight series of films, which he supervised, photographed and edited" for the US Office of War Information and later were shown as well to civilian audiences. The first of that series won a well-deserved Oscar in the new category of Best Documentary in 1942 when the US was still in the process of switching from isolationism and gearing up for the war that began for us at the end of 1941. Especially after someone in another thread recently trashed--unfairly, I think--as "propaganda" such films as Air Force (1943) that was nominated among feature films for Best Cinematography, Best Effects, Best Original Screenplay, and won for Best Editing; and Wake Island (1943) for which William Bendix was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, John Farrow was nominated as Best Director, and the movie itself was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. :yup:

Re: The Films of Frank Capra
 

Calling something propaganda is not the same as trashing it. I didn't feel the need to call the Why We Fight series propaganda in this thread, so I'm going to let it be right now. Anyone who has seen the films knows what's in them and should be able to discuss them in a "shades of gray" manner without having a cow.