The MoFo Top 100 of the 1930s: The Countdown

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

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.

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).

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.

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.