MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)

I've been thinking about this film lately. I don't have a copy but I'm keen to see it again, because of the circus in Washington and how intense the media coverage has been. I think it inspired me alot when I was a teenager watching the classics. Great movie.

Thanks, Spiderwort. True about Stewart as Mr. Smith. A sort of dry run for George Bailey in the later film. The "white knight" older senator was an interestingly ambiguous father figure (gone bad). Claude Rains performance was more restrained than usual, or maybe I should say he didn't deploy his usual tricks. Watching him sitting in the senate chamber while young Sen. Smith is filibustering is like looking at a man in the grip of madness. I mean before his big breakdown scene. Low key and realistic from an actor I often find difficult to wholly believe; that he's the character he's playing, I mean; but not here.

Great for its time, I found it after IAWL. Might make my top 500 if I had one.

I'm kinda glad I went in somewhat chronological order for Stewart's filmography viewing.

I viewed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington twice in the theater in July. I had seen the film once before, in 2005 on Turner Classic Movies, but I enjoyed and appreciated it more on these occasions—the film is very good. Stewart is not quite masterful, as he would be in It's a Wonderful Life several years later, but he conveys youthful naiveté and idealism very effectively. 

What really struck me in July, though, was how subversive the movie happens to be—how it frankly shows corporate interests buying politicians, using extralegal security forces, and As noted earlier in the thread, the concern with, and warning about, fascism's rise is unmistakable. 

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington thus speaks to concerns of its time while previewing iconic events in American history and maintaining absolute relevance in our current day. 

Also striking is Capra's brief use of a young black boy (does anyone know who played him?) late in the film, offering a curiously integrationist note at a time when America essentially constituted a segregated country. Historically (and still to this day, unfortunately), populist fervor has tended to run against, rather than with, the quest for racial equality. Perhaps Capra was suggesting, however innocuously given the era's constraints, that populism and racial equality should be part of the same movement. Intriguing, too, is the autonomy and sense of prerogative that Capra grants the black porters early in the movie, where in a brief scene they show some independence and desire of their own rather than symbolizing servility. And then there is the teary-eyed black man reading the inscription at the Lincoln Memorial—a relatively safe image, to be sure, yet one that many of the era's filmmakers would not have bothered with. 

Frankly, the use of African-Americans in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however brief, is fascinating and perhaps mildly daring given the historical context.

joekiddlouischama

I very much enjoyed reading your remarks on this film.

A Sicilian immigrant, Capra was as idealistic and reverent towards the U.S. as any of his protagonists, but candid about its failings - which were deeply felt - and no stranger to prejudice. Even his pugnacious boss Harry Cohn (who seemed to have combative relationships with pretty much everyone) nicknamed Capra "Dago" in a spirit he supposed encompassed both affection and intimidation. And as a rebellious outsider among the other major studio moguls, Cohn wasn't shy about rocking boats and upsetting apple carts.   

Neither was Capra, for that matter, and I have to presume their respective sensibilities - some complementary; some not - contributed to the qualities you observe. That subversiveness in particular upset many D.C. apple carts, according to Capra's autobiographical account of a pre-release screening (and its aftermath) one rainy night in that city. I have also to imagine the film's relevance will endure decades past its centennial, by which time no more about the practical realities of the system it depicts will have changed than has in the nearly 80 years since its production.