Four Score And Seven Years Ago Time-With Frank Capra’s Mister Smith Goes To Washington (1939) In Mind

 

DVD Review

 

By Sam Lowell  

 

Mister Smith Goes To Washington, starring Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, directed by Frank Capra, 1939 

Recently I wrote a short review of a Cary Grant and Jean Arthur film, Talk of the Town, where I argued that while the film could certainly be held without any ado as a good example of a romantic comedy from the golden age of such films. I argued though that the film had more merit as a social drama since while there were plenty of light-hearted moments the theme of the virtue of the rule of law trumped the obvious romantic interest between the two stars (and add in a third player Ronald Colman as well). I am in a similar quandary on the film under review, Frank Capra’s Mister Smith Goes To Washington. In that previous review I noted that Frank Capra along with Preston Sturgis and George Stevens   (I left the question of Howard Hawks to the reader’s choice) was one of the great directors of romantic comedy during the golden age of the genre in the later 1930s and early 1940s when anybody who had any sense knew the general population needed a little escapist humor with the onslaught of the Great Depression and the World War grinding them down. But I also argued that the subject matter-the threat to the rule of law which underscored the plot line made that film a vehicle for social drama as well.    

I want to argue for a similar conclusion on this on. Here’s the play. A U.S. Senator, in an unnamed state but presumed to be out in the heartland where people overall were not as jaded as elsewhere and still believed in some of the old truths even in the late 1930s when America was going to hell in a handbasket, had died. The “bosses” who ran the state and ran the governor couldn’t decide on a suitable candidate and so one so-called apolitical do-gooder, one Jefferson Smith (already we can get the flags out with that name), played by Jimmy Stewart, got the nod. The assumption was that he would do the bidding of the organization while it was stealing everything that was not nailed down, specifically a big boondoggle dam project where everybody who was in on the deal would get well, including the senior Senator, Joe Paine, from the state, played by Claude Rains last seen in this space walking arm and arm with Humphrey Bogart in the fog after giving the Germans the “what for” in the classic film, Casablanca. 

Of course old Jeff was the classic believer in good government, believed in the whole nine yards, probably believed that George Washington actually did chop down that cherry tree just like Parsons Weems said. Naïve, a babe in the woods, he got to Washington and was ready to serve with pride. Except he had this idea, this national boys’ camp idea that he planned to run through Congress as a way to instill true democratic values in future generations. (Girls, I guess, were just supposed to sit around and look pretty.) Problem, big problem in the end; the boys’ camp idea ran smack against the big dam boondoggle. The fight was on.

I mentioned that this film could be a romantic comedy at some level. That idea would come into play when Jefferson brought his wised-up to the ways of Washington super- secretary Clarissa, played by heartland wised up Jean Arthur, into his orbit, got her on his side in the fight for the boys’ camp despite her cynicism after having been around the town a little too long. But get this, or rather get two things. This Jeff was not built to be a good old boy, to carry some boss’s water, he had fighting for lost causes in his bones, grabbed a few such genes from his father, a newspaperman shot when he got too close to the dark side of politics and couldn’t be bought. The other thing is that while Jeff had more illusions than anybody should be allowed to have and still be allowed within fifty miles of the Washington zip codes he was not a quitter. Stood up to the bosses and their stooges, including that Joe Paine who had been a friend of his father’s but who was being held up in this film as the consummate sell-out to the big interests.

Here is the really funny part. The way old Jeff won his battle was through an old-fashioned filibuster, you know he took and kept the floor until exhaustion set in to prove his point. Now since the time of the film, 1939, the filibuster has been used for less worthy fights like against civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s and now to basically try to close down the government. So a filibuster seems an odd way now to make his point but there you have it. That pluck and Clarissa pulling for him from the sidelines. I mentioned in that The Talk of the Town review that that film was more of a social drama than a romantic comedy now that I have given you the “skinny” on this one I think this one follows that same path. You decide, okay.