You know, I can’t recall having seen Jean Arthur in anything, either, despite the fact that I watch a lot of classic films.
She’s fantastic in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Her character was the best part of the film for me. It still would/could have been a great movie without her, but her character was so special. She was a firecracker – whip-smart, witty, and cynical, but thawing from that frost of cynicism thanks to the fresh, bright-eyed Jefferson. She’s so relatable, too. I think we all feel a bit like Clarissa at some point, tossed around in the gears of a system we can’t get out from, trying to apply ourselves but just spinning our wheels, getting a bit more jaded every time we fail. Yet another reason we need more Jefferson Smiths in our lives.
The character’s great, the performance is great, and she had a magic rapport with basically everybody she interacted with. She also truly surprised me as the love interest, who I thought was going to be Susan Payne. I figured the central conflict with the romance would be a daughter torn between her father/luxury life and the simpler, kinder Jefferson Smith. But nope! Along comes Clarissa Saunders like dynamite to blow the plot up and send it somewhere else entirely.
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