Politics usually is “box office poison” but when a movie has as much heart in it as Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington it will not only make it big but it will never be forgotten. It was originally going to star Gary Cooper and be a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town but he was unavailable so it was retooled for Jimmy Stewart, who became Jefferson Smith instead of Longfellow Deeds. Jeff Smith is a naïve but patriotic young man, the son of a slain newspaper editor who was known as a crusader for lost causes who gets appointed by a political machine led by perennial Capra bad guy Edward Arnold to a vacancy in the Senate because it’s felt he can be “handled”. After all, the state’s other Senator, (Claude Rains), is an old friend of his father’s. He’s now a thoroughly- but not quite completely- corrupt veteran Washington insider but he retains an image of sober integrity.
The inevitable conflict involves a boy’s camp Smith wants to found on land Arnold has already bought up in anticipation that a dam will be built there. When Smith vows to fight them, evidence is cooked up that he owns the land and wants to build the camp there because he’ll profit from it when in fact, that’s what Arnold is doing. He winds up opposing the dam project by means of a filibuster, (perhaps based on Huey Long’s 1935 marathon that lasted 15 ½ hours), that takes him to the limits of his endurance, especially after Arnold’s machine takes control of the media and brings in carts full of phony telegrams from the home state criticizing Smith, who wins only because Rains can’t stand it any more and breaks down to confess his and Arnold’s graft.
The ending is wonderful fantasy but the movie has universal appeal because everyone identifies with the idealistic and determined Smith. The IMDB is full of posters who see him as either a left or right wing icon, railing against the corrupt power-brokers. Stewart was a conservative and his Smith, (at Stewart’s insistence?) has a plan that the government should buy the land and build the camp and then be reimbursed by the children who will use it by their contributions mailed into the government, (surely another fantasy that any government project could be so funded.).
We get a lot of speeches about what the real world is like but one thing the movies make clear to us is what qualities in people we like. We like them to be honest. We want them to stand for something besides expedience. We don’t like greed or selfishness. And we want them to, as Jeff Smith’s says, “love thy neighbor”. In the end, politics should ultimately be about finding the best way to do that. It rarely is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBU4UQX5XNY
Two years later, Capra tackled politics again in Meet John Doe. Barbara Stanwyck is a reporter working for a newspaper being taken over by an oilman, (Arnold again). In the very first scene the title block of the newspaper building is being removed by an air drill. Part of it includes the words “free press”. It’s replaced by a new sign saying that a new “streamlined” version of the paper is now founded. Inside Stanwyck learns she is to be fired after her last column that day. She decides to create publicity for herself by inventing a down and out “John Doe” who is going to commit suicide by jumping off of City Hall as a protest against the misery, hypocrisy and corruption of the world.
When challenged on it, the paper has to come up with a John Doe and basically holds auditions. They come up with an ex-baseball pitcher, Long John Willoughby, played by Gary Cooper who is starving and agrees to go through with the fraud. There’s a parody of how publicity is created and “John Doe” begins to protest any failure to help those who are in need, becoming a hero to the masses. He’s got a sidekick played by Walter Brennan who doesn’t think much of the whole thing. He says “the world has been shaved by a drunken barber” and warns against the “heelots”- the lot of heels that show up when you’ve got something they want. He and Cooper play a symbolic game of “shadow ball”, (baseball with no ball) to pass the time.
This brings him to the attention of wealthy and ambitious Arnold, who has his own private army and is looking for ways of communicating his ideas to the public. He owns a newspaper, a radio station and John Doe. He makes Stanwyck his protégé and builds up John Doe as a national figure. And John Doe has some interesting things to say:
“”Free people can beat the world at anything from war to tiddlywinks if we all pull together…Your teammate is the guy next door-your neighbor. If he’s sick call on him. If he’s hungry, feed him. If he needs a job, find him one…..tear down the fences that separate you. Tear down all those fences and you’ll have teamwork.”
People respond to this speech by forming “John Doe” clubs in which they get to know each other and figure ways to help each other. As in Our Daily Bread, it’s made clear that this isn’t socialism- they don’t want anyone on relief- their answer is to find paying jobs for people. And they don’t want politicians to be part of it. But Arnold wants to use the movement politically by having a national convention, organizing a third party- the “John Doe Party” and having his stooge- Cooper- announce he is supporting Arnold for President.
Cooper refuses but Arnold does exactly what he does to Mr. Smith- cook up a scandal by claiming that John Doe just wanted to collect dues from the John Doe clubs. Arnold takes over the convention, including cutting out the microphone when Cooper tires to answer his charges and having his troopers infiltrate the crowd and start a riot against John Doe, just as he had phony telegrams delivered to Congress to make Mr. Smith look bad. It’s interesting to speculate if someone could control information in our modern society with the effectiveness Arnold does.
Cooper decides the only thing he can do is to actually jump from City Hall on Christmas Eve and martyr himself. He sends a letter to a sympathetic editor, (James Gleason). Arnold and his cronies arrive to try to stop him. Then Stanwyck and the last of the loyal John Doers arrive to do the same. Cooper is persuaded to join them and Gleason tells Arnold, “There you are Norton: The people! Try and lick that!”
But the people almost put Norton into power. The whole film is warning not just against the Nortons but also against mob action and public gullibility. It doesn’t reject the values of the John Doe movements. It’s just a warning about how people can be manipulated. It has a lot to do with what’s going on now as we see politicians trying to control a grass-roots movement for their own ends, only to find out that controlling it is harder than they imagined.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFNdy1rbeaw
The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are priviledged to witness
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