Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Frank Capra

Writers:

Robert Riskin (screenplay)
Clarence Budington Kelland (story)

Release Date:

16 April 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

Rocking America with laughter!

Plot:

Longfellow Deeds, a simple-hearted Vermont tuba player, inherits a fortune and has to contend with opportunist city slickers.

Plot Keywords:

Tuba | Small Town | Vermont | Reporter | Poet

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Gary Cooper	...	Longfellow Deeds
Jean Arthur	...	Babe Bennett
George Bancroft	...	MacWade
Lionel Stander	...	Cornelius Cobb
Douglass Dumbrille	...	John Cedar
Raymond Walburn	...	Walter
H.B. Warner	...	Judge May
Ruth Donnelly	...	Mabel Dawson
Walter Catlett	...	Morrow
John Wray	...	Farmer

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | South Korea:12 | UK:U | USA:Approved (PCA #1966) | Australia:G

Company:

Frank Capra Productions

Trivia:

Carole Lombard was originally down to play the female lead but she backed out three days before production began to go work on My Man Godfrey (1936). Shooting had to begin without a female lead in place.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the attorney is trying to get Deeds to sign the power of attorney, while Deeds is being fitted for a new suit, a vest disappears and reappears.

Quotes:

[to Walter, as he interrupts Mr. Deeds' tuba playing]
Longfellow Deeds: The evil finger's on you!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life': A Personal Remembrance (1991) (V)

67 years on and the film is still pertinent.....

Of all Capra's films this is the one I like the best, partly, I think, because there has never been anybody in the history of cinema to match Gary Cooper at putting on the boyish charm. As Longfellow Deeds, a man who inherits a lot of money he does not need and therefore does not want, Cooper is just right, a hick, but not a fool, a gentle man but not one who will let the wool be pulled over his eyes. The films' pertinence arises from its' depiction of a rich man prepared to give his wealth away to benefit his fellow man. It was a fantasy then, and is as much a fantasy now, because we do not learn, least of all from pictures even as good as this one.