Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.

Director:

Frank Capra

Writers:

Sidney Buchman (screen play), Lewis R. Foster (story)

Stars:

James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains

Top Rated Movies #152 | Won 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jean Arthur	...	Saunders
James Stewart	...	Jefferson Smith
Claude Rains	...	Senator Joseph Paine
Edward Arnold	...	Jim Taylor
Guy Kibbee	...	Governor Hopper
Thomas Mitchell	...	Diz Moore
Eugene Pallette	...	Chick McGann
Beulah Bondi	...	Ma Smith
H.B. Warner	...	Senate Majority Leader
Harry Carey	...	President of the Senate
Astrid Allwyn	...	Susan Paine
Ruth Donnelly	...	Mrs. Hopper
Grant Mitchell	...	Senator MacPherson
Porter Hall	...	Senator Monroe
H.V. Kaltenborn	...	H.V. Kaltenborn

Storyline

Naive and idealistic Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed on a lark by the spineless governor of his state. He is reunited with the state's senior senator--presidential hopeful and childhood hero, Senator Joseph Paine. In Washington, however, Smith discovers many of the shortcomings of the political process as his earnest goal of a national boys' camp leads to a conflict with the state political boss, Jim Taylor. Taylor first tries to corrupt Smith and then later attempts to destroy Smith through a scandal.

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Plot Keywords:

u.s. senator | national film registry | afi | children | butler | 

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Taglines:

Stirring - In the seeing! Precious - In the remembering!

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 October 1939 (USA)

Also Known As:

Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Filming Locations:

Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios - 1438 N. Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$9,600,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

129 min 120 min (TV)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and winning only one for Best Original Story, it became the first film to lose at least 10 awards (in nine categories).

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Goofs

(at around 17 mins) At the train station, Jeff Smith is approached by Susan Payne and three other women. They ask for a dollar contribution each for the Milk Fund. Jeff Smith says "five dollars". It should only be four dollars. Soon after, reporters ask him about the women in Washington. He responds that four came up to him at the train depot.

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Quotes

Jefferson Smith: Now, doggone it, there's something wrong here! I know there's something wrong! And I'm not gonna vote on that thing until I get some more questions answered.
Senator Joseph Paine: Jeff, you're fighting windmills.
Jefferson Smith: I am?

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Connections

Featured in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies: 10th Anniversary Edition (2007)

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Soundtracks

Taps
(1862) (uncredited)
Music by Daniel Butterfield
In the score when Smith is at the Arlington National Cemetery

User Reviews

drifts in and out of comedy and sincerity with the greatest of ease

It was a lot of fun watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in a class where the professor noted how this was the sort of film that was of historical importance while not taking itself too seriously. And I think that's the way Frank Capra wanted it, in a sense. Perhaps in the time of 1939 America this film was seen as being of merit to the American Government's due (though according to the trivia, it was denounced at showing corruption and even banned for showing how democracy "works"). But the director is also wanting to make an entertaining movie, of the kind of Hollywood appeal that brings 8-to-80 years olds in attendance. What had me interested throughout, particularly in that climactic, rousing twenty-minute sequence in the Senate with Jimmy Stewart's constant, un-faltering filibuster, is how it really is a patriotic kind of bravura to be shown on the screen. Here is how it SHOULD be done, to an extreme perhaps, in getting things done in government. But at the same time, Capra keeps it entirely watchable with that group of kids up on the balcony, keeping the audience laughing and smiling all the way through the great lines that Stewart says. "Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again!" This is a kind of talent that I'm sure few other filmmakers at the time, or even after, could have pulled off.

The rest of the film isn't just Stewart's struggle to be heard as a young, new-in-town senator. It's also a witty, more often than not true look of how government tends to really work as opposed to how it should. Basically, the core of the story is the fish-out-of-water type, where Stewart's Jefferson Smith (one of his better Hollywood performances), leader of the Boy Rangers is called to be the senator of his state. He has a childhood hero in town in the form of a senior senator (Claude Rains, terrific as always). And there's even a woman (Jean Arthur) in the mix that's growing an interest in him, at first dubious. But despite the corruption that is almost thrust upon smith by Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold, as skilled a character actor as could be asked for), Smith fights it all the way to his final filibuster, which includes a reading from the Constitution, in-and-out cheers from the Boy Rangers, and general guffaws from the other senators. In other words, it's really much in that pure spirit of Frank Capra that 'Mr. Smith' is working in, and even at its cheesiest and sometimes most-dated moments, it's a very successful picture for what it wants to do. It's really an equal-opportunity kind of film about people in politics that should be able decades later to appeal to both the hopeful and the cynical, and it works as good as it does a comedy as it does a piece to show in history of film or American government course.