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 #147 | 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 | cigarette | children | 

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Taglines:

Entertainment As Powerful As the Strength of the People! As Great As the Genius of Capra!

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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 Corporation

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

Before the film was released to the general public, a major screening was held in Washington, DC, at the invitation of the Washington Press Club, at Constitution Hall on October 16, 1939. More than 4,000 people attended, including senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices and much of the Georgetown elite. Harry Cohn was there, and Frank Capra and his wife attended, sitting with the family of Sen. Burton K. Wheeler, Republican from Montana (although Montana was never mentioned as the state Jefferson Smith was from in the film). Some biographers have charged that Capra "overdramatized" his account of the preview in his book, and that there wasn't a flood of walkouts as he wrote. The audience was only superficially polite at best, however, and there were certainly strong reactions from certain congressmen and members of the press in the days and weeks that followed.

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Goofs

Susan Payne should be spelled "Susan Paine".

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Quotes

Clarissa Saunders: I'm still asking myself, what is he? Animal, vegetable or mineral?
Diz Moore: Maybe he's an oyster.

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Connections

Referenced in From Nurse to Worse (1940)

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Soundtracks

O Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie
Traditional cowboy song
In the score when Smith and Paine reminisce, and later when Smith is at the Lincoln Memorial at night

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.