Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

USA, 129 minutes

Director: Frank Capra

Writers: Sidney Buchman, Lewis R. Foster, Myles Connolly

Photography: Joseph Walker

Music: Dimitri Tiomkin

Editors: Al Clark, Gene Havlick

Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Arnold, Eugene Pallette, Harry Carey, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi, H.B. Warner, Astrid Allwyn, Ruth Donnelly, Charles Lane, Porter Hall, William Demarest, Jack Carson

You don't need me to tell you what kind of crazy year this has been, and not even half over. But I want to mention that I looked at Mr. Smith Goes to Washington a few months ago during the impeachment and found it much more resonant than I expected. Remember the impeachment? It's hard to believe that even happened this year. Of course, as a movie directed by Frank Capra, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has certain known quantities going in. The last 10 minutes will be a train wreck of happiness. The little guy will always get his say, and the girl too (usually all she's doing is cheering him on). People will generally regard Abraham Lincoln as real swell. And where, in John Ford tableaus, the pilgrims solemnly assemble for a verse of "Shall We Gather at the River," in Capra pictures it's going to be brass bands, patriotic marches, and "Auld Lang Syne." Set your expectations accordingly.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington just has too many solid elements going for it to be spoiled by animus toward Capra. They include the beautiful young James Stewart (though best seen in this period in The Shop Around the Corner), the sturdy Jean Arthur, who never strays far from her slightly wised-up Betty Boop girl-next-door salty leading lady persona but was made for these times of Depression and war (I love her), Claude Rains his typical consummate professional, and the usual impressive assemblage of character actors: Thomas Mitchell (drunk again), goose-voiced Eugene Pallette (I love him too), Harry Carey, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi, etc. They don't call 1939 Hollywood's greatest year for nothin'.

One of Capra's best weapons was Edward Arnold, as a low-key slick-talking fat bastard instantly recognizable as an epitome of American corporate corruption, then and now, appearing most memorably here and in Meet John Doe. He's the political machine boss Jim Taylor (often called James Taylor but that's too distracting for me) who rules his state with mob intimidation techniques often shocking in their brutality, such as knocking around kids, and lives only to make himself richer. Politicians amuse him as funny monkeys who can do tricks. Senator Joe Paine (Rains) is one such. Together they intend to make the naïve boy scout, Stewart's Jeff Smith, another such. He is literally a boy scout as well as a heartening fan of democracy and, of course, far too Capra-pure to ever be corrupted.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is full of patriotic American kitsch, such as a lengthy indulgent montage of D.C. monuments early on, winding up at the Lincoln Memorial and a full reading by a young boy of the Gettysburg Address, which absurdly made me cry. I claim that has more to do with what's going on outside at the moment than anything like Capra's skill. These days it's just particularly nice to hear the encouraging treatment of democracy by Lincoln in one of its darkest moments (yeah, I've been looking at Ken Burns's Civil War too, which also gives the G.A. a full reading). Like a somewhat more cynical picture from a later era, Advise and Consent, Capra's Mr. Smith is fascinated by the levers of American power, with an instinctive respect not to say fawning regard for the clubby elite qualities of the U.S. Senate and its fripperies of power.

Speaking of things going on outside, I sat up and paid attention—far more than I did earlier this year—when the discussion between Smith and Paine turned to "lost causes." Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has no brief for the Confederacy—the movie is explicitly Northern in its views, adoring Lincoln above all others and referring geographically to "down in Washington"—but this "lost cause" theme is insidiously sounded all through the picture. I suspect it's purposeful if perhaps unconscious, the ongoing scrubbing of Civil War history as it was actually taking place in real-time in 1939. Lost causes are what Smith and Paine have both dedicated themselves to, or abandoned in Paine's case, and it's returned to as a theme at the most key parts of the movie. Fighting for lost causes is regarded as a good and noble thing.

There's also a lot of Bible-reading and prayer here, I should mention. And there's more to cringe at as well, such as the painful slapstick accompanying all romantic developments as they go down. But the spirited confrontation between corruption and let's call it the democratic impulse in the last hour is great stuff, a compelling story of power and power wielded, even if it's arguably in the service of maudlin middlebrow fantasy. "Filibuster" has meant and still means many different things in American history, but I like this classic idealized version best—holding the floor of the Senate as long as you can stand and speak to make your point.

"I want a chance to talk to the people of my state," Smith implores. "They know me and they know [Jim] Taylor, and when they hear my story they'll rise up and they'll kick [Jim] Taylor's machine to kingdom come." And that's more or less what happens in the Capra bath at the end, as unconvincing as it may be to the cynical among us (or those just paying attention). It's still a nice fantasy, and so is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which flips its switch at the climax and breaks for the binary happy resolution of everything. Huzzah! It may be pathetic to take heart from places like this movie—and I'm not saying it's in the ending—but these days we have to take it where we can get it.