Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Overview:

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was a Comedy - Romance Film directed by Frank Capra and produced by Frank Capra.

The film was based on the serial story Opera Hat written by Clarence Budington Kelland published in American Magazine from April-Sept 1935.

SYNOPSIS

Capra's populist favorite is about a Vermont hayseed (Cooper) who inherits a fortune and his encounters with the cynical, heartless metropolis. Small-town "pixilated" poet and guileless good guy Longfellow Deeds inherits $20 million, and, when he wants to use it to help the needy, various unsavory types try to get him declared insane. As might be expected, Cooper embodies the simple virtues and wins over hardened newspaper reporter Arthur. Capra favorite Riskin wrote the screenplay and Capra won his second Oscar for the direction. Both leads worked for Capra again in Meet John Doe (Cooper) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Arthur). Based on "Opera Hat," a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Budington Kelland.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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Academy Awards 1936 --- Ceremony Number 9 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best ActorGary CooperNominated
Best DirectorFrank CapraWon
Best PictureColumbiaNominated
Best WritingRobert RiskinNominated
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Quotes from

[Deeds and attorney Cedar shake hands in parting]
Longfellow Deeds: Even his hands are oily.


Cornelius Cobb: You're wasting your time. He doesn't want any lawyers. He's sunk so low he doesn't want help from anybody. You can take a bow for that. As swell a guy as ever hit this town, and you crucified him for a couple of stinking headlines. You've done your bit. Stay out of his way.


[reading Babe's first column about Deeds]
MacWade: "At two o'clock this morning, Mr. Deeds held up traffic while he fed a bagful of doughnuts to a horse. When asked why he was doing it, he replied, 'I just wanted to see how many doughnuts this horse would eat before he asked for a cup of coffee.'"


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Facts about

The scene in which Deeds meets several famous writers and columnists at a New York restaurant, and finds them to be witty but also sarcastic and rude, is a reference to the Algonquin Round Table, with the character Bill Morrow being loosely based on Alexander Woollcott.
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. Shooting had to begin without a female lead in place.
This movie marks the entry of the verb doodle (in the sense of absent-minded scribbling) into the English language. The word was coined for the movie by screenwriter Robert Riskin.
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