Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Jefferson Smith: I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them; because of just one plain simple rule: 'Love thy neighbor. And in this world today, full of hatred, a man who knows that one rule has a great trust. You know that rule, Mr. Paine, and I loved you for it, just as my father did. And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any other. Yes, you even die for them.

---

Clarissa Saunders: You just make up your mind you're not gonna quit, and I'll tell you what. I've been thinking about it all the way back here. It's a forty foot dive into a tub of water, but I think you can do it.

---

Jefferson Smith: Well, what do you expect me to do? An honorary stooge like me against the Taylors and Paines and machines and lies?
Clarissa Saunders: Your friend, Mr. Lincoln had his Taylors and Paines. So did every other man who ever tried to lift his thought up off the ground. Odds against them didn't stop those men. They were fools that way. All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that. You know that, Jeff. You can't quit now. Not you. They aren't all Taylors and Paines in Washington. That kind just throw big shadows, that's all. You didn't just have faith in Paine or any other living man. You had faith in something bigger than that. You had plain, decent, everyday, common rightness, and this country could use some of that. Yeah, so could the whole cockeyed world, a lot of it. Remember the first day you got here? Remember what you said about Mr. Lincoln? You said he was sitting up there, waiting for someone to come along. You were right. He was waiting for a man who could see his job and sail into it, that's what he was waiting for. A man who could tear into the Taylors and root them out into the open. I think he was waiting for you, Jeff. He knows you can do it, so do I.

---

read more quotes from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington...

In 1941 Columbia was sued by Louis Ullman and Norman Houston, both of whom claimed that this film was plagiarized from their respective written works. Screenwriter Lewis R. Foster testified that he wrote the story specifically for Gary Cooper, and director Frank Capra testified that he had seen only the synopsis of Foster's story and had intended to use it as a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Columbia won the case.
The screenplay was originally purchased by Columbia as a vehicle for Ralph Bellamy, with Harold Wilson slated to produce. Once Frank Capra became the director, the project, planned as a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, was entitled "Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington", and was to star Gary Cooper, reprising his role as Longfellow Deeds. Cooper was unavailable for the role, however, and James Stewart was borrowed from MGM. "I knew he would make a hell of a Mr. Smith," Capra said. "He looked like the country kid, the idealist. It was very close to him."
Neither the Republican nor Democratic parties are ever mentioned in the film.
read more facts about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington...