Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) | |
Director(s) | Frank Capra |
Producer(s) | Frank Capra (uncredited) |
Top Genres | Drama |
Top Topics | Integrity, Justice, Politics, Romance (Drama), Washington D.C. |
Featured Cast:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Overview:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) was a Drama - Black-and-white Film directed by Frank Capra and produced by Frank Capra.
SYNOPSIS
Capra's enduring favorite has Stewart as the idealistic, yet naive, politician sent to Washington as junior senator who runs afoul of the political corruption in his state. Capra favorite Arthur plays his cynical secretary and Rains the powerful senior senator who expects Smith to be nothing more than a rubber stamp. As with the best of Capra's films, the sentiment and moralizing are kept in check by wonderful acting and genuine emotion. Based on Lewis R. Foster's novel The Gentleman from Montana.
(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).
.Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1989.
Academy Awards 1939 --- Ceremony Number 12 (source: AMPAS)
Award | Recipient | Result |
Best Actor | James Stewart | Nominated |
Best Supporting Actor | Harry Carey | Nominated |
Best Supporting Actor | Claude Rains | Nominated |
Best Art Direction | Lionel Banks | Nominated |
Best Director | Frank Capra | Nominated |
Best Film Editing | Gene Havlick, Al Clark | Nominated |
Best Music - Scoring | Dimitri Tiomkin | Nominated |
Best Picture | Columbia | Nominated |
Best Writing | Lewis R. Foster | Won |
Best Writing | Sidney Buchman | Nominated |
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Quotes from
Jefferson Smith: Either I'm dead right, or I'm crazy!
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.
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Facts about
Originally, the ending was much, much longer. It included scenes such as Mr. Smith going back to his home state and given a parade (with Saunders); the Taylor machine being crushed; Smith on a motorcycle and stopping to see Senator Paine; forgiving him and everyone going to see Smith's mother. It was cut after a preview audience's response. Some of the footage can be seen in the theatrical trailer.
In 1942, when a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France, the title theaters chose Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for their last movie before the ban went into effect. One Paris theater reportedly screened the film nonstop for thirty days prior to the ban.
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