Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) : Classic Movie Hub (CMH)

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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:

See Full Cast

Jean Arthur
(as Clarissa Saunders)

James Stewart
(as Jefferson Smith)

Claude Rains
(as Sen. Joseph Harrison P...)

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

Senator Joseph Paine: Let me go! I'm not fit to be a senator! I'm not fit to live! Expel me, not him! Willet Dam is a fraud! It's a crime against the people who sent me here - and I committed it! Every word that boy said is the truth! Every word about Taylor and me and graft and the rotten political corruption of my state! Every word of it is true! I'm not fit for office! I'm not fit for any place of honor or trust! Expel me, not that boy!

Jefferson Smith: Either I'm dead right, or I'm crazy!

Clarissa Saunders: Yippee!

Facts about

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.

James Stewart knew this was the role of a lifetime, one that could place him near the top of the Hollywood heap. Jean Arthur later remembered his mood at the time: "He was so serious when he was working on that picture, he used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and drive himself to the studio. He was so terrified something was going to happen to him, he wouldn't go faster."

The scenes where James Stewart wanders around in amazement at the Washington monuments were "stolen", since the US Parks Service had denied the studio permission to film near them.

Featured Cast: See Full Cast

Jean Arthur(as Clarissa Saunders)

James Stewart(as Jefferson Smith)

Claude Rains(as Sen. Joseph Harrison P...)

SYNOPSIS

Academy Awards 1939 --- Ceremony Number 12 (source: AMPAS)