Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray]

Director: Frank Capra

Overview

Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior senator, puts in a call to Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee) reporting the news. Hopper then calls powerful media magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), who controls the state -- along with the lawmakers. Taylor orders Hopper to appoint an interim senator to fill out Foley's term; Taylor has proposed a pork barrel bill to finance an unneeded dam at Willet Creek, so he warns Hopper he wants a senator who "can't ask any questions or talk out of turn." After having a number of his appointees rejected, at the suggestion of his children Hopper nominates local hero Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of the state's Boy Rangers group. Smith is an innocent, wide-eyed idealist who quotes Jefferson and Lincoln and idolizes Paine, who had known his crusading editor father. In Washington, after a humiliating introduction to the press corps, Smith threatens to resign, but Paine encourages him to stay and work on a bill for a national boy's camp. With the help of his cynical secretary Clarissa Sanders (Jean Arthur), Smith prepares to introduce his boy's camp bill to the Senate. But when he proposes to build the camp on the Willets Creek site, Taylor and Paine force him to drop the measure. Smith discovers Taylor and Paine want the Willets Creek site for graft and he attempts to expose them, but Paine deflects Smith's charges by accusing Smith of stealing money from the boy rangers. Defeated, Smith is ready to depart Washington, but Saunders, whose patriotic zeal has been renewed by Smith, exhorts him to stay and fight. Smith returns to the Senate chamber and, while Taylor musters the media forces in his state to destroy him, Smith engages in a climactic filibuster to speak his piece: "I've got a few things I want to say to this body. I tried to say them once before and I got stopped colder than a mackerel. Well, I'd like to get them said this time, sir. And as a matter of fact, I'm not gonna leave this body until I do get them said."

Customer Reviews

Product Details

Release Date:	12/02/2014
UPC:	0043396446557
Original Release:	1939
Rating:	NR
Source:	SONY PICT
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	2:09:00
Sales rank:	636

Special Features

Commentary by Frank Capra Jr.; Frank Capra's American dream: feature-length documentary hosted by Ron Howard; Theatrical trailer; Rare international trailer; ; Five featurettes:; Frank Capra Jr. Remembers... Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Conversations with Frank Capra Jr.: The Golden Years; Conversations with Frank Capra Jr.: a family history; Frank Capra: collaboration; The Frank Capra I Knew

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

James Stewart	Jefferson Smith
Jean Arthur	Clarissa Saunders
Claude Rains	Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine
Edward Arnold	Jim Taylor,Senate Reporter
Guy Kibbee	Gov. Hopper,Senate Reporter,Senate reporter
Thomas Mitchell	Diz Moore,Sen. MacPherson
Harry Carey	Senate President
Eugene Pallette	McGann
Buelah Bondi	Ma,Ma Smith
H.B. Warner	Majority Leader
Astrid Allwyn	Susan Paine
Ruth Donnelly	Mrs. Emma Hopper
Porter Hall	Sen. Monroe
Pierre Watkin	Sen. Barnes
Charles Lane	Nosey
William Demarest	Carl Cook
Dick Elliott	Bill Griffith
H.V. Kaltenborn	Broadcaster
Ken Carpenter	Announcer
Jack Carson	Sweeney
Maurice Costello	Diggs
Allan Cavan	Ragner
Fred Hoose	Senator
Joseph King	Summers
Paul Stanton	Flood
Russell Simpson	Allen
Stanley Andrews	Sen. Hodges
Walter Soderling	Sen. Pickett
Frank Jaquet	Sen. Byron
Ferris Taylor	Sen. Carlisle,Reporter
Carl Stockdale	Sen. Burdette
Alan Bridge	Sen. Dwight,Sen. Dwight
Edmund Cobb	Sen. Gower
Frederick Burton	Sen. Dearhorn
Vera Lewis	Mrs. Edwards
Dora Clement	Mrs. McGann
Laura Treadwell	Mrs. Taylor
Ann Doran	Paine's Secretary
Douglas Evans	Francis Scott Key
Lloyd Whitlock	Schultz
Myonne Walsh	Jane Hopper
Byron Foulger	Hopper's Secretary
Margaret Mann	Nun,Photographer
Billy Watson	Peter Hopper,Jimmie Hopper,Hopper Boy,Hopper Boy
John Russell	Otis Hopper,Larry Simms
Larry Simms	Hopper Boy
Clyde Dilson	Reporter
William 'Billy' Newell	Reporter
George Chandler	Reporter,Senate Reporter
Evalyn Knapp	Reporter Asking 'What Do You Think of the Girls in This Town,Reporter
Jack Gardner	Reporter
Donald Kerr	Reporter
Eddie Kane	Reporter
George McKay	Reporter
Gene Morgan	Reporter
Matt McHugh	Reporter
Hal Cooke	Senate Reporter
James McNamara	Reporter
Jack Egan	Senate Reporter
Eddie Fetherston	Senate Reporter
Ed Randolph	Senate Reporter
Vernon Dent	Senate Reporter
Craig Stevens	Senate Reporter
Ed Brewer	Senate Reporter
Anne Cornwall	Senate Reporter
James Millican	Senate Reporter
Mabel Forrest	Senate Reporter
Nick Copeland	Senate Reporter
Dulce Daye	Senate Reporter
Fred 'Snowflake' Toones	Porter
Charles Moore	Porter
Frances Gifford	Hopper Girl
Adrian Booth	Actor
Dorothy Comingore	Woman at Station
Mary Gordon	Woman
June Gittelson	Woman at Station
Dave Willock	Senate Guard
Florence Wix	Committeewoman (uncredited)
Harlan Briggs	Mr. Edwards- Howling Citizen (uncredited)
Count Stefanelli	Foreign Diplomat (uncredited)
Arthur Thalasso	Doorman
Baby Dumpling	Hopper Boy
Harry Bailey	Senator Hammett
Erville Alderson	Handwriting expert
Eddie Fetherstone	Senate reporter
Sam Ash	Senator Lancaster
Frank Austin	Inventor
Wade Boteler	Family man
Maurice Cass	Handwriting expert
John Ince	Senator Fernwick
George Cooper	Waiter,Photographer
Gino Corrado	Barber
Alec Craig	Speaker
Beatrice Curtis	Paine's secretary
Robert Walker	Senator Holland
Victor Travers	Senator Grainger
Neal Dodd	Senate chaplain
Helen Eddy	Paine's secretary
Harry Hayden	Speaker
Louis Heydt	Soapbox speaker
Olaf Hytten	Butler
Lloyd Ingraham	Committeeman
Dick Jones	Page boy
Robert Keane	Editor
Wyndham Standing	Senator Ashman
Wright Kramer	Senator Carlton
Arthur Loft	Chief clerk
Philo McCullough	Senator Albert
Lafe McKee	Civil War veteran
Robert Middlemass	Speaker
Alex Novinsky	Foreign diplomat
Frank O'Connor	Senator Alfred
Frank Puglia	Handwriting expert
Jack Richardson	Senator Manchester
Dimitri Tiomkin	Composer

Technical Credits

Sidney Buchman

Lewis R. Foster

Harold Winston

Sidney Buchman	Screenwriter
Frank Capra	Producer
Lewis R. Foster	Screenwriter
Harold Winston	Screenwriter
Slavko Vorkapich	Special Effects
Edward Bernds	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was the director's final film for Columbia Pictures, the studio where he'd made his name in the 1930s with an enviable array of comedies and topical dramas. It also marked a turning point in Capra's vision of the world, from nervous optimism to a darker, more pessimistic tone. Beginning with American Madness in 1932, such Capra films as Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and You Can't Take It With You had trumpeted their belief in the decency of the common man. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however, the decent common man is surrounded by the most venal, petty, and thuggish group of yahoos ever to pass as decent society in a Capra movie. Everyone in the film -- except for Jefferson Smith and his tiny cadre of believers -- is either in the pay of the political machine run by Edward Arnold's James Taylor or complicit in Taylor's corruption through their silence, and they all sit by as innocent people, including children, are brutalized and intimidated, rights are violated, and the government is brought to a halt. The film's story of innocence and righteousness triumphant over corruption frames a chilling picture of an ineffectual and venal government fronting for gangsters. Coming at a time when the American public was growing weary (and wary) of the New Deal, then in its seventh year, it may have caught the public's mood just right. The world was indeed becoming a darker place -- as the movie acknowledges by the presence of representatives of various European dictatorships in the Senate gallery as Smith's struggle on the Senate floor continues. The movie was so potent in its time that it cemented the image of James Stewart, then a good working dramatic actor who'd portrayed a range of roles, into the quintessential good-natured hero, the archetypal common man. That image made him a star, but also straightjacketed him to some degree. Stewart did some of his most interesting work in later years when he escaped from that image, as in Winchester '73, The Far Country, Rope, and Vertigo.