Paging 'Mr. Smith'

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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          With the Oscars coming up this weekend, I am reminded that this year is the 85^th anniversary of what many film critics consider Hollywood’s finest year: 1939. It saw the release of my favorite film – one that should be viewed by every member of Congress during these divisive times: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It was an unabashed love letter to America and democracy and integrity in government and the U.S. being the leader of the free world and a bunch of other good things.

In 1939, the U.S. was grappling with impending war in Europe and the lingering impact at home of the Depression. Somehow, those and other factors combined to create Hollywood’s most prolific and profitable and perhaps flat-out best year. There was Gone With the Wind, of course, but following close on its heels in box office and Oscar appeal were The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, Only Angels Have Wings, Young Mr. Lincoln, Another Thin Man, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Ninotchka, Destry Rides Again, Gunga Din, The Roaring Twenties, Of Mice and Men, Dark Victory, Beau Geste, and Dodge City.

          It is surprising there was room for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington at all. Yet it was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, and it won Best Original Story. It was selected in 1989 by the Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." And in that box office boom year of 1939, Mr. Smith was second only to Gone With the Wind in earnings.

          After the director Frank Capra got hold of an unpublished short story about a young senator from Montana, his intention was to make a sequel to his Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, called Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington, with Gary Cooper reprising his role as Longfellow Deeds. Because Cooper was unavailable, Capra then saw it as a vehicle for James Stewart and Jean Arthur, and Stewart was borrowed from MGM. Capra said of Stewart: "He looked like the country kid, the idealist. It was very close to him."

In January 1938, the story was submitted to the censors at the Hays Office. Joseph Breen, the head of that office, warned, "We would urge most earnestly that you take serious counsel before embarking on the production of any motion picture based on this story. It looks to us like one that might well be loaded with dynamite, both for the motion picture industry, and for the country at large." Breen specifically objected to "the generally unflattering portrayal of our system of Government, which might well lead to such a picture being considered, both here, and more particularly abroad, as a covert attack on the democratic form of government.” But after the screenplay had been written and submitted, Breen reversed course, saying of the film, "It is a grand yarn that will do a great deal of good for all those who see it.”

The film was in production from April 3 to July 7, 1939. Some location shooting took place in Washington D.C, at Union Station and at the Capitol Building as well as other locations for background use. In the studio, to ensure authenticity, an elaborate set was created, consisting of Senate committee rooms, cloak rooms, and hotel suites as well as specific monuments, all based on a trip Capra and his crew made to the capital. Even the Press Club of Washington was reproduced in minute detail, but the major effort went into a faithful reproduction of the Senate Chamber on the Columbia lot.

Here’s the boiled-down plot: The governor of an unnamed western state, Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee), has to pick a replacement for the recently deceased U.S. Senator Sam Foley. His corrupt political boss, Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), pressures Hopper to choose his handpicked stooge, Horace Miller, while popular committees want a reformer, Henry Hill. The governor's children want him to select Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), the head of the Boy Rangers. Unable to make up his mind between Taylor's stooge and the reformer, Hopper decides to flip a coin. When it lands on edge – and next to a newspaper story on one of Smith's accomplishments – he chooses Smith, calculating that his wholesome image will please the people and he will be easy to manipulate.

Junior Senator Smith is taken under the wing of the publicly esteemed, but secretly crooked, Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), who was Smith's late father's friend. Smith's naïve and honest nature allows the unforgiving Washington press to take advantage of him, quickly tarnishing Smith's reputation with ridiculous front-page pictures and headlines branding him a bumpkin.

To keep Smith busy, Paine suggests he propose a bill. With the help of his secretary, Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur), who has been around Washington and politics for years, Smith comes up with a bill to authorize a federal government loan to buy some land in his home state for a national boys' camp, to be paid back by youngsters across America. Donations pour in immediately. However, the proposed campsite is already part of a dam-building graft scheme included in an appropriations bill framed by the Taylor political machine and supported by Senator Paine.

Unwilling to crucify the worshipful Smith so that their graft plan will go through, Paine tells Taylor he wants out, but Taylor reminds him that Paine is in power primarily through Taylor's influence. Paine then advises Smith to keep silent about the matter. The following day, when Smith speaks out about the bill at Senate, the machine in his state—through Paine—accuses Smith of trying to profit from his bill by producing fraudulent evidence that Smith already owns the land in question. Smith is too shocked and angry by Paine's betrayal to defend himself.

Saunders, who looked down on Smith at first, has come to believe in him, and talks him into launching a filibuster to postpone the appropriations bill and prove his innocence on the Senate floor just before the vote to expel him. In his last chance to prove his innocence, Smith talks non-stop for about 25 hours, reaffirming the American ideals of freedom and disclosing the dam scheme's true motives. Yet none of the Senators are convinced.

His supporters try to rally around him, but the entrenched opposition is too powerful, and all attempts are crushed. Owing to the influence of Taylor's machine, newspapers and radio stations in Smith's home state refuse to report what Smith has to say and even distort the facts against the senator. The Boy Rangers' effort to spread the news in support of Smith results in vicious attacks on the children by Taylor's minions.

Although all hope seems lost, the senators begin to pay attention as Smith approaches utter exhaustion. Paine has one last card up his sleeve: He brings in bins of letters and telegrams from Smith's home state, purportedly from average people demanding his expulsion. Nearly broken by the news, Smith finds a small ray of hope in a friendly smile from the President of the Senate (Harry Carey). Smith vows to press on until people believe him but soon collapses from exhaustion. Overcome with the pangs of remorse, Paine leaves the Senate Chamber and attempts to commit suicide by gunshot but is stopped by other senators. He then bursts back into the Senate Chamber, shouting a confession to the whole scheme and affirms Smith's innocence. The President of the Senate observes the ensuing chaos with amusement.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington premiered in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1939, sponsored by the National Press Club, an event to which 4000 guests were invited, including 45 senators. It was attacked by the Washington press and some members of Congress as anti-American and pro-Communist for its portrayal of corruption in the American government. Capra claims in his autobiography that some senators walked out of the premiere. Alben Barkley, a Democrat and the Senate Majority Leader, thought the film "showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on record!"

Joseph Kennedy, the American Ambassador to Great Britain, wrote to Capra and Columbia head Harry Cohn to say that he feared the film would damage "America’s prestige in Europe" and because of this urged that it be withdrawn from European release. But in Europe Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was seen as a rallying cry for democracy and freedom. It was banned in Germany, Italy, and Spain. When a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France in 1942, some theaters chose to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as the last movie before the ban went into effect. One theater owner in Paris reportedly screened the film nonstop for 30 days after the ban was announced.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has often been listed as among Frank Capra's best, but it marked a turning point in his vision of the world, from nervous optimism to a darker, more pessimistic tone. Previous films 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 a venal, petty, and thuggish group of crooks. 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 Jim 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. Still, Smith's filibuster and the tacit encouragement of the Senate President are both emblematic of the director's belief in the difference that one individual can make.

By the time Mr. Smith was released, war had begun in Europe. Both Capra and Stewart would soon be part of it. This film made Stewart a major star. He would get an Oscar the following year for The Philadelphia Story, then leave for five years in Army Air Corps during the war, flying dozens of missions as a bomber captain. Maybe 85 years later, the bedrock idealism of Capra embodied by Jefferson Smith can find a way to be part of an especially turbulent 2024 election.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books. Now out in hardcover from St. Martin’s Press is The Last Outlaws and coming in May is Throne of Grace (with Bob Drury). Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase/pre-order a copy.