Director: Frank Capra
Cast: Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. It’s been a couple of years. I’m reasonably sure that the last time I watched it was probably 2008. I’m going to take that as a positive omen and not dwell on it much further.
Did I Like It: I always feel as if I’m on uneven footing when I embark on reviewing a movie so classic that everyone has seen a few minutes of, and almost everyone hasn’t actually seen the whole movie. How can I convince you to see it if you’ve not already seen it? More importantly, is there anything new—I’d settle for unusual—to say about it?
I suppose the thing I’m most struck by is not the heart-on-the-sleeves optimistic patriotism, or the pure “aw, shucks” energy that was encased in a shell that looked like Jimmy Stewart. I’m most struck by the things that Capra and Company might have said about America in the years leading up to World War II, but either couldn’t or might never have thought to say.
In an effort to reach for a timeless quality, the film doesn’t seem to acknowledge that the world at large is mid-disaster at the time. I’m sure a Boy Scout camp is a great idea when Europe is swinging hard towards fascism. There’s a layer of optimism beyond Smith’s (Stewart) wielding of the filibuster in that. A cynic in 1939 might try to hedge their bets and allow for the possibility that western civilization was nearing its sell by date.
This is also a profoundly white movie. An absolute infant of a traditionalist might blink at that observation, but you can’t help but focus on the dejected faces of porters in the train station sequences, but the ret of the film has people of color throughout. They’re in the background, as if they are waiting in the background of America. Maybe Capra is trying to say something additional that the one-two punch of the Hays Code and Harry Cohn would have never let get to the surface.
Maybe I’m wanting to see it in the film. Maybe I’m wanting to see that in the world.