Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

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.

Rope (1948)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Joan Chandler

Have I Seen it Before: No. Let me tell you a story. Bouncing around the various streaming services in which I am somehow now obligated to subscribe, I was delighted to find Peacock possessed a wide array of Hitchcock films (to say nothing of the entire run of Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour) including this one which, if you’ll remember from the beginning of this paragraph I had never seen.

Once I had cleared out some larger projects from the pending pile and was in a place where I felt I could actually enjoy an hour and a half of uninterrupted anything, I sat down to finally watch the movie.

Only Peacock had dropped it in those intervening weeks, and if it went to some other platform, it was one for which I wasn’t already paying.

What was I to do? Obviously, I could just rent or purchase the film from Amazon Prime or iTunes, but where is the fun in that? I’m not sure if immediate access to any film ever created for nominal prices has ruined film appreciation, but it has dinged the ecstasy a bit, hasn’t it?

So I ventured out into the world and tried to find Rope (I wasn’t just going to wait for the serendipity of stumbling over it again) on DVD (kids, ask your parents). I scoured ever used DVD shop in town, with no luck. I even drifted into a used music shop in some vague hope that they might also carry DVDs as well. They did have a very thin collection of films, but the more pressing issue was the earful I got from the proprietor about how I really needed to get into vinyl again. One antiquated thing at a time, pal.

At that point, one might have forgiven me if I had indulged the Bezos in his wares and at least ordered the disc to be shipped to me. Indeed, I could have done so, and the disc would have come to me within 48 hours.

This also feels like too quick, especially when I’ve already put so much work into this quest, just on avoiding getting on the music shop’s email newsletter alone.

So then I went to Barnes & Noble. Even in the before times, when people didn’t give you funny looks when it comes up in casual conversation that your DVD/Blu Ray collection measures up to in the 700s, B & N was never the place you’d go to grab discs. They’re prices were preposterously high, and are even more so now that the second-hand market is practically giving away discs by the truckload.

But I found it. Right there. For 30% off, no less. My gasp in the middle of that store tweaked the air pressure in the building, I’m sure.

There are so many moviegoing experiences which are in a state of flux, both post-COVID and in the midst of the streaming wars (which is what started this whole crusade in the first place), that it’s hard to imagine that the singular pleasure of going out into the world to track down a specific form of entertainment may be all but extinct.

Thus, the experience of taking in the movie was an imminently pleasurable one before I even hit play.

Did I Like It: After all that, what is left to say? The film itself is weighed down by the same problem which weighed down a lot of early talky films: the feeling that we’re watching a recorded stage production. This is certainly not an early talky, by any means, but in its experimental attempts to tell a story in one (albeit deceptive) shot, it can’t help but limit itself in this way. Reportedly, both Hitchcock and Stewart agreed with this sentiment.

Ultimately, the chief triumph of the film isn’t in its plot, or its performances, or even really in its staging, which is what everyone remembers. It’s a triumph of stage lighting, as the panorama outside the apartment slowly (although improbably) descends into night. But to call a motion picture a triumph of lighting is to pointedly damn it as a stage play recorded, so the object strengths reinforce its ultimate weakness.

But as far as films that might not have worked quite as well as everyone would want, there are far worse times to be had. There was one moment where Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson) is just about to open the chest. I have my feet up. I am eating some coffee ice cream with some dark chocolate syrup. I am having the time of my life. Even when Hitchcock trips up, he does so with ambition in his heart, and he still pairs great with coffee ice cream.