Mr Smith Goes to Washington - Frank Capra Jnr Remembers

Mr Smith Goes to Washington was made by his father Frank snr. Here, Frank Jnr talks about his father in relation to the making of the film - the political elements of the day and other influences.
This wonderful film - made in 1939 - has been beautifully restored by The Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center. Located in Culpeper Virginia, the Library is home to over 1Million film TV and video items. If you have a favourite movie American produced and at least 10 yrs old you can recommend it for the National Film Preservation Board Registry.

[@65g4]

Frank Capra was a great director i dont think he is as highly thought of today as he was in his life time. But he should be his films still work today.

[@williamsnyder5616]

I have always had a problem with the wind-up of the film. For 1939, it seemed like an impossibility that James Taylor could marshall up forces to fight Jeff Smith in roughly two days back in Jackson City. It almost seemed as if Capra was told to wind up the film quicker than he wanted to. But the film is also redeemed by a lot of things. The acting is splendid. The set decoration by Columbia art director Lionel Banks (the re-creation of the Senate chambers) should have won the Art Direction Oscar instead of "Gone With the Wind." Dimitri Tiomkin's score was perfect. Two scenes stand out as breathtaking: Jimmy Stewart's filibuster scene and the heart-breaking scene at the Lincoln Memorial where a little boy reads the inscription about Lincoln to his blind grandfather while an elderly African-American man looks at Lincoln and removes his hat.

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There's, perhaps, even a little inside joke at the very beginning of the film. When the Columbia Pictures Torch Lady appears on the screen, the background music by Dimitri Tiomkin is a rendition of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." Back in 1939, Columbia had only just begun to be taken seriously as a major company. It had Best Picture Oscars in 1934 and 1938 (both Capra films), but Capra jokes in his autobiography that some in Hollywood usually referred to the studio as "Columbia, the germ of the ocean."