Lady for a Day

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Oh, boy. This is going to be interesting. Lady for a Day is a film that takes a hard turn. Unlike most films, this one takes that turn in the first half hour rather than at the end. There’s no real indication at the start of the film that this is going to turn into a screwball comedy, but that’s precisely where we end up going. Lady for a Day seems to have its heart in the right place, but how it gets there is completely backwards.

We start with Apple Annie (May Robson), a destitute and seedy apple peddler working the streets of New York. The vision we’re given of Annie is not a pleasant one. She spends a good deal of her time two-fisting a huge bottle of booze. She’s got two things going for her. First, she has an in with Dave the Dude (Warren William), a local gambler. The Dude is convinced that he only has luck if he buys one of Annie’s apples. The other thing she has going for her is her daughter Louise (Jean Parker). She hasn’t seen Louise in years since the girl was raised from infancy in a Spanish convent. When she’s not hawking apples, Annie writes letters to her daughter on stationery stolen from a classy hotel.

Lost Horizon

Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I wasn’t too keen on Lost Horizon showing up at my door. On the 1001 Movies list, four of the entries were also included in the “50 Worst Films of All Time” book that my brother Tom had, and I at least disliked all of them and hated several. I was under the impression that Lost Horizon was a part of that book, too. It is, but it’s the version from 1973, not this one. Let me tell you, that was a significant relief on my part. I’m hoping to be done with anything that was in Medved’s book.

So this is not that film. In this one, a group of Westerners are attempting to leave China on the eve of the Japanese invasion. Of particular interest is Robert “Bob” Conway (Ronald Colman), who has worked for the British Foreign Office for years. His brother George (John Howard) is convinced that he is about to be named the new Foreign Minister. Why else would the British have assigned a ship to him, awaiting his arrival in Shanghai? Eventually, the brothers climb aboard a final plane with three other potential refugees. These are a paleontologist named Lovett (Edward Everett Horton) , a mystery man named Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), and a sickly woman named Gloria (Isabel Jewell). They discover mid-way through their flight to Shanghai that they have, in fact, been shanghaied and are instead heading in the wrong direction.

Watching Oscar: You Can't Take It with You

Film: You Can’t Take It with You
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

At the start of the year I decided to watch everything that had ever won Best Picture at the Oscars. It was an easy decision, seeing that finishing off The List put me within shouting distance and picking up a few others here and there brought me even closer. It was, on an already packed list, a few extra weeks of viewing. And I figured I may as well put up a review of all of them, too. Really, what’s 20,000 words, more or less. It occurs to me, though, that there’s a reason many of the films that won this particular award are no longer considered “must-see” films. And so we have 1938’s winner, You Can’t Take It with You, another big winner that has justifiably sunk into obscurity.

In the finance world, no one has the clout of Anthony P. Kirby (Edward Arnold). He’s working on a major deal that requires that he buy up 12 city blocks worth of buildings, and he’s managed to do this with the exception of a single house. That house is owned by Martin “Grandpa” Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), and there’s no way he’ll sell. He lives there with his collection of eccentric relatives and friends, each of whom does whatever he or she pleases at any given time, regardless of its quality, value, or use to the world at large. They’re sort of half commune and half open-door lunatic asylum, and they’re always recruiting new members.

The First Big-Four-Winner

Film: It Happened One Night
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

A day after the Hugo/The Artist hoopla party also known as the 84th Academy Awards, I thought it might be appropriate to return to a simpler time and take a look at the first film to win the Big 4: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The film is It Happened One Night, a thrown-together screwball comedy that influenced popular culture in a number of ways. Like a number of other great movies, this one was considered a dog by everyone involved. In fact, legend has it that Claudette Colbert was only coaxed into her role by being paid double her normal rate and being promised that the shoot would only take four weeks.

Regardless, the set up is a classic for the genre, one that has been around forever. All we need to make the true screwball romance work is to have two people meet cute, hate each other, and then fall for each other by being forced together. It doesn’t hurt if one of them is staggeringly wealthy while the other is not—in the 1930s, that was how you made sure that you got an “opposites attract” vibe from your characters.

In this case, the rich one is Ellie Andrews (Colbert), a society girl who has married a playboy aviator named King Westley (Jameson Thomas). Rather than get an annulment, she takes a swan dive off her father’s yacht and swims to shore, determined to get to New York and meet up with her new husband. At the same time, Peter Warne (Clark Gable) is, depending on which side you ask, either quitting his job or being fired as a newspaper man. He’s also headed back to New York. Naturally, our two stars wind up on the same bus fighting over the same seat.

So now things get interesting. There’s a reward for the whereabouts of Ellie Andrews, a sizable $10,000 put up by her father (Walter Connolly) for her safe return. Peter knows this immediately—he’s aware of exactly who she is, but he’s not interested in the reward. Like any good newspaper man, employed or otherwise, his idea is to travel with her and get a story out of her that he can sell to the highest bidder. And so, they travel together, sharing motel rooms (scandalous for the time!) and posing as a married couple (equally scandalous!). Naturally, she complains endlessly and can’t seem to get the hang of not having any cash. He complains endlessly about the fact that she’s spoiled rotten. And naturally, the two fall for each other, but can’t admit it, requiring the intervention of her father and the paid compliance of King Westley for our couple to ride off happily together.

What? No spoiler alert? C’mon, it’s a romantic comedy. There’s no other way it could end.

As a screwball comedy, though, it’s not very screwball. Our two main characters dislike each other only slightly, and not for very long. It’s pretty quickly that they’re at least chummy with each other, and not too long after that when she professes undying love for him. It’s also interesting to note that in spite of the title, the film takes place over at least three nights—there are three different occasions in which our star-crossed couple beds down for the evening.

Essentially, screwball comedies changed quite a bit after this film, as did romantic comedies. There isn’t a great deal of tension between the two characters. After their first day, for instance, it’s pretty evident that they’re starting to like one another. Oh, they still give each other a difficult time about things and tease each other, but it loses the edge of malice after the first day. Really, the only tension that happens after that first night is the fact that she’s still a spoiled little rich girl and that she thinks at one point that he’s abandoned her.

But let’s talk about cultural impact. It’s a well-established fact that Bugs Bunny was based in no small part on Clark Gable’s character in this film. In fact, it’s Gable gnawing on a carrot and speaking at the same time that served as one of the cartoon standby’s greatest trademarks. Additionally, on their first night together, Gable partially disrobes and reveals that he’s not wearing an undershirt. Reportedly, sales of undershirts plummeted across the country. As Gable does, so do the masses, evidently.

I’m not as well-versed in 1934 as I probably should be, but I’ve seen several of the nominated films from that year. For my money, a good number of the awards, particularly the one for screenplay and possibly actor should have gone to The Thin Man instead. The dialogue is better for one thing. This isn’t to take away from It Happened One Night, but it’s simply the truth as I see it. I’ll take the saucy and sauced detective over the Reporter McDrinksalot and Snooty McWhitegirl every single time. Okay, yeah, that’s being unfair.

Why to watch It Happened One Night: It’s the progenitor of the ‘30s screwball rom-com.
Why not to watch: It’s still a rom-com, regardless of its impact.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

Films: It’s a Wonderful Life; A Christmas Story
Format: VHS from personal collection on big ol’ television

Y’know what? I’m not going to talk much about the plots of either of these films. I’m just going to talk about how much I love them and why you should love them. If you haven’t seen either of these movies, you should stop reading this and go watch them. Now. I’ll still be here when you’re done.

So, It’s a Wonderful Life is the story of George Bailey (James Stewart) and his small town of Bedford Falls. For the bulk of the film, we discover that George Bailey’s life is all about giving of himself to others and making everyone around him happy while getting nothing that he really wants for himself. And then it all goes to hell because of Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) can barely remember to keep his pants zipped, let alone what he’s done with $8,000. And naturally there is the evil, twisted Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) there to oversee the rapid demise of Bailey.

All in all, this should be a tragic and depressing film except for the intercession of wingless angel Clarence (Henry Travers) who comes to put George right and show him the true meaning and value of his life. The world without George Bailey, or at least the world of Potterville (nee Bedford Falls) is a gray and terrible place. There’s no Harry Bailey (Todd Karns), no houses for the masses of townspeople, George’s wife Mary (Donna Reed) turns into a spinster librarian (which is an unfortunate slam on librarians, dammit). And so we learn that George’s life is actually pretty good, despite the fact that he may end up in jail after all. But, this is a Capra film, so that’s not going to happen.

It’s a sweet movie. It still, 60+ years after its creation, manages to pull all the right strings, and no matter how many times I have seen it (and that number is pretty high), it still works exactly the same way every time. Every single time, I fall for it. It’s sappy and silly, and filled to the brim with saccharine sentimentality, and it never fails to entertain me or make me feel good. In many ways, it’s not really Christmas until I see this film.

What I like very much here, aside from the great performances all around, is that George Bailey is depicted as a real person. Sure, he’s a good guy. He’s the sort of guy we’d all like to know, and the sort of person we tell ourselves that we are, even when we know we’re not. But in the second hour of the film, George shows a real darkness that is necessary to the film. His world, the only world he has had and the world that he has spent his entire life trying to maintain, is suddenly shattered, and the wheels come off quickly and hard.

I like that. It doesn’t mean anything if George’s problems are cute or silly, or don’t have real consequences. He needs this dark midnight of the soul to bring him through to the other side.

And yes, like a sap, I go right along with him every time.

The basic story of It’s a Wonderful Life has been done and redone, imagined and reimagined time and time again, much like A Christmas Carol. There’s no need for this. The original film is still as good a holiday movie as you could ever hope to encounter. James Stewart is a great everyman because he seems so natural in that role. That, more than anything, sells the film. If we can’t relate to George Bailey, if we don’t sympathize with him completely and feel for the problems he is having and truly understand them, we don’t for a second buy into the film.

There are people who don’t like this movie. I feel badly for them. It must be difficult to walk through life emotionally petrified.

A Christmas Story takes place in essentially the same era as It’s a Wonderful Life, but the perspective is entirely different. This time, the film comes from the point of view of Ralphie (Peter Billingsly), who wants nothing more in the world than an official Red Ryder 200-shot carbine action range model air rifle. Unfortunately, standing in his way is his mother, his teacher, and even the Santa Claus at Higbee’s Department Store, all of whom tell him that he’ll shoot his eye out.

While this is the throughline of the film, in reality, A Christmas Story is really about being a kid at Christmas, about wanting something so desperately, as only a kid can want something. It’s about mom and dad being mom and dad, about memories and little brothers, and bullies, and getting in trouble. It’s about all of that, and a hell of a lot more.

The Christmas that is at the center of this film is arguably the most magical Hollywood Christmas in history. There’s no real magic, of course, but there is an incredible confluence of events leading up to the holiday that makes it incredibly memorable. It seems that every day brings something new, and for us, the viewers, that something new is almost always hysterical.

The film is aided greatly by a tremendous performance from Darren McGavin as Ralphie’s father. His performance is broadly comic and constantly entertaining. He’s long suffering, angry, and funny as hell. Equally long suffering is Melinda Dillon as the mother, who deals with everything the Old Man does, and still never gets to eat a hot meal.

Y’know what? Enough. A Christmas Story doesn’t need to have a plot, and it doesn’t really have much of one. It doesn’t matter. Who cares? This film is funny. It’s really funny. Every time I watch this film, I think throughout it that each scene is my favorite, only to forget what hasn’t happened yet. Just watching it tonight, I forgot, for instance, that the scene in which Ralphie and his brother Randy visit Santa comes really late in the film, and the fight against school bully Scut Farkas (Zack Ward) actually comes relatively early, or at least not at the end as I always remember it.

I love this film. It makes me happy. If it doesn’t make you happy, I feel bad for you. As with It’s a Wonderful Life, I’m sure there are people who don’t like this film, but I don’t want to spend any time talking to them. That, and I don’t know a single one of them.

So, go out and win yourself a major award. Stick your tongue to a flagpole. Sit on Santa’s lap and ask for a football. Write a theme about a bb gun with a compass in the stock and a thing that tells time. Get Chinese turkey for dinner.

Go watch this film. And enjoy your holidays, folks.

Why to watch It’s a Wonderful Life: It’s the most classic Christmas film imaginable.
Why not to watch: You’re soulless.

Why to watch A Christmas Story: Because it’s the funniest Christmas film imaginable.
Why not to watch: Bob Clark’s career after directing this.

Miscegenation

Film: The Bitter Tea of General Yen
Format: Internet video on laptop.

While I like plenty of movies that are a generation or more older than I am, but there are many things about these films that strike me the wrong way. One of these things is the rather substantial racism present in many films of the era. Often, the racism is blatant; non-whites are portrayed as lazy, treacherous, shifty, evil, cheating, and any number of other derogatory adjectives. A more subtle racism is the casting of white actors in non-white roles. This continued for years. Charlton Heston played a Mexican cop in Touch of Evil, after all. But it still bothers me. So when I learn that Swedish actor Nils Asther plays the title role in The Bitter Tears of General Yen, well, I react badly. Inclined as I am to word play, I might call this the bitter taste of General Yen.

We have a missionary named Bob Strike (Gavin Gordon) working in China. His childhood sweetheart, Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) has arrived in China to marry him. The wedding is to take place immediately, but is postponed when Bob decides he needs to act immediately to rescue orphans trapped in a war zone. Megan goes with him. He gets a pass from bandit leader General Yen (Asther) and heads off, but runs into trouble. His car is stolen by one army or another, and the pair run off with the children, trying to find rickshaws. Both Bob and Megan are knocked unconscious.

Megan is rescued by General Yen, who she met on her arrival; Yen’s car sideswiped her rickshaw, injuring her driver. She goes back to his rather palatial estate with him, at first as a sort of lost lamb, then as a sort of captive, and finally as something of a spoil of war. See, back in the “civilized” world, everyone things Megan is dead. And there’s the fact that Yen is quickly becoming infatuated with the pretty young American.

We meet a few other people as well. First is Jones (Walter Connolly), Yens’ financial advisor. Also important are Mah-Li (Toshia Mori), Yen’s concubine, and Captain Li (Richard Loo), one of his military commanders. It’s evident that Mah-Li and Captain Li have something going on between them. It’s also refreshing to see these roles actually played by Asian actors, even if Toshia Mori is actually Japanese, and is thus evidence of the “they all look alike” stereotype.

Regardless, the real controversial part of this film happens a touch before the middle. It’s not the implied nudity of Stanwyck in the bathing sequence, but the dream sequence before this. She falls asleep and imagines a gross stereotype of Yen breaking into her room to ravage her—in this he looks very much like a demon or the traditional Chinese hopping vampire. In a comic book sequence of her dream, a masked man breaks jumps in through her window and fights off the terrible invader. He then removes his mask and reveals not Bob Strike, but a much more genteel and civilized version of Yen, who she finds rather appealing.

Ah, miscegenation. That was the problem with the film back in the ‘30s. It was expected that anyone and everyone would be attracted to a pretty, young white woman. After all, even King Kong was fatally attracted to Faye Wray. The issue was that pure, virginal, all-American and missionary (and thus Christian) Megan Davis was in turn attracted to General Yen. That was something that middle America (and quite a bit of the coasts as well) were simply not ready to see. It didn’t matter that these were actors, nor did it matter that underneath the makeup General Yen was just as white as Barbara Stanwyck. The fact that the character could see someone non-white as desirable was, in a word, problematic.

However this (and the casting of the lovely, lovely Barbara Stanwyck) is really one of the few things to make this film interesting. It is otherwise a fairly standard story of forbidden romance during a time of war, the sort of thing that crops up all the time in various guises at least once a year. I suppose it’s worth adding that the war scenes are really well filmed and pretty intense, especially for the time.

The film ends strangely, and might well be evidence of a bit more racism against the Chinese. The only Asian who proves to be true to anything like his or her word is the one played by the white actor. I suppose that shouldn’t be too much of a shock, really. The “sneaky Oriental” stereotype ran pretty deep.

A strange film, but Barbara Stanwyck cures a lot of ills. It says a lot that my grandparents could have (and frankly may have) seen this film in the theater when it was new. My grandfather was born in 1910, and his wife a few years later. While this film was banned in any number of places, it may well have played in Des Moines. And they may well have been shocked by the romance between East and West as depicted. And I, two generations later, see this most controversial thing as a non-issue. There’s still a distance to go, but we’ve come a long way.

Why to watch The Bitter Tea of General Yen: While still racist, less racist than you might expect.
Why not to watch: Because the Chinese General Yen is played by a guy from Sweden.

Hangin' With Mr. Cooper

Film: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

You can see a Frank Capra ending the minute the film starts. That’s the way of Frank Capra movies. He made the same movie over and over, changing a few things here and there—names, places—but at their core, Capra had one story. The story he tells in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is essentially the same story he tells in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life and many of his other films.

It helps that it’s a good story. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is the tale of a good-hearted, naïve man suddenly gifted with great power and afflicted by great trials, the template for Capra’s later film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The characters here serve as templates for that one—the naïve, the hard-hearted woman, the hangers-on, the people who wish to exploit the naïve for criminal (or political) gain, etc.

But I’ve jumped ahead, haven’t I? Someday I’ll learn.

Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) inherits $20 million upon the death of his uncle, making him suddenly one of the richest men in the country (and remember, this is during the Great Depression). He moves to New York where he meets nothing but conniving people intent on separating him from as much of his fortune as they can.

The first of these is Mr. Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), his uncle’s lawyer. Cedar wants power of attorney over the fortune, because he’s got a $500,000 hole in his own books to cover. Also on the trail of Deeds is Louise “Babe” Bennett (Jean Arthur), a crack newspaper reporter bent on getting as much of a story from Deeds as she can in exchange for a raise and a month’s paid vacation.

Babe discovers that Deeds has a thing for damsels in distress, so she fakes being in need and is quickly scooped up by Deeds. As he tries to cheer her up (he is a nice guy and a naïve, after all), he gets in a couple of fist fights with some drunken authors who want to make fun of him, and then goes on his own drunken bender. All of this is grist for Babe’s mill, who quickly dubs him The Cinderella Man, making him the laughing stock of New York despite his extremely deep pockets. In fact, he has only two friends, Babe and Cobb (Lionel Stander), and Babe really isn’t his friend.

Eventually, Deeds wises up and realizes that everyone is out to get him, and that the money is at the heart of the problem. Confronted by a destitute farmer, Deeds concocts a plan to use his fortune to buy a huge parcel of land and divvy it out to men who need it, allowing them to farm the land themselves, thus becoming productive members of society. Other relatives of the dead uncle, snubbed benefactors, and Cedar react badly to this and try to have Deeds committed, because anyone willing to give up that much money must be crazy. Of course, by this time, Babe has come around. This all leads to the big courtroom scene at the end, a scene that takes the final act, and essentially the last quarter of the film.

Like I said at the start, there’s no mystery to this film except for those who have never seen a classic Hollywood film or are very young and naïve themselves. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town doesn’t have a single surprise for anyone with any sort of movie watching history. I say this not as a criticism of the film, but merely as a fact to be stated—where this film is going to end up is pretty obvious from the start.

And that’s okay. In a world filled with anti-heroes and people I don’t enjoy spending a couple of minutes watching, let alone a couple of hours, seeing a genuinely nice guy on the screen is pretty refreshing. Okay, Deeds is sort of a ridiculous ideal and has just enough quirkiness to make him a movie character, but it’s all to the good here. It’s a sweet film, heartfelt and cute. Deeds is a nice enough guy, and Cooper plays him well. He’d be a fun guy to go have a beer with.

A story like this naturally gets remade time and time again. The two most recent examples that I know of are The Hudsucker Proxy and Mr. Deeds, which was a pretty straight remake. I really like Hudsucker, in part because of the actors in it and in part because it’s a Coen vehicle. It’s a smart remake, but it really is a remake in almost every way, up to and including the hard-bitten female reporter who once won the Pulitzer. As for Mr. Deeds, it’s best handled in a spoiler:

*** $20,000,000.00! ***

In the Capra original, Deeds takes the money he has inherited and helps out a few thousand people who really need the help. It’s a ridiculous gesture, but heartwarming and sweet. Sure, it smacks of classic Hollywood sap, but it plays nicely on the screen, even if the courtroom scene gets ridiculous with everyone laughing at everything Deeds says. By contrast, in the Adam Sandler remake, he allows someone else to take over the company he inherits, walks away with a cool billion, and buys everyone in his old home town a Corvette. Instead of the milk of human kindness, we get greed and conspicuous consumption. It’s proof that somewhere along the way, a large part of the movie industry stopped trying to pretend it had a soul.

*** BANKRUPT! ***

In what should generally be a theme for anyone serious about movies, it’s always a good idea to stick with the original. It’s sappy and ends up being essentially as naïve and Deeds himself, but sometimes it’s okay to end watching a film with a little smile and a little faith in humanity.

Why to watch Mr. Deeds Goes to Town: It’s a heartwarming tale from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Why not to watch: The ending is visible from 100 miles off.

Idealism

Film: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.

It’s convenient and easy to think of life fifty, sixty, or seventy years ago was simpler time. I don’t think it’s true, but it most certainly was in the movies. Good guys were good guys and they were all good. The only vices they had was being too good. The bad guys were all bad, and the only good thing they could do was die. Good always won, evil always lost, and never, never, never were the American ideals compromised.

Much of that Hollywood revisionist history came from Frank Capra, which is where Mr. Smith Goes to Washington came from. It’s a good winning out over evil all the way. Mom and apple pie triumphant.

Here’s the pitch: A senator from an unnamed state dies. As it turns out, the senator was horribly corrupt, and was in the middle of a shady land deal that stood to make him, the leading businessman in his state, and a handful of others fabulously wealthy. A new lame duck senator is needed until the next election. Conferring with the equally corrupt senior senator from the state, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains) and shady business tycoon Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), the governor appoints Jefferson Smith (James Stewart).

Smith is a pure bumpkin. He’s apple pie and America all the way; he can quote Washington and Lincoln, and runs an organization for wayward boys not unlike the Boy Scouts. He believes firmly in the American ideal, and believes equally that the men in government really do all they can for the little people, that they are true servants of the people and serve the highest ideals. In essence, he’s a good-hearted rube. This is in no small part because of his impression of Senator Paine, who happened to be the former partner of Smith’s father. Jeff Smith knows Paine only from the man’s idealistic days, and not his present corrupted self.

Smith is immediately surrounded by the cynical worst of Washington, most especially his new assistant, Saunders (Jean Arthur) and her press pal Diz Moore (Thomas Mitchell). Saunders isn’t keen to nursemaid a goof like Smith. He’s not helped by his sudden infatuation with Smith’s daughter Susan (Astrid Allwyn).

Smith, because he’s a naïve goof, the press initially has a field day with Smith, making him play the fool, because the press corps is as corrupt and jaded as it appears most of the senators are. Eventually, under the advice of Senator Paine, Smith pens a bill proposing a national summer camp for boys. Unfortunately for Jeff Smith, the plot of land he wants to use, Willet (sp?) Creek, is exactly the same spot being used for the shady land deal run by Senator Paine and Jim Taylor.

And that’s the story. Paine and Taylor do everything they can to discredit Smith, eventually trying to pin the land deal on him. Smith, and his group of wayward boys fight the rap, eventually leading to a massive filibuster of Smith against the entire rest of the Senate. Everything comes down to a couple of important moments, not the least of which is the Vice President recognizing Smith on the Senate floor to begin the filibuster.

This is a film that trades on the highest of high ideals, showing the little guy fighting against overwhelming odds, battling against corruption and maintaining his dignity against everything that can be thrown at him. It’s a little hard to stomach in these more jaded times. We live in a world where political divisiveness feels like it is tearing the country apart and that even young kids can’t hold to high ideals anymore. As such, seeing a grown man work himself into a lather over truth, justice, and the American way feels silly. And yet it’s also endearing and sweet.

What surprises me more than anything is that the film has not been remade. It seemed like a natural project for “liberal” Hollywood during the Bush years, and seems like a natural product for the conservative crowd now—pointing out what they see (or saw) as the corruption and graft at the highest levels of government. In fact, every day that goes by that a remake isn’t named, I wonder when that particular shoe will drop.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington succeeds on the strength of its performances. Stewart, whether he believed in these ideals or not, sells it as the idealistic Smith. For that, and because it’s always nice to see good triumph over evil, the film will always be something special.

Why to watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Makes one believe in Americana as reality.
Why not to watch: Because the reality is sadly different.