Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

• Year: 1939
• Released: 19 Oct 1939
• Country: United States
• Adwords: Won 1 Oscar. 6 wins & 16 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031679/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mr_smith_goes_to_washington
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mr-smith-goes-to-washington
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Passed
• Genre: Comedy, Drama
• Runtime: 129 min
• Writer: Sidney Buchman, Lewis R. Foster, Myles Connolly
• Director: Frank Capra
• Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains
• Keywords: black and white, washington dc, usa, politician, camp, senator,

	8.1/10
	73/100
	96% – Critics
	94% – Audience

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Storyline

Upon the death of Senator Samuel Foley, Governor Hubert Hopper, after careful deliberation upon listening to the recommendations of his closest confidantes, appoints young Jefferson Smith to fill the vacancy, despite or because of Smith’s lack of political experience and thus lack of political know-how. Jeff is the model of patriotism: he recites Lincoln, and is head of the Boy Rangers. Most in the know know that Hopper is the political lackey of corrupt and powerful businessman Jim Taylor. What most do not know is that another of Taylor’s political lackeys is the state’s senior senator, the well respected Joseph Paine, who has White House aspirations. Opportunistic Hopper knew that, due to a previous attempt, he could not appoint anyone that Taylor recommended, but sees Smith as someone who Paine and thus Taylor can easily manipulate, especially important now as Paine, Taylor and Foley when he was alive had been working behind the political scenes to push through a dam project, all for their own personal gain, buried in a deficiency bill. When Smith arrives in Washington, he is seen as a naive lightweight and a country bumpkin by almost everyone with who he comes into contact, including the Washington press corps, his fellow senators, and even his secretary Clarissa Saunders – known professionally purely as Saunders – whose years working behind the political system, including being in the know about what her previous boss Foley and Paine were and are up to about the dam project, has made her a cynic. How Paine believes he can keep Smith out of trouble is for him to introduce a bill of his own into the house about an issue passionate to him. What Paine is initially unaware about is that what Smith proposes in his bill would place the dam project in jeopardy. Taylor and Paine have to decide how much hardball they will play to make Smith comply or in turn ruin him, while Smith will show if he has what it takes to play with the big boys on the senate floor. Smith may have some unexpected help from someone who has let Washington get the better of her.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Play trailer

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Photos

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Torrents Download

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Subtitles Download

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Movie Reviews

Shining a light on corruption

Frank Capra was an idealist for sure, but he certainly was clear-eyed in seeing some of the darkest problems with humanity and its institutions. At the beginning of this film, he shows us politicians who are firmly in the pocket of special interests, the degree to which is startling. A state governor (Guy Kibbee) is in charge of picking a new senator after one of the two serving for his state has passed away, but it’s immediately clear that he operates as a puppet for a big businessman (Edward Arnold), a guy whose clout got the governor his position, and now who expects to call the shots as payback. We see it as one of the fundamental problems of representative government in 1939, just as it is today, so the film is highly, highly relevant.

Now it’s laughable that the governor would go rogue and put the head of the Boy Rangers, Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart), in there instead, based on the pleading of his children and a coin flip that lands on its edge, but that’s the premise of the film. It’s an obvious call to clean up Washington, and get decent, upright people in there as representatives, and in delivering this message, Capra does not attempt subtlety or realism. And I may as well say it now before I blab on, it’s laughable how the kids play the role they do later in the film too, and how the other senator (Claude Rains) behaves in the end. Maybe the film is pointing out that progress will always depend more on the next generation, and that ultimately it will require those in power to summon their sense of decency and stand up for what’s right.

One thing I love is just how reverentially Smith treats the job he’s about to undertake. First of all, he knows it’s not about him. He’s also not sure how well he’ll do, but says “I can promise you one thing: I’ll do nothing to disgrace the office of United States Senator.” After dropping off his crateful of pigeons (lol), we then see him wide-eyed as he tours the landmarks of Washington DC. The shot Capra gets of him beneath the giant statue of Lincoln perfectly captures his humility, and others the deep respect he has for the institution he’s going to serve. We get a heavy dose of the ideals the country aspires to, with shots of Lincoln’s second inaugural address (“With malice toward none, with charity for all”) and a recitation of a part of the Gettysburg address by a young boy, while his grandfather and an African-American man look on. It’s quite flowery and may have the lip curling of every cynic who sees the film, thinking of all of the times America has done evil in the world, but just about to head into WWII was not one of those times, and regardless, I can’t help but admire this scene. If only all of America’s representatives went with a reverence for these ideals, respected the institutions from their hearts, and felt real humility and a need to not let down his or her constituents, or the leaders who came before them.

Everyone else is aware of how the system in Washington actually works though, including the other senator (Rains), his handler (Eugene Pallette), and his secretary (Jean Arthur). Heck, even the young page who shows him to his seat is savvier. Smith says to the boy, “I’m just going to sit around and listen,” meaning that he feels he has a lot to learn and shouldn’t go in with guns blazing. The kid answers “That’s the way to get re-elected,” reflecting how deep the cynicism of the process runs. Later it’s parenthetically said that “You can’t count on people voting. Half the time they don’t vote.” These little bits are pointing out the same thing, that while we may decry the state of government, at the same time, to make it better we need to be active participants in it.

Stewart is fantastic in the film, with lots of memorable moments, such as when he nervously reads his proposal for a boys camp on the senate floor, and then later when his eyes are opened to deep corruption, which includes his father’s friend and mentor, Rains’s character. When he takes the Senate floor to filibuster and angrily yells “No, sir, I will not yield!” it’s a fine, fiery moment, with palpable tension between the two men. I also love the softer scene with Arthur where he channels Walt Whitman in quoting his father, a man who died fighting for the little guy and the free press: “My dad had the right idea. He had it all worked out. He said: ‘Son, don’t miss the wonders that surround you. Every tree, every rock, every anthill, every star is filled with the wonders of nature.’ He said, ‘Have you ever noticed how grateful you are to see daylight after coming through a long dark tunnel? Well,’ he said, ‘always try to see life as if you’d just come out of a tunnel.'”

Arthur turns in a solid performance with her character, who is also inspiring. She knows how congress operates, giving Stewart (and the viewer) a little tutorial, and then coaching him from the balcony. We see that her character is jaded, but that there is still a glimmer of idealism in her, and also a healthy amount of disgust for politics. “You’re half-way decent, you don’t belong here,” she tells Stewart. We see both of these characters go through the inevitable response to the ugliness of politics – considering leaving the aggravation and frustration of it all, because it’s the fight of an underdog to try to change it, or to stay and fight, because that’s the only way anything will ever change, and what great leaders have had to do too as well. As this is a Capra film, you can guess which one of these paths they take.

It’s certainly an arduous path, as the political boss is incredibly powerful. There is real evil, greed, and corruption here, and Arnold plays his part perfectly. The scene where he tries to get Smith to play ball is reminiscent of Potter calling George Bailey into his office in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ and has a similar outcome. When Smith stands up in revulsion, the boss immediately turns to Plan B, which is crush him. He does what corrupt and deceitful people in politics have always done – he drums up charges of the very same things he is guilty of against those who oppose them. He also uses his power over the press to wage a misinformation and propaganda war. Maybe you’ll recognize these patterns from the present day.

The ending is a little messy, and I would have liked it more had Smith somehow been shown swaying the other senators with arguments and reason. How does one reach across the aisle and bridge such a gap of disagreement and entrenched special interests? However, I have to give the film credit for shining a light on corruption in politics, and I loved how its truthful message was so powerful that many offended politicians branded the film as communist propaganda. As Smith says, what’s needed in politics is “plain, ordinary, everyday kindness. And a little looking out for the other fellow too.” Indeed.

drifts in and out of comedy and sincerity with the greatest of ease

It was a lot of fun watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in a class where the professor noted how this was the sort of film that was of historical importance while not taking itself too seriously. And I think that’s the way Frank Capra wanted it, in a sense. Perhaps in the time of 1939 America this film was seen as being of merit to the American Government’s due (though according to the trivia, it was denounced at showing corruption and even banned for showing how democracy “works”). But the director is also wanting to make an entertaining movie, of the kind of Hollywood appeal that brings 8-to-80 years olds in attendance. What had me interested throughout, particularly in that climactic, rousing twenty-minute sequence in the Senate with Jimmy Stewart’s constant, un-faltering filibuster, is how it really is a patriotic kind of bravura to be shown on the screen. Here is how it SHOULD be done, to an extreme perhaps, in getting things done in government. But at the same time, Capra keeps it entirely watchable with that group of kids up on the balcony, keeping the audience laughing and smiling all the way through the great lines that Stewart says. “Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again!” This is a kind of talent that I’m sure few other filmmakers at the time, or even after, could have pulled off.

The rest of the film isn’t just Stewart’s struggle to be heard as a young, new-in-town senator. It’s also a witty, more often than not true look of how government tends to really work as opposed to how it should. Basically, the core of the story is the fish-out-of-water type, where Stewart’s Jefferson Smith (one of his better Hollywood performances), leader of the Boy Rangers is called to be the senator of his state. He has a childhood hero in town in the form of a senior senator (Claude Rains, terrific as always). And there’s even a woman (Jean Arthur) in the mix that’s growing an interest in him, at first dubious. But despite the corruption that is almost thrust upon smith by Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold, as skilled a character actor as could be asked for), Smith fights it all the way to his final filibuster, which includes a reading from the Constitution, in-and-out cheers from the Boy Rangers, and general guffaws from the other senators. In other words, it’s really much in that pure spirit of Frank Capra that ‘Mr. Smith’ is working in, and even at its cheesiest and sometimes most-dated moments, it’s a very successful picture for what it wants to do. It’s really an equal-opportunity kind of film about people in politics that should be able decades later to appeal to both the hopeful and the cynical, and it works as good as it does a comedy as it does a piece to show in history of film or American government course.

Aside from some forgivable “sledgehammer symbolism”, this is a perfect film

I’ve seen this film several times before and I recently sat down with my teenage daughter to watch it. We both loved the film and I really think this would be a wonderful film for kids, as it is very profound and has a lot to say. However, my kid did use a term to describe the film that it very appropriate. She used the phrase “sledgehammer symbolism” to describe how sometimes Frank Capra (the director) used too much strong symbolism and that because of this the movie sometimes lacked subtlety. Some good examples are the name of the main character, the idealistic Mr. Smith. “Smith” was used as an obvious symbol of the common person and his first name, “Jefferson”, was lifted straight from the American founding fathers.

However, despite this and a few mildly “schmaltzy” moments, the film was incredibly uplifting and unforgettable in so many wonderful ways. The acting was astoundingly good. Not only does this movie have perhaps the greatest set of supporting actors in movie history in the same film (perhaps only rivaled by the original TWELVE ANGRY MEN), but Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart were absolutely perfect. I just can’t imagine anyone doing a better job. Stewart played a naive but decent guy who is initially overwhelmed by Washington and by the fact that he was appointed Senator. He then, when the chips were down, morphed into a mountain of previously untapped strength and did an absolutely mesmerizing job when he fought for the truth in the last half of the movie. Arthur was also great as the cynical and worldly-wise assistant. While I knew her as a sweet type of actress due to her many other roles as a “swell dame” or “girl next door”, my daughter found Arthur’s performance so realistic that she simply couldn’t believe me that this was NOT a typical role for Arthur! As for the plot, there are so many reviews for this film that have summarized it so well that it isn’t worth repeating. Suffice to say that it is one of the greatest films about the American Spirit and patriotism ever made–possibly only surpassed by my personal favorite, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. This film is an absolute must-see for any serious film fan and anyone who dislikes this film ought to have his or her head examined for termites!