Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Directed by Frank Capra

Screenplay by Sidney Buchman, story by Lewis Foster

Runtime: 2 hr, 10 min

It is of course an election year in the United States, so it is only fitting to discuss a film centered on the American political machinery.  There are many films that could fit the bill, but the one I have in mind for today is perhaps the most beloved.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, one of the standouts from that golden year of 1939, is a film that strikes at the heart of the American system.  At once it highlights the corrupt, easily manipulated world of Congressional politics and public opinion while still allowing a faint ray of hope to shine through.

After the death of a senator, the governor of some western state (Guy Kibbee) appoints the local head of a Boy Scouts stand-in, Jefferson Smith (James Stewart).  Smith has a likeable image but is completely new to politics, which would seem to make him very malleable.  Smith is glad, however, to be serving alongside Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), a respected politician and friend of his father.  However, when Smith determines to set up a boys’ camp in his state, he discovers that a dam is to be built on the property, with a political boss named James Taylor (Edward Arnold) behind it.

Because the film follows someone brand new to politics, the ensuing tale of corruption is not one of backroom deals, though those are present.  Instead, the audience follows Smith—a man who firmly believes in whatever the phrase “American ideals” means—as he attempts to get to the bottom of the dam scheme.  The details of the plan are vague: it’s in a deficiency bill, there’s graft involved, and Jim Taylor is the primary beneficiary.  What is clear, however, is that corruption runs deep in the Senate, and the players are more than willing to maintain the status quo.

Not that they’d suspect Jefferson Smith to give them much trouble; while his love of the country and what it stands for is great, he’s not the least bit savvy politically.  Smith’s secretary, Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur), labors to explain the laborious process of getting a bill into law.  It’s in scenes such as this that Stewart’s acting chops truly shine.  His dialogue is extremely hesitant.  He can talk sense but has little articulation.  Yet Stewart never makes Smith out to be an imbecile, but rather an everyday man who is simply in over his head.

Arthur is no slouch, either.  If nothing else, she is a very good drunk.  While at dinner with her would-be lover/Washington journalist Diz Moore (Thomas Mitchell), her character has definitely had a few.  She is not boisterous, but she is letting everything out.  Arthur places her in a vulnerable state, one in which Moore is briefly able to convince her that they were in fact getting married.  Add in her gradually increasing affections for Smith are completely natural, and it’s clear that to call Arthur’s performance excellent is no hyperbole.

What may sound a bit hyperbolic, however—and I do mean it—is that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington contains some of the most beautifully shot sequences in cinema.  Some scenes give Citizen Kane a run for its money.  There’s so much raw power in seeing Smith, a mere speck of dust, stand inside the massive Lincoln Memorial, as if he were standing before Zeus.  Later, when Smith and Saunders have a late night chat there, Jean Arthur is cast in striking silhouette, with just a glimmer of light on Stewart.  Give credit both to Frank Capra’s staging and Joseph Walker’s cinematography; their work is commendable.

But what the film does best of all—that’s saying something—is just how hopeless the events of the film feel.  Whatever Jefferson Smith believes aside, the idea of one man making a difference is torn to shreds.  Taylor, who I must say is a bit too transparently evil, controls nearly the whole press in his state; he can and does mold public opinion to suit whatever ends he has in mind, convincing voters and senators that Smith’s boys’ camp is all a money-making scheme.  As the film progresses, it becomes painfully clear how much the media forms the views of the masses, and how little can ultimately be done to change it.

Further, Capra’s film shows what the world of politics will do to the upstanding man.  Senator Paine is a fascinating, frustrating man.  A former champion of the lost cause and eloquent beyond compare in the Senate, he decided that serving his people meant compromise, and that meant falling in line with the Taylor machine.  It may seem that someone as dedicated to the American ideal as Jefferson Smith could withstand the temptations of power and reputation, but the question becomes at what cost one ultimately meaningless man does so.

Both a personal saga and a sharp critique of the American political establishment (let’s just that the government wasn’t too thrilled when the film was screened in D.C.), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a must-see film.  It’s the sort of movie where my rooting interests are conflicted: in my heart of hearts I want to see Smith triumph over the corrupt political machinery, but every rational brain cell I have wants to tell him, “Give up; it’s hopeless.”  I’m not sure where the truth of the matter lies, but it sure as hell isn’t on the idealistic end.