Frank Capra: Mr. America (2023)

[bunniefuu]

[PROJECTOR WHIRRING]

JEANINE BASINGER:

Films are always a window

into an era or a time or

a place or a man's mind.

And no one was ever really

a more dominant filmmaker

of his era.

TOM ROTHMAN: He made

some of the greatest movies

in the history of cinema.

And they're foundational

in the craft of cinema,

the way they're made,

how they're made.

And they're

f*cking great entertainment.

Want some fireworks, huh?

PRESENTER: In behalf

of the Academy,

I present you with this award.

[PEOPLE APPLAUDING]

Capra's personal story

is a story about one man

who overcame

a lot of opposition

to go from being

an Italian peasant

to a major

American movie director.

These films that I were making

were just my way of saying,

"Thanks, America,"

if you can understand

that kind of a cliche.

Gee whiz, so many things

happening all at once.

FARRAN SMITH NEHME:

The kid from Sicily

had developed a way

of showing America

that all Americans loved.

[LAUGHING]

ERIC SMOODIN: His career has

an extraordinary decline.

BASINGER: It's not that

you don't have darkness.

Real darkness comes forward

in these movies,

but when we look

into Frank's films

he says we can endure,

we can survive, we can suffer

and triumph

and live through it.

It's not a perfect world,

but there's a place

for you in it.

SAM WASSON: That really

makes him America's filmmaker.

And that's why people watch

It's a Wonderful Life

every year at Christmas.

It's not because

they're sentimental.

It's because

it is a life-saving movie.

If you find something real

and true in the moment

in which you're living,

and you do it well

and entertainingly,

it will always remain

contemporary and universal.

I guess this is just another

lost cause, Mr. Paine.

WASSON: These stories

are always applicable

to our lives.

But they're even more so

when we forget how to hope.

The world is going through

terrible, terrible turmoil.

We need to be reminded

that it can still work.

REPORTER: When you tell us

about being

the son of immigrant parents

and we know about your birth

in Palermo, Italy,

your Sicilian background,

your arrival in America.

What propelled you,

what drive was in you?

It's difficult to look back

and wonder

and you can only

just conjecture,

but I did want an education.

I was ashamed of my parents

because they couldn't read

or write.

And I wanted to get out

of that ghetto.

[SOFT FOLK MUSIC PLAYING]

REPORTER: Speaking of the time

when you were 10 years old,

you said, "I hated being poor,

"hated the ghetto

and hated America."

-You were a Sicilian immigrant.

-CAPRA: Yes.

I came here just

when I was six years old,

just old enough to see

and not understand.

He told me the boat journey

was so traumatic and powerful,

it wiped all the memories

of Sicily out of his mind.

He didn't understand,

he told me, as a kid,

why his parents

would tear him away

from their comfortable

surroundings in Sicily.

BASINGER: Coming over

in steerage, there's no air,

there's crowded bodies,

there's people being seasick,

there's a minimum of food.

It's a long trip.

It's, I would think,

an overwhelming

and frightening experience

for a child.

When he sat down to write

the story of his life,

all the things he had done,

all the years he had lived,

the first words

he put to paper were,

"I hated being poor."

CAPRA: I saw the rich people

in America

and I saw the poor people

that we were.

I saw

my father and mother suffering

and working

and I saw everybody else.

And I thought they were much

happier where they came from.

This was my feeling

at the time.

I hated this country.

I hated how my family

was being treated.

BASINGER: It was a hard time.

I don't think his memories

of that time ever left him.

He found America to be

a dog-eat-dog, tough place.

He lived in a lower-

middle-class neighborhood,

but education was his way out.

Most kids didn't even go

to high school in those days,

the kids from his social class.

So he went to

Manual Arts High School,

he cleaned the blackboards,

you know,

and he was like a janitor

at the school,

and the kids kind of

looked down on him for that.

And I interviewed

Esther Gleason Schlinger,

who was the class historian,

and she said she dated

Frank Capra in high school,

but her parents broke it up

because he was an immigrant.

And she said she liked him,

but she said he was a nice boy.

He was just a terrible wop.

I really felt anger

on his behalf.

Wow. "Terrible wop,"

that's how they saw him.

That was his first shock

of trying to assimilate

into the mainstream

in American life.

NEHME: Frank Capra did not

merely perceive himself

as an outsider.

In many ways, he was.

Even at the height

of his fame,

after all of the accolades

and awards that he had earned,

Collier's magazine

could run a profile of him

and casually describe him

with ethnic slurs.

JOSEPH McBRIDE: I said to him,

"When did you stop

"being ashamed

of your parents?"

He said, "I haven't yet."

Capra was from an era

where you were supposed to

melt down your differences

and become an American,

which meant obliterating

your past.

And one of the manifestations

of that

was he kind of looked down

on his own family.

WASSON: The young Capra

made it happen.

He certainly hated

being on the outside,

being on the bottom,

which he was,

and that rage,

for better and for worse,

is what's going to propel him

the rest of his life.

BASINGER:

After Frank left college,

like a lot of people

who go to college,

he didn't know exactly

what he was going to do next

and he spent a lot of time

doing odd jobs,

traveling around,

trying different things,

doing different things.

And this gave him experience

of America.

CAPRA: This is where my love

for Americans started.

When I was about 22, 23, 24,

when I didn't have a job,

I couldn't find job of any kind

and when I did a lot of

running around

in Utah and Oregon,

and California.

And met the farmers,

the barbers, the poker players,

and just fell in love

with Americans

because of their wonderful

independence.

BASINGER: He bungles his way

toward the film industry

and, you know,

everybody bungled their way.

You can't plan to be

in an industry

that doesn't exist.

NEHME: There's almost

a gold rush atmosphere

to early Hollywood.

It was still quite possible

to start at the bottom

and work your way up.

And I can see why Frank Capra

would come to a place like that

and say, "Ah, this is for me,"

because that's what

he was looking for.

A place where he could break in

and remake himself.

CAPRA: I didn't know

a piece of film

from a piece of toilet paper.

Really.

I was fascinated

by this thing called film.

And so I tried

all these things.

And I... All by myself,

I'd stay in that cutting room.

There were newsreel men that

would come in with their stuff,

and I'd develop it for 'em.

People from the university

would come over

and there were films

about their dogs,

their children,

and everything else

that they wanted

to put together.

This is where I learned

about film.

[FANFARE PLAYING]

McBRIDE: A lot of directors

have what I call

a creation myth,

which is a fabricated story

about their beginnings.

I spent years researching

his apprenticeship

in the motion pictures.

He claims in his book

that he walked off the street

in San Francisco

into a building

because there was an ad

for a film director

for a short film

and he got a job

as a director by bluffing.

He knew nothing

about film directing.

Just bullshit.

He had worked a whole series

of humble jobs

leading up to becoming

a director.

Capra worked as a janitor

at the Christie Brothers

Film Company.

I said, "What were you doing?"

He said,

"Cleaning up the horse sh*t."

So... [CHUCKLES SOFTLY]

I mean,

that's the way he started,

cleaning up the horse sh*t,

the most humble thing

you could do.

Then he was

an assistant director

for companies in Hollywood.

He was an assistant cameraman.

He directed some of

the Screen Snapshot series,

which were documentary films

about Hollywood.

And to me,

it's much more inspirational

that you start at the bottom.

BASINGER: In these early days,

he learned very quickly.

He learned by watching

what others were doing,

and it turned out he had

a real gift for visual gags.

Not word gags, but visual gags.

So he could think in images.

And that was

the beginning, really.

CAPRA: I never had

such fun in my life.

The fun of creating

something, it just grabs you.

Your heart beats fast

when you create something.

And then later on,

when one of my pictures

would happen to be playing

and I'd pass by

and I'd hear them laugh

like hell through the picture.

Oh, boy, I'll tell you,

that's the payoff of payoffs.

MAN: You're looking down

on the intersection

of Hollywood and Vine,

one of the most talked about

four corners on Earth.

If you were to take your stand

here and wait long enough,

you'd eventually see

every outstanding star

in show business.

WASSON: The Hollywood

that we think of

in our imaginations

and basically the Hollywood

that existed up until

a few years ago

was this world of studios,

of sound stages

and giant teams of people

to run these movie cities.

Now, not every studio

had the financial muscle

to make movies

on the level of let's say,

an MGM...

or a Fox.

Or a Paramount.

There were also a couple

of minor studios,

and informally,

they were known as Poverty Row.

They weren't poor.

They were just poorer

by comparison.

And at the top of this

second tier is Columbia.

Capra was on his way up

when he arrived

at Columbia in 1927.

So he's a baby director

beginning with a baby studio.

They're equally matched.

NEHME: You put Frank Capra

into an atmosphere like this

and I think he said, "Okay,

I can do something with this."

Because Columbia also,

year by year,

would do at least a couple

of features with a real budget.

ROTHMAN: The history

of Frank Capra and Columbia

is completely intertwined.

It's definitional for both.

There would be

no Columbia today.

I wouldn't be sitting in the job

that I'm in without Frank Capra.

And I think there would be no

Frank Capra

in the way that there was

without Columbia.

WASSON: Columbia didn't have

the resources

that these other studios had.

Because of it, there was

more freedom at Columbia.

And that may be surprising

to a lot of people

who know something

about Harry Cohn.

Harry Cohn ran the studio.

He basically ran it alone,

although he had

a few stalwart executives.

Cohn had his fingers

in everything,

and to that degree,

didn't have full control

of any one picture.

He would delegate,

and rather than delegating

to a producer,

he would delegate

to a director.

Frank needed Cohn

and Cohn needed Frank.

MAN: The unimposing

little fella

nearest to the camera

may not look

like a great director,

but don't let that fool you.

The name's Capra. Frank Capra.

Frank takes his fame

very seriously.

Very seriously.

Creativity doesn't want

to be managed,

and it doesn't want

to be restricted.

It wants to be free

and unbridled.

And that's

the very delicate art

of managing creativity.

Now, it's ironic to use

the word "delicate"

in connection with a SOB

like Cohn,

who was a notorious,

absolute b*stard.

But he had vision

and he actually understood

filmmaking and he knew talent,

and his early faith

and investment in Capra

was because Capra was talented

and he recognized it

and he backed him.

WASSON: The big studios

could afford

to have stars under contract.

At Columbia,

they don't really...

They have a couple of stars

under contract.

And they can't compete with MGM

on that level.

So how are they going to

find a star?

Well, they find a star director

in Frank Capra.

So, with the infrastructure

of Columbia,

Capra ascended.

And with the talent

of Capra's stardom,

Columbia ascended.

These are the early days

of his career.

He's doing everything.

And it was because of that

versatility that he pulls off

a series of movies that

we don't really associate

with Capra films.

A movie called Dirigible.

A movie called Flight.

A movie called Submarine.

[EXPLOSIONS]

These were action pictures

that probably would seem

more like, you know,

a Raoul Walsh movie

than a Frank Capra movie.

BASINGER: He didn't just make

one kind of film.

He has w*r films

or military films.

[RUMBLING]

There's the north station,

over there.

BASINGER: How about

The Bitter Tea of General Yen

or how about The Miracle Woman?

I mean,

he tries different things.

Forbidden.

One of the most beautiful

sort of woman's pictures

or as someone might say,

soap operas of its time.

But it's a beautiful film.

It's tender and human,

and really very beautiful.

Hello, Al.

"Sit right down, Mr. Holland.

"I can't tell you how glad I am

to see you."

Where have you been

all this time?

Oh. Here and there,

mostly there.

I've looked for you

in every jail in the state.

I got time off

for good behavior.

[BOTH CHUCKLE]

So listen, baby,

would it shock you to know

that my heart's been broken?

It's been going

"potato, potato, potato"

for the last couple of years.

-Who's your lady friend?

-Yeah, honey.

Go on. My head's bloody,

but unbowed.

-You're married?

-No.

Niece?

No.

You're a governess?

Yeah. And I think I better be

getting her home.

MAN: Now that evening is here,

suppose we go to

a world premiere

held at

Grauman's Chinese Theatre?

A first showing in Hollywood

is an event

of worldwide interest.

When I say that Cohn and I

had the same job,

I should have been

more specific.

It wasn't just to make

a slate of pictures,

it's to make hits.

Harry Cohn wasn't going to keep

the bankers from his door

if he didn't make hits,

and believe me,

the reason he loved Frank Capra

was because he made hits.

And Frank Capra didn't become

a rich man,

rich and successful man,

without enormous

commercial success.

ALEXANDER PAYNE:

A film director is lucky

when what occurs to him and her

as being a good film

also happens to occur

to enough of the audience

also as good.

Capra's great talent

was that what occurred to him

as a story he himself

wanted to see,

and the way

in which he told it

happened to be extremely

appealing to others.

He just had the talent.

NARRATOR: Discouragement,

fear, failure.

Only a few years ago,

these dogged the nation.

Depression haunted America.

It was a desperate,

desperate time,

the likes of which

we hadn't seen before

or since in this country.

BASINGER: Capra's movies

came along,

and they connected

very directly

to what people were

thinking and feeling.

And they do not deny

the Depression.

But they provide escape by

giving you laughter, victory,

charm, glamour

and a great story to absorb you

so that you forget

your troubles.

My name is Smith.

That you seem to have been able

to stand for the last month.

I'm white, male and over 21.

I've never been in jail.

That is, not often.

And I prefer Scotch to bourbon.

I hate carrots, I hate peas,

I like black coffee

and I hate garters.

I make $75 a week

and I got $847 in the bank.

And I don't know yet whether

your eyes are blue or violet.

That's because

you're too far away, Stew.

I guess the picture, correct me

if I'm wrong, that really

many critics say started

the Frank Capra style

was Platinum Blonde.

Would you agree?

I think Platinum Blonde and...

And American Madness,

those two, yes.

I begin to go into

the social stuff.

I always said Union National

was a phoney bank.

Union National?

You have money

in that bank, too?

-Yes. Something wrong?

-Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!

-[IN FRENCH ACCENT] Run, run!

-You're telling me!

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

all the men in your plant

a couple hours off

to get their money out.

Tell Mrs. Hardy to tell everyone

in the apartment house.

All right, I'll get it.

I'll bust a few noses.

Holy smoke. I'll get right

down there if I have to fly.

Run down there

and get your money at once.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

SMOODIN: The audiences

see his films

as extraordinarily

contemporary.

They see his films as depicting

a Depression-era America

that they either recognize

or aspire to.

That's what they want

America to look like,

people who help each other.

Matt, look! There's Mr. Jones!

-[PEOPLE CLAMORING]

-I'm putting my money

in this bank!

I know what I'm doing!

Open up. I want to

put some money in here.

I don't want to take any out!

Certainly, Mr. Jones.

Certainly. Teller...

They're starting

to come in already.

Yeah, yeah, well, listen.

Don't waste any time.

Get all the money you can lay

your hands on and bring it

down here right away.

Step on it. Who's this?

[CLAMORING CONTINUES]

Come on out here,

you pawnbrokers.

-Take a look at this.

-We've been waiting 50 minutes.

You know

what you can do with it.

Come on. Take a look at this.

You'll see a demonstration

of faith that's worth more

than all the collateral

in the world.

Come on, boys. Come on, Clark!

It'll do your heart good.

Look at that. They're shoving

their hard-earned money

across the counter

with a 10-1 chance against them.

SMOODIN: One thing we have to

keep in mind is that

the American studios

were always producing films

for a global audience.

His films that we think of

as so quintessentially American

were huge hits

wherever they played.

And that's interesting,

and they seem to have

the same meaning

for audiences in France,

audiences in the UK

that they had for

audiences here in the US.

And it was now this time

that you began your association

-with Robert Riskin.

-CAPRA: Robert Riskin, yes.

It was a very happy

and very long association.

We both vibrated

to the same tuning fork.

We collaborated on everything

and we both kind of had

that same idea of comedy.

Human comedy, not gag comedy.

And that's a great thing,

when you can get two people

that agree.

NEHME: Capra had an exceptional

eye for good writing,

and he knew the importance

of a good script.

So, in the early '30s,

when he starts landing

some really exceptionally

talented screenwriters,

he was ready to go.

SMOODIN: Later in his life,

Capra would, sort of,

take credit

for pretty much everything

in his films.

But early on,

he was smart enough

to put together the best crew

he possibly could.

The cameraman,

Joseph Walker,

who was on

so many of his films,

and Barbara Stanwyck

and other actors

who really helped to create

the world that he made.

So I think that the Capra film

stands for a wide crew

of people.

[FANFARE PLAYING]

NEHME: When

It Happened One Night

was released into theaters,

believe it or not, initially,

it didn't do that well.

But then something happened.

People started coming back.

The ones who saw it

liked it enough to go back,

and they told their friends.

Capra liked to say years later

that "people made that movie"

because it was

the ticketholders,

the punters

who just kept coming back.

Any time you're going back to,

you know, the production

of a Hollywood film

during the classic era,

there can be a lot of myths

attached to it.

In this case, it's safe to go

with the stories

because they're

not really myths.

Nobody really wanted

to make this movie.

Certainly, its two stars

had to sort of be dragged

kicking and screaming.

Clark Gable was there because

he was being punished by MGM.

He had been asking

for more money

and MGM kind of told him

to go sit in a corner

and think about what he did.

And Claudette Colbert

only agreed to do it

when she was given

an exorbitant salary

for doing so.

Next time you drop in,

bring your folks.

NEHME: At some point

during the filming

of It Happened One Night,

it started to hit people

that their kind of

loosey-goosey attitude

towards making this movie

was actually producing

something rather special.

[SINGING

"MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE"]

NEHME: Claudette Colbert said

in later years

that when she read "The Man

on the Flying Trapeze" scene,

she thought it was

kind of ridiculous.

Couldn't understand

how everybody on the bus

would know the lyrics

to one song.

But then, when she actually got

in there and was filming it,

she happened to catch

the eye of her maid

who was standing somewhere

behind the cameraman,

and her maid was loving it.

[SINGING]

And Claudette thought,

"Wow. Okay.

"We really may have

something here."

[ALL SINGING]

NEHME: Movies of any type

are often about

an idealized portrayal.

Life as you wish it were,

not necessarily

life as it really is.

So, when they get on the bus

and start singing

"The Man

on the Flying Trapeze,"

that's when you really know

that this is a movie

about people coming together.

[ALL SINGING]

[ALL CLAPPING]

There's not a lot

of the Depression

in It Happened One Night,

oddly enough.

A train goes by

as they wait at the crossroads

and on the train

are some hobos.

The Depression is now passing

through the film.

"Hello, audience.

"Yes, we remember

there's a Depression,"

but, you know, you're talking

about something else

in this movie.

A love story.

A love story where a woman

who has money

and a guy who doesn't

learn about each other,

and you learn

that not having money is okay.

In fact, it's noble.

It's better than being rich.

Where'd you learn to dunk?

In finishing school?

Now, don't you start telling me

I shouldn't dunk.

Of course you shouldn't.

You don't know how to do it.

Dunking's an art.

Don't let it soak so long.

A dip and plop, into your mouth.

You leave it in too long,

it'll get soft and fall off.

It's all a matter of timing.

I'll write a book about it.

-Thanks, Professor.

-Just goes to show you.

Plenty millions

and you don't know how to dunk.

These rich people

couldn't dunk donuts.

I mean, there's no future

in life if you can't dunk.

She doesn't even know

what piggybacking is.

Are the showers in there?

Well, they ain't out here.

BASINGER: She has to learn

to be an American,

and not a rich person.

That is really

what this is about.

She has to learn

to be like other Americans.

A person without money.

You want to shower around here,

you'll stand in line.

Money is not important.

It's not the thing.

It's a reassuring message

for American audiences.

Well, today, it's easy.

It's a rom-com, right?

It's just here weren't

a lot of 'em back in the day.

It's a star-driven rom-com.

It's very simple.

It's, you know,

When Harry Met Sally

or any one of the movies

that Tom Hanks made

with Meg Ryan.

At the time,

it was way more than that.

It was genre-breaking.

There really weren't

a lot of 'em.

It was class-based romance.

It was pretty racy.

PAYNE: It's scene

after scene after scene

of perfectly staged

drama/comedy.

It's a movie where everything

came together.

The screenplay, the casting.

Not this one but that one.

We tried to get this one,

but he was unavailable.

Mr. Meyer forced Gable

on Harry Cohn, whatever it was.

This looks like the best spot.

We're not going to sleep

out here, are we?

I don't know about you,

but I'm going to give

a fairly good imitation of it.

PAYNE: The famous scene

where they go

to sleep under the haystacks.

Beautifully shot.

And the desire between them

is so palpable.

The other thing he controlled

masterfully was rhythm.

And so often,

his movies move fast,

but he also knows

when to slow down.

And in that film,

when they almost kiss

and then Gable stands up

and lights a cigarette instead

and goes to sleep

in the other haystack.

And you cut back to her

and she's looking at him,

"Oh, you dope,

why didn't you kiss me?

"Why didn't you kiss me?"

And it just quietly fades out

on a close-up of her.

It's so beautiful.

Just so beautiful.

It wasn't really anything

anybody thought

was going to be successful,

and there were a lot of problems

going along with it.

And Frank said, "You know,

maybe we should abandon this.

"I mean,

nobody seems to want this.

"Everybody says a bus story

is never going to work."

ROTHMAN: At that time,

Columbia was still

making its way off

of Poverty Row,

and it became a giant hit

for Clark Gable.

It was transcendent

in the history

and the life of the studio,

and it's the first

of only three movies ever

in the history of Hollywood

to have won all five

of the major Academy Awards.

Picture, director,

writer, actor, and actress.

So it pulled Columbia up

into the big leagues.

BASINGER: Frank Capra rang

the gong of Hollywood

in a way it had never been

rung before.

It Happened One Night

won all five top prizes.

This was a singular thing

that this young man

at a low-budget,

Poverty Row studio

hit the top, hit the top.

Those five awards

nearly k*lled me.

I mean, you know,

you shake the Oscar tree

when you get

the five major awards.

What are you gonna do

for an encore?

This was my problem,

and I got it so early

in my life, you see?

Capra went to pieces kind of

after he became successful

with It Happened One Night.

He said suddenly people know

who you are in Asia,

you know, I mean,

it's a whole different feeling.

I read all kinds of things,

but everything seemed

way trivial

and puerile after that,

and I feigned sickness.

Not to make any more pictures.

I wanted to quit for a while.

I was afraid, actually afraid

to make another film.

He's a director who,

like many others at that time,

was working nonstop.

So It Happened One Night,

of course, sets him up to fail

as much as it sets him up

to succeed.

He almost died of peritonitis

and he was really ill,

seriously ill.

So I feigned sickness,

but in feigning sickness,

I became sick,

and I was really about to die

when a friend of mine

brought in a very faceless

old man who came in

and said to me,

"Mr. Capra, you're a coward."

And I said, "Coward? I'm sick."

And he said,

"No, you're a coward.

"You were given certain gifts

"and you're not using them.

"You have been given a gift

to reach hundreds of millions

"and for two hours,

and in the dark.

"You're a coward.

You're an offense to God.

"You're an offense to humanity."

And he just got up and left.

Things do seem to change.

Capra himself told

a clearly apocryphal story

about while he was convalescing,

being visited by a little man

whose name we don't know.

We know nothing about him.

Who told him to get up

and get to work

and stop feeling sorry

for himself

and to start to make films

that meant things.

He had to renew himself.

He had to recharge himself,

and no one really knows

the why of this,

and although he alludes

to these things

and discusses them

in his autobiography,

talked about them in interviews,

you don't really understand

exactly what is

going on here with him.

He is a man who feels things

and fears things.

As I got to know Frank

over the years

and we spent a lot of time

talking on

the telephone together,

we talked about his illnesses

and his crises.

And I would just say

that he knew he was vulnerable.

There's always something in you

or in your life

that can bring you pain.

Some of it is simple health.

Other things are deeper

than that.

And I think that's probably all

I would want to say about that.

Capra realized how many people

he was speaking to,

and how successfully

he was coming across.

So he wanted to make sure

he was saying something

important about the way

that we lived.

And it's that spiritual rebirth

that fuels

the next run

of Capra's great movies.

CAPRA: I was doing it

unconsciously.

But consciously,

the first film that I was going

to make

where I attempted

to say something

was Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

That an individual that reached

deep within his resources

had come up with the wits

and the strength

and the knowledge

to defeat his environment.

Well, that's hope.

-Say something.

-Tell your story. Go ahead.

-Go ahead.

-Tell him.

Mr. Deeds,

the boys here wanted me

to say a little something.

Just wanted me to say that...

Well, they want me to say

that we think you're swell.

And that's no baloney.

-Say something more.

-Give me a chance, fellas.

We're all down and out.

A fella like you comes along,

it kinda gives us a little hope.

CAPRA: From Mr. Deeds on,

my films are pretty much alike.

I mean, the same things

kept cropping up in them.

-That's him.

-MAN: Are you Longfellow Deeds?

-Yes.

-Sheriff's Office.

We got a warrant

to take you into custody.

A what?

A warrant for your arrest.

You have to come along with us.

SMOODIN: These were films like

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,

Meet John Doe,

and other films

that are clearly

making statements about life

as it's lived in America

at that time.

About politics, about industry,

about the law, about media.

Just because

I wanna give this money

to people who need it,

they think I'm crazy.

That's marvelous.

That makes everything complete.

I guess what we learned here

is a kind of Frank Capra movie,

isn't it?

What we learn is that wealth

is not the American Dream.

It's about contributing

to your community,

to your country.

It's an honorable sense

of being a good man.

Mr. Deeds.

You haven't yet touched upon

the most important point.

It's all a fantastic idea

of yours

to want to give away

your entire fortune.

It is, to say the least,

most uncommon.

It's like the road

out in front of my house,

it's on a steep hill.

Every day

I watch the cars climbing up.

Some go lickety split up

that hill on high,

some have to shift into second

and some sputter and shake

and slip back

to the bottom again.

Same car, same gasoline,

yet some make it and some don't.

And I say the fellas

who can make the hill on high

should stop once in a while

and help those who can't.

That's all I'm trying to do

with this money.

Help the fellas who can't make

the hill on high.

And after careful deliberation,

the committee have voted

that the best direction

for a motion picture

during the year of 1936

is awarded to you, Frank Capra,

for your direction

of the picture

Mr. Deeds Comes to Town.

Retake, boys.

It's "Goes to Town."

Can't have that.

NEHME: Capra had to wait

about a year

to even get to make

Lost Horizon.

I really think he thought

this was going

to be a grand statement,

a real artistic achievement.

[WIND GUSTING]

McBRIDE: After Mr. Deeds,

Capra was feeling

a greater sense

of responsibility.

He was dealing with big issues,

big subjects.

He was being seen

as a political force

in the United States,

a cultural force.

Welcome to Shangri-La.

You see, we are sheltered

by mountains on every side.

It's a strange phenomena

for which we are very grateful.

NEHME: I simply like the fact

that Lost Horizon

is a utopian movie at all.

It's magic.

NEHME: Those have kind of

fallen by the wayside.

Dystopia is what we get now.

McBRIDE: The problem with that

film is it's a theme picture.

It's not as much

about the characters

as the characters are dwarfed

by the big themes

and the big sets.

It is our hope

that the brotherly love

of Shangri-La

will spread

throughout the world.

Capra went way over budget

and almost bankrupted Columbia.

Harry Cohn had to call

all the employees together

on a soundstage at one point

and say,

"We can't pay your checks

for this week,"

because they were

so short on cash.

-What's happened? Where's Bob?

-He's going, my child.

ROTHMAN: In those days,

there were bank lendings

involved

and it wouldn't have been hard

for a runaway picture

to sink a studio.

So I think

the production problems

on Lost Horizon

took a great toll

on both sides.

And it fractured the trust.

And trust is hard won

and easily lost.

Harry Cohn took the picture

away from Capra

after a while because Capra

couldn't bring it down

to the length that Cohn wanted.

BASINGER: It was

not the success

and winner of Oscars that

they thought it would be.

It was sort of the beginning

of the end

between them, probably.

-[FANFARE PLAYING]

-[PEOPLE APPLAUDING]

CAPRA: I don't start a film

unless I have something to say

and know what I'm gonna say.

He went down among the people.

And there he found

a nugget.

[PEOPLE APPLAUDING]

WASSON: Capra movies

are about good people

up against overwhelming

opposition.

...to Senator Jefferson Smith.

[PEOPLE CHEER AND APPLAUD]

WASSON: It's generally

one person against the media,

the government,

popular awareness.

These insurmountable projects

that make them, in a way,

almost like fairy tales,

you know.

How is Saint George

going to slay the dragon?

There's no way, you know.

This is a hopeless situation.

I can't help feeling

that there's

been a big mistake somehow.

[ALL LAUGHING]

I don't think I'm gonna be

much help to you

down there

in Washington, Senator.

I used comedy and laughter

as a way of becoming

very friendly with the audience,

or making the audience

very friendly with the film,

and with the characters

in the film.

It's comedy directors

who typically are most adept

at drama and pathos.

That's his brilliance

with casting,

is that he's a comedy director.

That's his brilliance

with pacing, with rhythm,

is that he's a comedy director.

It's in comedy that you learn

the control of those things.

It's really hard

to calibrate things,

to get those laughs

from the audience,

and it takes time

and it takes talent,

experience and screening.

You've got to screen

your pictures a lot.

If you entertain them

with laughter,

then you have them at a point

where they might sit still

for a message.

Hello, Senator.

I was just passing through.

I thought I'd like to meet you.

Sit down.

You met all the boys here,

-I suppose.

-Yes, sir.

They tell me you've been

right on your toes

ever since you got here.

That's fine.

You know, some people told me

that you were dumb.

I think you're smart.

What fascinated you most

about the story of Mr. Smith?

Well, the story of Mr. Smith

is the story

of a young nobody that gets

put into a position of trust

and is an idealist.

And he doesn't like

what he finds.

And he doesn't like this...

This compromise and making do

and this rubbing one's back.

And particularly

doesn't like graft.

And he doesn't like power.

So he began to fight it,

and the machine just

steamrolled right over him

and flattened him right out.

And with the aid of a girl

who took an interest in him,

he got up on his feet

and fought back and won.

He found it deep within, inside,

he had the moral, the mettle,

and enough wit

and everything else

to win out over his

environmental difficulties.

You mean you tell these men

and Senator Paine what to do?

Why, yes.

Joe Paine has been taking

my advice for the past 20 years.

You're a liar.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

was released

at the same time

that Hitler attacked Poland.

WASSON: It was a time

of great crisis,

and Americans really needed

to come together

to not only save the country

in the Depression,

but later join the Allies

to save the world

in World w*r II.

And those crises came

back to back.

How to join together

to be part of a worthy cause

that's bigger than yourself,

and at the same time,

how to do that

without losing hold of

what's important to you

personally?

Americans had to answer

these questions

at the moment

Capra was making a movie.

They were urgent questions.

They were not

theoretical questions.

I mean, even whether

they were consciously addressed

or unconsciously addressed

by Americans,

they were living with them

day to day.

How big is this thing?

Where's it going to be?

How many boys

will it accommodate?

You've got to have

all that in it, you know.

Yeah, and something else,

Ms. Saunders.

The spirit of it, the idea...

How do you say it?

-That's what's got to be in it.

-What?

The Capitol Dome.

On paper?

I want to make that come to life

for every boy in this land.

Yes, and I'll light it up

like that, too.

You see, boys forget

what their country means

by just reading "the land

of the free" in history books.

When they get to be men,

they forget even more.

Liberty is too precious a thing

to be buried in books,

Miss Saunders.

Unlike other filmmakers

at the time,

people saw in his films

a model of what they hoped

their lives would be.

They saw his films

as aspirational in some ways.

They saw his films as comments

on what it's like to live

in modern America.

Men should hold it up

in front of them

every single day of their lives

and say, "I'm free."

SMOODIN: They see the problems

that they're experiencing.

The government wasn't

responding to their needs.

The law certainly

didn't do that.

Capitalism seemed

to have run amok.

It wasn't helping anyone.

Capra was always, always

in touch with the audience,

not just in terms of what

they wanted in entertainment

but who they were emotionally

as Americans.

MAN: Were you

some kind of a populist,

or was there something

in the fact

that you had been

a poor kid yourself

and somewhere in the American,

you'd found your way upward?

The kind of pictures I made

from It Happened One Night on

were my way of saying,

"Thanks, America,

"for giving me the opportunity,"

because only... only in America,

it can happen that a son

of illiterate parent peasants

could get this kind

of an education that I'd had.

And then be allowed to use

whatever talents he had.

You can't quit now.

Not you. They aren't all Taylors

and Paines in Washington.

That kind just throw

big shadows, that's all.

You didn't just

have faith in Paine

or any other living man.

You had faith in something

bigger than that.

You had plain, decent,

everyday common rightness,

and this country could use

some of that.

WASSON: He had

a love for people.

You see it in the faces

of Capra's people.

You know,

if you look at a Capra movie,

it is cast down

to the smallest part.

The faces speak so clearly

of character.

CAPRA: It was

very important to me

who played the smaller parts.

I treated all the small parts

as star parts.

I use people. I love people.

Capra's films have

an expansiveness to them.

They seem to speak

to the desires of many people

in the audience, but they also

have incredible limits, too.

And we can see that

in the overarching

whiteness of his films

and his unwillingness to talk

about anything

other than whiteness

for the most part.

The expansiveness,

the broadness of Capra's films,

we always have to keep in mind

that there are

those limits, too,

that certainly

weren't unique to him,

but that perhaps he could have

done a much better job at.

MAN: This John Doe meeting's

gonna be

one of the biggest things

that ever happened.

And why they're coming

from all over.

Trains, boxcars, wagons.

[CROWD SINGING]

NEHME: Frank Capra movies

will frequently show

people being kind and wonderful

and even noble

on an individual basis.

But large groups of people

are frequently sinister

by contrast.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

MAN: One of your critics

has argued

that implicit

in all of your films

is a distrust of the majority.

CAPRA: I'm not against a crowd

of individuals.

I'm against the mass.

I'm against

the mass conforming.

I'm not against a crowd

of individuals.

And I think that the majority

does tend to be the herd.

They can be conformed

and channelized

and allow themselves

to be channelized.

And it's only those guys

that stick their heads up, say,

"Wait a minute.

I don't want to go this way.

"I want to go this way."

And that I'm interested in,

and I think the world

is interested in

and I think that the humanity

is interested in.

I think this reflects

Frank Capra's

peculiar, if not

political outlook,

than his kind of

intellectual outlook.

He, you know, loved humanity

on a one-by-one basis.

Not so much in vast numbers.

ROTHMAN: Heroes in the film

are very individualistic

and very self-sufficient,

and that was his experience

in life.

He was an immigrant,

he was an outsider

and I think he's therefore

very inherently sympathetic

with the individual

versus the system.

The political dimensions

of the films

are kind of all over the place.

Robert Riskin,

who wrote so many

of those first great films

was very much an FDR Democrat

at this time.

Capra was a Republican.

But he was a Republican

at a time when there was a

progressive wing of that party

that was marked by

a sort of critique

of the excess of capitalism.

So that made it possible

for him to make films

with New Deal Democrats.

And together they could

kind of produce an America

that seemed both apolitical

and political at the same time.

Both left and right, I suppose,

can all see some value in

standing up for the individual,

being oppressed by society

and fighting corruption.

-Order, gentlemen.

-SMITH: Mr. President!

I stand guilty as framed,

because Section 40 is graft.

And I was ready to say so.

I was ready to tell you

that a certain man

in my state, a Mr. James Taylor,

wanted to put through this dam

for his own profit.

A man who controls

a political machine

and controls everything else

worth controlling in my state.

Yes, a man even powerful enough

to control Congressmen.

And I saw three of them

in his room

the day I went up to see him.

-MAN: Will the Senator yield?

-No, sir, I will not yield!

My films were more to uplift

the people

from their everyday miseries,

than to sort of change things.

I was aiming at the...

At the general folds

of humanity,

and sort of trying to glorify

the compassionate,

the forgiving,

the merciful, and so forth.

BASINGER: You know,

the interesting thing

about a man like Frank Capra,

with his success,

everybody's always

going to define him.

He hated that.

McBRIDE: Well,

I was a Capra fan,

a great admirer of his films.

So, I called up Capra

and I said,

"I'd like to interview you."

Went down to Palm Springs.

He lived in La Quinta nearby.

And I went to his home.

He had a kind of

a sprawling white ranch house

with a gigantic American flag.

And we were talking

and he was giving me

his whole Frank Capra rap about

the little guy

against the system.

He was telling me how he hated

bankers and rich people.

And then,

a man came to the table.

He had this envelope

full of pictures of Capra

playing golf with

President Gerald Ford.

And he spread them

on the table,

and Capra said, "Oh, God.

Look at Gerry Ford.

"He's such a great guy."

There was a picture

in particular that struck me,

that Capra was putting,

and Gerald Ford

was holding the pin for him,

and I thought this was amazing.

What a symbolic picture,

the immigrant

with the president

holding the pin for you.

That's kind of

the ultimate American dream.

The guy said,

"Frank, I'll make copies

of the pictures for you,"

and Capra said,

"Thank you very much."

And then, he turned to me

and he said, "Where was I?

"Oh, yeah, I was telling you how

I hate bankers and rich people."

And he launched back

into his rap without a pause,

and I thought, "Hmm, this guy

is not what he seems to be."

NEHME: People, for a long time,

assumed that the movies

that they had seen,

which were ultimately

loving about America,

embraced a certain type

of liberal politics.

And then, people started

to look more closely at him,

and they discovered that

there was another side

to Frank Capra.

There was a side that, you know,

thought people

should be out there,

pulling themselves up

by their bootstraps like he did.

So, he was a complex person,

and I think, at some point,

people started

seeing that as a flaw,

that this kind of

rock-ribbed conservative

was existing alongside

the movies that they had loved.

Penny,

why don't you write

a play about ism-mania.

-Ism-mania?

-Yeah, sure.

You know, communism,

fascism, voodooism.

Everybody's got

an ism these says.

[LAUGHS] I thought it was

an itch or something.

Well, it's just as catching.

When things go

a little bad nowadays,

you go out

and get yourself an ism,

and you're in business.

I've got it.

It might help Cynthia

to have an ism in the monastery.

[LAUGHS] And why is that?

For the best-directed picture

of the year,

You Can't Take It with You,

in behalf of the Academy of

Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

we present to you,

Frank Capra, this award.

As you know, this is

the third time you have won

this highest of our awards,

and in all sincerity

from my heart,

I thank you.

Well, thank you very much,

Mr. Niblo.

I'm very happy

to have this again.

Thank you.

SMOODIN: He, quite conceivably,

by 1935 or so,

was the most famous filmmaker

in the world,

or certainly,

one of two or three.

NEHME:

Frank Capra really turned

this aspect of self-promotion

into something of an art,

and he used that as a tool

to create, um, horrid word,

a "brand," if you will.

SMOODIN: In the late 1930s,

he's on the cover

of Time magazine,

and I think

he's the first director

on the cover of Time.

And the tagline

for that cover is,

"His stories can't top

his story."

And inside, they told the story

of a little boy

who comes from Palermo,

who has a terrible life,

makes it big.

So, I think his life, as it was

understood in the press,

by the people

who went to see his films,

was really an important part

of why his films

were so appealing

to so many at that time.

They saw in him a person

who they could relate to,

understand, and who

they felt understood things

the way that they did.

MAN: Hollywood reaches far,

carrying its cargo of dreams

to almost every city

and village in America.

HOST: It seemed to me,

there was some kind...

Film offered some kind

of a social cement,

if you will, for people.

Yes, I think films offered hope.

And they go out of theaters

feeling much better

than they went in.

They were lifted.

WASSON: Movie-going

in the Depression

and through World w*r II

was different

than the way it is now.

Then, everyone saw virtually

the same movies,

and that creates the sense

of movies being a myth,

that we can all

have the same frame

of reference in our minds,

we've all been through

the same thing together,

not just as citizens

of a country, but as filmgoers.

That alone gives filmmakers

in Capra's generation

more power than you can imagine

a filmmaker having today.

I mean,

you have to think of Capra,

in a way, as another FDR

in that sense.

That is going to create

a lot of suspicion

as soon as people begin

to interrogate

what it's like

for someone in the media

to have that much power.

And Capra knew

he had that power,

and so, too,

did the American government

when they brought Capra in

to make what would become

the Why We Fight series.

[BUGLE CALL PLAYS]

MAN: Causes and events leading

up to our entry into the w*r.

Well, what are the causes?

Why are we, Americans

on the march?

Is it because of...

[EXPLOSIONS]

Pearl Harbor?

Is that why we are fighting?

Or is it because of...

Britain?

Who was the genius

behind all this?

Who made the films that moved

presidents, prime ministers

and millions of citizens

and soldiers around the world?

Well, to answer the Nazis,

the American government

turned to Hollywood, California,

and to a c*ck

little immigrant from Sicily

named Frank Capra.

The United States of America,

when the w*r broke out,

found itself the only country

that didn't have

a big propaganda machine.

So, we had to get organized

and get propaganda.

As soon as the w*r starts,

Capra wants to join up.

He wants to get involved.

He wants to make films.

MAN: American soldiers

mobilized for w*r,

and with them,

Major Frank Capra.

Forty-five years old,

salary, $250 a month.

Capra reports directly

to Chief of Staff,

General George C. Marshall.

HOST: When you first called on

General Marshall

at the Pentagon,

what did he tell you

he wanted you to do?

CAPRA: He called me in,

and then,

he said, "We have

an enormous problem."

He said, "We know that

if you sh**t an American,

"he'll sh**t back."

But can he take this

being away from home?

Can he take this discipline?

And his answer?

"In my opinion,

"he can if we tell him

what he's fighting about."

So, General Marshall

was asking you in effect

to give the boys

a reason to fight.

Give the boys

a reason to fight and don't lie.

But your films

were comedies in Hollywood.

He wanted somebody

to reach the people.

Was able to reach the people,

and I had been able

to reach the people in my films,

and make them laugh and cry,

make them like things.

Here, I got the greatest heroes,

the greatest villains

on the world stage.

Real. Not actors. Real.

[MARCHING BAND MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: In Italy, they had

a shorter word. "Fascism."

In Japan,

they had lots of names for it.

A new era of enlightenment.

SMOODIN: Capra says he's

starting the w*r in Hollywood.

The Why We Fight films

are just extraordinary.

They're films that involve

collage, animation,

multiple voices telling

the stories, found footage.

They almost seem like

avant-garde films to us now.

NARRATOR: They say trouble

always comes in threes.

Take a good close look

at this trio.

Remember these faces.

Remember them well.

If you ever meet them,

don't hesitate.

SMOODIN: The films

are simplistic in some ways.

The way they develop

ideas of good and bad.

But they're also sophisticated,

not just aesthetically,

but in how

they have to talk about

the realities of the world.

NARRATOR: Here was the Italy

that Mussolini took over

in 1922.

And almost his first act

was to tell the Italians

they were

the rightful owners of Corsica,

Nice, Savoie,

Albania, Tunisia,

Ethiopia, and a land corridor

linking it with Libya.

He's making myths about the w*r

in these w*r films.

There's no question about that.

And he creates a history

that goes back to Buddha,

Muhammad, which is

extraordinary to think about,

Christ, Jefferson.

NARRATOR: Moses.

[CHOIR SINGING]

Muhammad.

Confucius.

Christ.

All believe that

in the sight of God,

all men were created equal.

And from that, there developed

a spirit among men and nations

which is best expressed in our

own Declaration of Freedom.

SMOODIN: So, he creates

a kind of global myth

that is, we ourselves

come from a world history

that leads to

a particular form of democracy

that now is at risk.

But it's certainly true

that his films before that

had engaged

in a kind of mythic practice.

NARRATOR: That government

of the people,

by the people, for the people

shall not perish

from the Earth.

[FANFARE PLAYING]

CAPRA: Not until we showed him

some of the stuff

that we got at Dachau that

George Stevens photographed,

did it actually impinge itself

on the mind,

the horror of this whole thing.

It left me just speechless,

colorless, bloodless.

I couldn't possibly believe

that there was

that kind of a savagery

in the world, you see?

Between men.

Men, the highest

of all the animals.

Man... It's man who created God

and man who created

all kinds of things.

To end up here

in a pile of bones, burned.

So, that was a terrible shock.

BASINGER: The question

of the goodness of people,

the question of,

"What is humanity?

"What can we hold on to and

believe in?" was a challenge

after he did the job he did

in World w*r II.

He handled a great many

atrocity photos.

The atrocity photos were

part of what he was doing,

and he saw them,

he had to look at them,

handle them every day,

and it upset him,

it changed him, and it damaged

his faith in human beings.

I think, in fact,

he was one of those veterans,

even though

he didn't see battle,

who came back and perhaps

had a great deal

of trouble adjusting.

I was away

almost six years from camera.

We came back to Hollywood

and we didn't know anybody.

People introduced me

to somebody and they'd say,

"Frank who?"

Capra comes back after the w*r,

ready to make films.

He certainly wants to work.

He understands that

the future of film production

might not be at the studios

but might be more independent.

WASSON: These were

the three absolute titans,

titans of mid-century cinema,

George Stevens,

William Wyler and Frank Capra,

to form "Liberty Films."

That name

is not chosen by accident.

That's what

they thought they had,

was their liberty, and they had

chafed under the studio system.

It's a very big deal, and there

are tons of articles about it

in Time magazine, and Newsweek,

and all the newspapers.

But, of course, Capra was

the only one who was able

to make films for Liberty,

the production company.

Wyler and Stevens were both

committed to other studios,

and couldn't make any films

for the company they had formed.

This is a brilliant move.

This is a really smart

business move.

Three of the biggest

and best directors

of America get together.

They're going to make

some movies they want to make

the way they want to make them,

and distribute them

through Paramount.

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong?

Well, everything, obviously.

MAN: Why is

It's a Wonderful Life

your favorite film?

I keep reading that.

Why do you like that the best?

Well, because I think

it expresses

what I've been trying to say

in the other films

better than the other films.

I don't know

how many of you here

have seen

It's a Wonderful Life.

How many of you

have seen it?

Thank you very much.

But it is one

of those films that...

I break down

every time I see it,

and I made the g*dd*mn thing.

It's just

one of those things

that gets you inside,

and shows you what you can be,

what we can do,

and how precious life is,

and how wonderful life is.

Yeah! Hello, Bedford Falls!

Merry Christmas!

-Merry Christmas!

-Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, George!

Merry Christmas, movie house!

Merry Christmas, Emporium!

Merry Christmas, you

wonderful old Building & Loan!

Hey! Merry Christmas,

Mr. Potter!

Happy New Year to you, in jail!

Go on home.

They're waiting for you.

When people

talk about Capra's films,

they always remember

the optimistic side,

the happy endings,

the guy getting the girl,

that kind of thing.

But they forget, or tend not

to think about, the darker side.

The comedy is born

from pain and anguish.

That's where it comes from.

And I think that's one of

the strongest qualities

of It's a Wonderful Life.

SMOODIN: A lot of his films,

below the surface

of the films,

have anger, resentment

and violence,

and we see this, too, in

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,

when he beats up the reporters

who have written these

terrible things about him.

There's always

an undertone of violence.

There's always an undertone

that things

might get out of control.

There's an undertone

that things

can be scary really fast.

Get over there.

See how you're gonna

like it this time.

See what good your money will do

when you're six feet under.

Never thought of that, did you?

No. All you ever thought of

was pinching pennies,

you money-grabbing hick!

Virtually every character

is driven to madness

or every main character

is driven to madness,

or to the brink of suicide.

And there's real rage there

in those moments.

[WOMAN SCREAMS]

McBRIDE: I love

the roller-coaster feeling

of his films, emotionally.

The highs and the lows.

One critic said

it's like the feeling of life

being lived.

Every day, there's a mixture

of comedy and drama,

and highs and lows.

-[g*n FIRES]

-[PEOPLE SHOUTING]

-Let go!

-What's the matter with you?

I'm not fit to be a Senator!

I'm not fit to live!

Expel me!

With a film like

It's a Wonderful Life,

you wonder how much

of Capra's own experience

is in the bitterness

we see in George,

the depression

we see in George,

the general tiredness

that we see in George.

There's the pharmacist

who beats up the young boy.

There are the people

who try to destroy the bank.

There are all kinds of scary

things going on in that film

that kind of strike us as...

That's not what we think of

as going on in a Capra film.

[DOOR CLOSES]

There is a lot

of suicide in Capra,

or near-suicide, attempted

suicide, planned suicide,

more than

you might think at first.

So, that particular theme

in It's a Wonderful Life

is perhaps not surprising.

But Capra said later that

what appealed to him

about this theme

was that

it was saying to people,

"No, you are not a failure."

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYING]

[WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING]

MAN: Help!

Help! Help!

So, here is Capra,

the grand success,

kind of reaching back

toward Americans

who maybe hadn't done so hot

in the past 15 or 20 years,

and telling them,

"You're still in this country.

"I'm going to show you

"the things that are still

wonderful about this country

"and about your life here."

I sincerely believe that is what

Capra was after with this film.

SMOODIN: We tend to

mythologize the film

as something of a b*mb.

It certainly wasn't.

It's a Wonderful Life

does well.

The problem is it cost

so much to make.

It's something of a disaster

for the company.

Now, clearly, what's

really worse for the company

is that two-thirds

of the people who formed it

can't make films for it

because they're contractually

committed to other studios.

So, Liberty Films

crashes and burns.

And the men who formed it,

Capra, Wyler and Stevens,

sell it

and all the men go

their separate ways,

and Capra signs on

with Paramount,

which really is a death knell.

ROTHMAN: Be careful

what you wish for.

It's been tried many times.

United Artists,

Directors Company,

Liberty Films.

It almost never works.

That's telling you something.

Great directors have

a tremendous amount of freedom,

all the freedom they want

in the world, right?

What they want is to have

financial support,

and marketing support,

and structural support.

Nobody in my job

who's any good at my job

is gonna tell a great director

where to place the camera.

So, they may have

to lift budgets

and deal

with economic realities.

But that's the reality

that keeps things going.

I think, in terms of

the emotional investment

that Frank Capra

had made in this film,

really nothing but a big hit

would have

satisfied him anyway.

It was his comeback.

So, this movie, I think,

was in no small measure

about saying to Hollywood,

"Hey, I've still got it.

I've still got that touch

"that brings in audiences

and moves people."

And when

It's a Wonderful Life did that,

but not to

a great world-shaking extent,

I think that was

very hard on Frank Capra.

I have to confess that

the pattern

of Frank Capra's career

after It's a Wonderful Life

is a little mysterious to me.

This was an older Frank Capra.

And somehow,

he couldn't really

get back up off the mat.

["BRIDAL CHORUS"

INSTRUMENTAL PLAYING]

Well, isn't that nice?

I must say, it's right

neighborly of you people

who have seen the preview

of Here Comes the Groom

to write a wireless

and apprise us

of your reactions to this film.

If I may be immodest

for a moment,

I must tell you in all candor

that the reactions

have been pretty good,

which is easy to understand

because Paramount went out

and got the down-to-earth,

homey type of story

that they've been

searching so long for me.

They got a bang-up cast

and they got a great director,

Frank Capra,

at the helm,

to direct the picture.

When Capra makes films

for Paramount,

he makes them with big stars.

He makes a couple of films

with Bing Crosby.

And there is a campaign

to push those films.

They're a big deal and there's

a lot of PR about the films.

[BOTH SINGING]

SMOODIN: But no one thinks

of them once they come out

as anything but minor films.

These films, Riding High,

Here Comes the Groom,

are Bing Crosby films

that Capra happened to make.

As America recovered

from the w*r,

the Capra-esque story

of the individual

lost its urgency

in the sort of

postwar complacency.

The feeling that America

could take a breath

didn't really serve Capra

as an artist.

He needed a fight.

There were still fights

to be fought.

He just didn't find one

in the '50s.

[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING]

During the McCarthy years,

you know, the years of

the Hollywood blacklist,

paranoia was rampant,

and the whole question arose

of what it meant

to be a patriot.

It's a 10-year period or more

when your politics can

prevent you from having a job.

The films that were

hailed in the '30s

were seen in

a different light after the w*r.

And so, films like

Mr. Deeds and Mr. Smith

were potentially risky things

to look back on.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYING]

BASINGER: Frank Capra

was never blacklisted.

What happened

to Frank Capra was,

during the Korean w*r,

he wanted to serve,

but of course he was too old

to serve in any capacity.

But there was

a committee made,

Vista, I believe it was called.

It was

a military service committee,

and he was denied clearance

by that committee.

It was

the biggest shock of his life

that he was basically accused of

being disloyal to his country.

Some of the charges

were ridiculous.

But the one charge that really

was a problem for him was,

they said, "You worked with

a lot of left-wing writers,"

and that was true.

He did, of course, immediately

mount his response to them,

and sent it to them.

SMOODIN: He goes through each

of the men accused

of being a leftist,

of being a communist,

and he says,

"I didn't know this,"

or, "If I had known, I wouldn't

have worked with them."

He wants to distance himself

from them

as a means

of protecting himself.

McBRIDE: Different people

reacted in different ways,

and he named names of people

and recklessly

threw them around,

and this all added

to the stigma

that was attached

to those people.

I think this is

a very difficult issue,

and this is a time

when it's hard to know

who the good guys are at all

because there are

these inflections.

We can name the bad guys.

We know the bad guys,

the guys who name names,

the Elia Kazans and others

who were happy to name names.

Clifford Odets

and others like him.

What Capra did is probably

certainly on that spectrum.

He was very hurt by this,

and very upset.

He didn't

talk about it, generally.

The country he had

devoted so much to,

he'd served loyally

in World w*r II

and sacrificed a lot for,

and here he was,

accused of being disloyal.

It was

the worst shock of his life,

and it's like being

kicked in the teeth

by somebody you love.

So, he wound up being

very disappointed

by the United States,

I guess, to put it mildly.

BASINGER: His career

dwindled and died.

SMOODIN: He becomes something

of a gentleman farmer

at this time, raising

his avocados in California.

He becomes

a collector of rare books.

He owns the rights

to films that he then sells.

He owned Roman Holiday,

which becomes

a huge hit for William Wyler.

He does that kind of thing.

WASSON: You know,

if we want to understand

why Capra hoarded

so much praise

and attention late in his life,

it's because there really

was a long limbo period

of maybe even two decades

where this person barely existed

at the level that he had before.

He certainly did not exist

at the level that he had before.

He was almost himself forgotten,

and he's part

to blame for that, too,

because he didn't find out

why he was relevant anymore.

He didn't discover that.

MAN: One of your last movies,

Pocketful of Miracles,

had tremendous trade reviews,

and yet, was

a box office failure.

How hard did this hit you?

Uh, surprisingly badly.

It was almost like

another Lost Horizon,

only I found no way

to cure it. Uh...

I can't...

That one eludes me completely.

His career has

an extraordinary decline.

Later in his life, certainly,

he has reason to be bitter.

And his career

didn't go the way

he had hoped it would

after the w*r.

But I think what really

struck me and took me aback was,

at the beginning

of McBride's book,

he quotes Capra

as railing against the Jews

who had ruined his career.

McBRIDE: You'd ask him about

any ethnic group,

he would malign

in stereotypical terms,

even his own people,

the Italian-Americans.

And he unfortunately

made antisemitic remarks

and anti-Black remarks,

and...

anti-Mexican-American remarks,

anti-Native-American remarks,

you name it.

And to see Capra, an immigrant,

talk about that is just

really kind of heartbreaking.

I'm Jewish. You know,

I've heard this before.

You hear it all the time,

and it's very hard to see

Capra doing the same thing.

WASSON: In the late '60s,

not only is Capra

looked on as quaint,

but he's also looked on

as a status quo.

He represents

the sort of Hollywood,

classical, glamorous

studio filmmaking,

that this new generation

of filmmakers,

Dennis Hopper,

Friedkin, Altman,

the '70s era of filmmakers,

regarded with

a little bit of cynicism.

It's funny.

It becomes a Capra movie again.

You know, he's at

this low point, "I'm forgotten."

"No one remembers my movies."

"They're looked on as corny."

So, what does Capra do?

He writes a book.

And the autobiography

is a phenomenal success.

And he was back.

[ALL APPLAUDING]

MAN: Frank Capra hasn't made

a feature film since 1961.

But when he appears before

a group of students,

many of whom weren't born

when his greatest films

were being made,

he is greeted with applause.

McBRIDE: He went on

125 college campuses,

and he went around the world

for the US government again.

Ironically, they asked him

to promote Americanism

around the world,

and for the State Department.

He was very happy to do that.

As I found out, the book

is like a novel about Hollywood.

It's a rather beguiling novel,

somewhat disturbing,

but often very charming.

But it's almost

completely fictitious.

SMOODIN: The memoir

that Capra writes

is really wonderful.

But when you read the book now,

it's upsetting in some ways

because the way he takes credit

for everything he ever did,

every script he ever wrote,

every film he ever made,

it all comes from him.

It all springs from his brow.

Now, I think we'd take this

with a grain of salt.

We know that that's not

how films are made.

He was a storyteller

and a mythmaker.

And you know, [CHUCKLES]

if you're a mythmaker,

what better subject to make

a myth about than yourself?

SMOODIN: It's kind of

an American story, that is,

the immigrant

who starts with nothing,

comes from nowhere,

and makes it big.

But for him, it really does

resurrect his career.

It gives him a second act.

He had been, not forgotten,

but dismissed,

and the book,

which is a bestseller,

really does make him

a figure in public life.

BASINGER:

America's a melting pot.

Well, he's part of the melt,

and he comes in and he learns

what it is to be an American,

or at least what we think it is.

And then, he contributes

to that definition.

He narratizes it,

makes it a great story

for us to go and enjoy,

convinces us it's true.

Also, that's propaganda,

I guess.

But he has a huge legacy

about what it is

to be an American,

which is to come

from another place

and contribute

to the definition of it.

Based on what you

thought it was going to be,

or everybody

believed it was going to be,

mixed in with what it really is,

all put in there

with a little bit of ugly,

a little bit of sad,

a little bit of tragic,

a little bit of corrupt,

a little bit of whatever,

but ultimately

coming out and saying,

"It's a victory,

we're going to keep going."

The American value is,

"You can do it."

That's the American value.

If you want something,

you can go for it,

and it's not going to be easy.

That is what America should be.

SMOODIN: I guess he is

an embodiment

of the American Dream,

if we believe that exists

in the first place.

Certainly, he would have it

that was the case,

that anyone could come here

and make it big.

I think that's the mark of

his conservatism in some ways.

He does believe

you should do it on your own.

So, in that sense,

the American Dream

is perverse, reactionary,

and impossible for most people

to ever attain,

and probably was

not even true in Capra's case.

Even though

his drive was unusual,

he had to have

an awful lot of help,

a lot of luck, and worked

with all the right people.

So, it embodies

the American Dream.

McBRIDE: The person who made

Frank Capra who he was...

We wouldn't be sitting here

talking about Frank Capra

if it weren't for

a woman named Jean McDaniel,

who was an

Irish-American schoolteacher.

She was Frank Capra's champion.

The parents wanted

to take Frank

out of school in fifth grade

and make him

go to work in a brickyard

like his brother, Tony.

And she said she raised

the money from the PTA

to pay his parents what Frank

would've earned in the brickyard

if he would stay in school.

So, if it hadn't been

for Jean McDaniel,

we never would have

heard of Frank Capra.

BASINGER: There's

so much complexity here

in a man's life.

There's so much complexity

in the films he makes.

So, it is very hard

to make a simple idea

about Frank.

Some people only want

to think of them as politics.

Some only want to think of them

as optimistic, sentimental pap.

Or they want to think of it

as an American immigrant story,

or definition

of American history.

And all of these things

are in there.

NEHME: I think

Frank Capra was always

much more than his reputation,

say, in the 1930s.

He's more than the maker

of It's a Wonderful Life.

And he's also more

than some of the beatings

that his reputation has taken.

What's going to remain essential

forever is the movies.

WASSON: It does not surprise me

that there is a resurgence

of interest in Capra right now

because this country

is going through

terrible, terrible turmoil.

And like any great myth,

Capra's movies, on the

spiritual-communal level,

give us a framework

to maintain that kind of faith

in a way that isn't ludicrous,

and, in fact, is life-saving.

They're reminders

that humanity can be good.

We all have to hope.

PAYNE: These movies

are so delightful,

you just have to watch them.

Why do we watch movies?

Because they're delightful.

And his movies are delightful.

I mean, forget the messages

and all that kind of stuff.

They're so fun to watch,

you just have to

watch these movies.

I don't want to live in a world

where there's no hope,

where there's no sense

that there could be a victory,

and if that's a silly idea

and I'm crazy,

that's okay with me. I'm not...

The main thing is laughing.

If you want

to ask me that question

all over again

about Frank's legacy,

I'll just say,

"Give me a laugh."

And he gave me a laugh.

If we don't do

anything else but laugh, good.

That's all I'm here for, really,

to try and just tell you that...

That...

There's good in the world,

and that it's wonderful.

[SINGING

"MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE"]

[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]

Hey, I know

the second verse there.

Yeah.

[SINGING]

[LAUGHING]

Do you mind

if I take the third one?

[CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY]

[SINGING]

[ALL LAUGHING FAINTLY

AND APPLAUDING]