Tag: Frank Capra
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You Can’t Take It with You has three major plot lines, all interconnected, but separate enough the film often feels stretched. There’s the rather lovely romance between stenographer Jean Arthur and her boss, bank vice president James Stewart. There’s Edward Arnold’s attempt to create a munitions monopoly to take advantage of the coming world war.…
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It’s a Wonderful Life is going to be a tough one. When I was a kid, during the public domain days, Wonderful Life was omnipresent. It became a joke because of that omnipresence. But also because it’s undeniably sappy. And it has angels in it. It’s so saccharine, I didn’t even notice my eyes tear…
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Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is astoundingly (and rightfully) confident. Director Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin don’t shy away from anything in the film–Capra’s more than willing to go with sentimentality, but the film isn’t often sentimental. Even when Jean Arthur’s world-weary reporter breaks down, she doesn’t get sentimental. Most of the film involves Arthur…
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Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies explores the dangers of electric cars. Basically, they can be taken over by radio waves and made to do crazy things. If it weren’t for the gasoline dealer (John J. Richardson) being the villain, one could almost see it as twenties gas company propaganda. The short is a special effects extravaganza and director…
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Even though Saturday Afternoon is astoundingly bad on every expected level and a few unexpected ones, I guess I’m glad to know there were always terrible comedies. It’s not some recent invention, post-television. There was always tripe. The story is pretty simple. Harry Langdon is a moron married to an evil witch of a wife,…
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Arsenic and Old Lace has to be one of the finest–if not the finest–film adaptations of a stage production. Nothing about the film, save the knowledge it’s from a play, suggests its theatrical origins… not the one night present action, not the one set. It’s an ideal motion picture comedy, down to what has to…
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Capra tries for another entry in his humanist series (Mr. Deeds, Mr. Smith and John Doe) and fails miserably. Two of the principal ingredients–Robert Riskin and Gary Cooper–are missing, but since State of the Union is from a play, it’s questionable if Riskin could have helped (Union‘s problems are fundamental). As for Cooper… Spencer Tracy’s…
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There’s something particularly tragic about It Happened One Night: somehow, Capra and Riskin let it get away from them. It’s possible–likely even–the awkward conclusion was a result of not having access to the stars (Gable and Colbert were both on loan to Columbia), but it doesn’t really matter. Riskin went from a deliberate pace–the majority…
The Stop Button 