Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

UPC: 043396279698

Studio: Columbia TriStar

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:null

Summary: Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior senator, puts in a call to Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee) reporting the news. Hopper then calls powerful media magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), who controls the state -- along with the lawmakers. Taylor orders Hopper to appoint an interim senator to fill out Foley's term; Taylor has proposed a pork barrel bill to finance an unneeded dam at Willet Creek, so he warns Hopper he wants a senator who "can't ask any questions or talk out of turn." After having a number of his appointees rejected, at the suggestion of his children Hopper nominates local hero Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of the state's Boy Rangers group. Smith is an innocent, wide-eyed idealist who quotes Jefferson and Lincoln and idolizes Paine, who had known his crusading editor father. In Washington, after a humiliating introduction to the press corps, Smith threatens to resign, but Paine encourages him to stay and work on a bill for a national boy's camp. With the help of his cynical secretary Clarissa Sanders (Jean Arthur), Smith prepares to introduce his boy's camp bill to the Senate. But when he proposes to build the camp on the Willets Creek site, Taylor and Paine force him to drop the measure. Smith discovers Taylor and Paine want the Willets Creek site for graft and he attempts to expose them, but Paine deflects Smith's charges by accusing Smith of stealing money from the boy rangers. Defeated, Smith is ready to depart Washington, but Saunders, whose patriotic zeal has been renewed by Smith, exhorts him to stay and fight. Smith returns to the Senate chamber and, while Taylor musters the media forces in his state to destroy him, Smith engages in a climactic filibuster to speak his piece: "I've got a few things I want to say to this body. I tried to say them once before and I got stopped colder than a mackerel. Well, I'd like to get them said this time, sir. And as a matter of fact, I'm not gonna leave this body until I do get them said." ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Story – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Actor – New York Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 10 Best Films – Film Daily 10 Best Films – New York Times

Features: Frank Capra Jr. commentary
Frank Capra Jr. remembers "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"
Vintage advertising
Original theatrical trailer
Bonus trailers
Talent files
Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Format: DVD

Release Date: 02/22/2000

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, 1 USA & territories, Canada

Runtime: 129 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,Spanish,Portuguese

Subtitles: English,Spanish,Portuguese

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
0. Scene Selections
1. Start [2:22]
2. Having Kittens [4:15]
3. The Hopper Family [4:45]
4. Star-Spangled Banquet [5:47]
5. At the Station [2:49]
6. Saunders [5:56]
7. Daniel Boone Arrives [5:31]
8. Press Conference [2:00]
9. Paine & Saunders [1:13]
10. The U.S. Senate [7:05]
11. Washington Press Corps [2:35]
12. Paine's Recommendation [2:43]
13. National Boys' Camp [10:21]
14. New Bills & Resolutions [3:48]
15. "Let's get married." [4:59]
16. Whistle-Blower [3:34]
17. Taylor Meets Smith [2:48]
18. "I compromised." [6:46]
19. Yielding to Paine [2:45]
20. Committee Hearing [3:21]
21. The Lincoln Memorial [3:43]
22. Smith Is Recognized [7:30]
23. Paine Walks Out [3:42]
24. Filibuster! [2:47]
25. Democracy in Action [7:33]
26. "Tell Jeff to stop." [8:24]
27. 23 Hours, 16 Minutes [1:06]
28. Paine Breaks [:44]

Bruce Eder

Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was the director's final film for Columbia Pictures, the studio where he'd made his name in the 1930s with an enviable array of comedies and topical dramas. It also marked a turning point in Capra's vision of the world, from nervous optimism to a darker, more pessimistic tone. Beginning with American Madness in 1932, such Capra films as Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and You Can't Take It With You had trumpeted their belief in the decency of the common man. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however, the decent common man is surrounded by the most venal, petty, and thuggish group of yahoos ever to pass as decent society in a Capra movie. Everyone in the film -- except for Jefferson Smith and his tiny cadre of believers -- is either in the pay of the political machine run by Edward Arnold's James Taylor or complicit in Taylor's corruption through their silence, and they all sit by as innocent people, including children, are brutalized and intimidated, rights are violated, and the government is brought to a halt. The film's story of innocence and righteousness triumphant over corruption frames a chilling picture of an ineffectual and venal government fronting for gangsters. Coming at a time when the American public was growing weary (and wary) of the New Deal, then in its seventh year, it may have caught the public's mood just right. The world was indeed becoming a darker place -- as the movie acknowledges by the presence of representatives of various European dictatorships in the Senate gallery as Smith's struggle on the Senate floor continues. The movie was so potent in its time that it cemented the image of James Stewart, then a good working dramatic actor who'd portrayed a range of roles, into the quintessential good-natured hero, the archetypal common man. That image made him a star, but also straightjacketed him to some degree. Stewart did some of his most interesting work in later years when he escaped from that image, as in Winchester '73, The Far Country, Rope, and Vertigo. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Erville Alderson  Actor 
Maurice Cass  Actor 
Gino Corrado  Actor 
Mabel Forrest  Actor 
Fred Hoose  Actor 
Hank Mann  Actor 
James Millican  Actor 
Dick Jones  Actor 
June Gittelson  Actor 
Robert Walker  Actor 
Adrian Booth  Actor 
Stanley Andrews  Actor 
Al Bridge  Actor 
George Chandler  Actor 
Alec Craig  Actor 
Jack Gardner  Actor 
John Ince  Actor 
Philo McCullough  Actor 
Charles Moore  Actor 
Larry Simms  Actor 
Dub Taylor  Actor 
Victor Travers  Actor 
Frederick Burton  Actor 
Edmund Cobb  Actor 
Jack Egan  Actor 
Mary Gordon  Actor 
H.V. Kaltenborn  Actor 
Evelyn Knapp  Actor 
George McKay  Actor 
William Newell  Actor 
Walter Soderling  Actor 
Arthur Thalasso  Actor 
Dave Willock  Actor 
John Russell  Actor 
Count Stefanelli  Actor 
Frank Austin  Actor 
Ken Carpenter  Actor 
Nick Copeland  Actor 
Clyde Dilson  Actor 
Douglas Evans  Actor 
Harry Hayden  Actor 
Robert Emmett Keane  Actor 
Vera Lewis  Actor 
James McNamara  Actor 
Paul Stanton  Actor 
Laura Treadwell  Actor 
George Cooper  Actor 
Jack Cooper  Actor 
Harry A. Bailey  Actor 
Delmar Watson  Actor 
Harlan Briggs  Actor 
Dora Clement  Actor 
Beatrice Curtis  Actor 
Helen Jerome Eddy  Actor 
Frances Gifford  Actor 
Frank Jaquet  Actor 
Joseph King  Actor 
Matt McHugh  Actor 
Gene Morgan  Actor 
Russell Simpson  Actor 
Ferris Taylor  Actor 
Lloyd Whitlock  Actor 
Frank O'Connor  Actor 
Florence Wix  Actor 
Sam Ash  Actor 
Dorothy Comingore  Actor 
Vernon Dent  Actor 
Eddie Kane  Actor 
Wright Kramer  Actor 
Lafe [Lafayette] McKee  Actor 
Alex Novinsky  Actor 
Wyndham Standing  Actor 
Fred "Snowflake" Toones  Actor 
William Arnold  Actor 
Hal Cooke  Actor 
Jack Carson  Actor 
Anne Cornwall  Actor 
Rev. Neal Dodd  Actor 
Eddie Fetherstone  Actor 
Louis Jean Heydt  Actor 
Donald Kerr  Actor 
Arthur Loft  Actor 
Robert Middlemass  Actor 
Frank Puglia  Actor 
Craig Stevens  Actor 
Lloyd Ingraham  Actor 
Dulce Daye  Actor 
Allan Cavan  Actor 
Wade Boteler  Actor 
Eddy Chandler  Actor 
Maurice Costello  Actor 
Ann Doran  Actor 
Byron Foulger  Actor 
Olaf Hytten  Actor 
Milt Kibbee  Actor 
Margaret Mann  Actor 
Jack Richardson  Actor 
Carl Stockdale  Actor 
Ed Randolph  Actor 
Sidney Buchman  Screenwriter 
Frank Capra  Director 
Frank Capra  Producer 
Dimitri Tiomkin  Composer (Music Score) 
James Stewart  Actor 
Jean Arthur  Actor 
Claude Rains  Actor 
Edward Arnold  Actor 
Thomas Mitchell  Actor 
Guy Kibbee  Actor 
Eugene Pallette  Actor 
Beulah Bondi  Actor 
H.B. Warner  Actor 
Harry Carey  Actor 
Astrid Allwyn  Actor 
Ruth Donnelly  Actor 
Grant Mitchell  Actor 
Porter Hall  Actor 
Pierre Watkin  Actor 
Charles Lane  Actor 
William Demarest  Actor 
Dick Elliott  Actor 
Billy Watson  Actor 
Johnny Russell  Actor 
Harry Watson  Actor 
Baby Dumpling  Actor 

Country: USA