Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Note Générale:

8,4/10   

Réalisateur:

Frank Capra

Scénaristes:

Sidney Buchman (screenplay)
Lewis R. Foster (story)

Date de sortie:

19 octobre 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Drame

Accroche:

Capra at his greatest!

Intrigue:

A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.

Plot Keywords:

Political Corruption | Senator | Camp | Governor | Senate

Récompenses:

Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 10 nominations

Avis des utilisateurs:

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

Ensemble

Jean Arthur	...	Clarissa Saunders
James Stewart	...	Jefferson Smith
Claude Rains	...	Senator Joseph Harrison Paine
Edward Arnold	...	Jim Taylor
Guy Kibbee	...	Governor Huber Hopper
Thomas Mitchell	...	Diz Moore
Eugene Pallette	...	Chick McGann
Beulah Bondi	...	Ma Smith
H.B. Warner	...	Senator Agnew - Senate Majority Leader
Harry Carey	...	Henry - President of the Senate
Astrid Allwyn	...	Susan Paine
Ruth Donnelly	...	Emma Hopper
Grant Mitchell	...	Senator MacPherson
Porter Hall	...	Senator Martin Monroe
Larry Simms	...	Hopper Boy (as Baby Dumpling)

Autre(s) titre(s):

Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (USA) (complete title)

Durée:

129 min

Pays:

USA

Langue:

Anglais

Couleur:

Noir et Blanc

Rapport de forme:

1,37 : 1

Son:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Classification:

Canada:F (Ontario) | Canada:G (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Quebec) | Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | USA:Approved (PCA #5370) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | Germany:o.Al. | UK:U | Australia:G

Lieux de tournage:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Société:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Anecdotes:

In 1942, when a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France, the title theaters chose Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) for their last movie before the ban went into effect. One Paris theater reportedly screened the film nonstop for thirty days prior to the ban.

Goofs:

Révélant des erreurs: When Smith arrives in Washington on the train, he's seen walking towards the exit with a porter behind him carrying his bags. The next shot shows the same porter coming into the station carrying someone else's bags.

Guillemet:

[after all the other Senators walk out]
Jefferson Smith: Oh, Mr. President, we seem to be alone. I, I'm not complaining for a social reason; it's just, I think it'd be a pity if these gentlemen missed any of this, and...
[Clarissa starts waving from the visitors gallery, and making hand signals]
Jefferson Smith: And, uh...
[he grabs the rule book]
Jefferson Smith: I, I call the chair's attention to... to, uh... Rule 5 of the Standing Rules of the Senate, Section... Section 3. "If it shall be found that a quorum is not present, a majority of the Senators present" - and that looks like me - uh, uh, "may direct the Sergeant-at-Arms to request, and if necessary compel, the attendance of the absent Senators." Well, Mr. President, I so direct.

Connexions:

figure dans "Dawson's Creek: The Reluctant Hero (#2.8)" (1998)

Bande son:

Yankee Doodle

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.