Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) |
|
| Director(s) | Frank Capra |
| Producer(s) | Frank Capra (uncredited) |
| Top Genres | Drama |
| Top Topics | Integrity, Justice, Politics, Romance (Drama), Washington D.C. |
Featured Cast of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington See More »
Jean Arthur(as Clarissa Saunders)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Jean Arthur
(as Clarissa Saunders)
James Stewart(as Jefferson Smith)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
James Stewart
(as Jefferson Smith)
Claude Rains(as Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Claude Rains
(as Sen. Joseph Harrison P...)
Edward Arnold(as Jim Taylor)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Edward Arnold
(as Jim Taylor)
Guy Kibbee(as Gov. Hubert Hopper)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Guy Kibbee
(as Gov. Hubert Hopper)
Thomas Mitchell(as Diz Moore)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Thomas Mitchell
(as Diz Moore)
Eugene Pallette(as Chick McGann)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Eugene Pallette
(as Chick McGann)
Beulah Bondi(as Ma Smith)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Released
1939
Beulah Bondi
(as Ma Smith)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Overview:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) was a Drama - Black-and-white Film directed by Frank Capra and produced by Frank Capra.
SYNOPSIS
Capra's enduring favorite has Stewart as the idealistic, yet naive, politician sent to Washington as junior senator who runs afoul of the political corruption in his state. Capra favorite Arthur plays his cynical secretary and Rains the powerful senior senator who expects Smith to be nothing more than a rubber stamp. As with the best of Capra's films, the sentiment and moralizing are kept in check by wonderful acting and genuine emotion. Based on Lewis R. Foster's novel The Gentleman from Montana.
(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1989.
Academy Awards 1939 --- Ceremony Number 12 (source: AMPAS)
| Award | Recipient | Result |
| Best Actor | James Stewart | Nominated |
| Best Supporting Actor | Harry Carey | Nominated |
| Best Supporting Actor | Claude Rains | Nominated |
| Best Art Direction | Lionel Banks | Nominated |
| Best Director | Frank Capra | Nominated |
| Best Film Editing | Gene Havlick, Al Clark | Nominated |
| Best Music - Scoring | Dimitri Tiomkin | Nominated |
| Best Picture | Columbia | Nominated |
| Best Writing | Lewis R. Foster | Won |
| Best Writing | Sidney Buchman | Nominated |
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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Quotes:
Jefferson Smith:
You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: I'm free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn't, I can, and my children will. Boys ought to grow up remembering that.
Senator Joseph Paine:
Let me go! I'm not fit to be a senator! I'm not fit to live! Expel me, not him! Willet Dam is a fraud! It's a crime against the people who sent me here - and I committed it! Every word that boy said is the truth! Every word about Taylor and me and graft and the rotten political corruption of my state! Every word of it is true! I'm not fit for office! I'm not fit for any place of honor or trust! Expel me, not that boy!
Senator Joseph Paine:
I wish to ask my distinguished colleague, has he one scrap of evidence to add now to the defense he did not give and could not give at that same hearing?
Jefferson Smith: I have no defense against forged papers!
Senator Joseph Paine: The Committee ruled otherwise! The gentleman stands guilty, as charged. And I believe I speak for every member when I say that no one cares to hear what a man of his condemned character has to say about any section of any legislation before this House.
President of Senate: Order, order, gentlemen.
Jefferson 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, and 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!
Senator Joseph Paine: Will the Senator yield?
Jefferson Smith: No, sir, I will not yield! And this same man, Mr. James Taylor, came down here and offered me a seat in this Senate for the next 20 years if I voted for a dam that he knew, and I knew, was a fraud. But if I dared to open my mouth against that dam, he promised to break me in two.
Jefferson Smith: I have no defense against forged papers!
Senator Joseph Paine: The Committee ruled otherwise! The gentleman stands guilty, as charged. And I believe I speak for every member when I say that no one cares to hear what a man of his condemned character has to say about any section of any legislation before this House.
President of Senate: Order, order, gentlemen.
Jefferson 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, and 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!
Senator Joseph Paine: Will the Senator yield?
Jefferson Smith: No, sir, I will not yield! And this same man, Mr. James Taylor, came down here and offered me a seat in this Senate for the next 20 years if I voted for a dam that he knew, and I knew, was a fraud. But if I dared to open my mouth against that dam, he promised to break me in two.
Jefferson Smith:
Well, what do you expect me to do? An honorary stooge like me against the Taylors and Paines and machines and lies?
Clarissa Saunders: Your friend, Mr. Lincoln had his Taylors and Paines. So did every other man who ever tried to lift his thought up off the ground. Odds against them didn't stop those men. They were fools that way. All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that. You know that, Jeff. 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. Yeah, so could the whole cockeyed world, a lot of it. Remember the first day you got here? Remember what you said about Mr. Lincoln? You said he was sitting up there, waiting for someone to come along. You were right. He was waiting for a man who could see his job and sail into it, that's what he was waiting for. A man who could tear into the Taylors and root them out into the open. I think he was waiting for you, Jeff. He knows you can do it, so do I.
Clarissa Saunders: Your friend, Mr. Lincoln had his Taylors and Paines. So did every other man who ever tried to lift his thought up off the ground. Odds against them didn't stop those men. They were fools that way. All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that. You know that, Jeff. 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. Yeah, so could the whole cockeyed world, a lot of it. Remember the first day you got here? Remember what you said about Mr. Lincoln? You said he was sitting up there, waiting for someone to come along. You were right. He was waiting for a man who could see his job and sail into it, that's what he was waiting for. A man who could tear into the Taylors and root them out into the open. I think he was waiting for you, Jeff. He knows you can do it, so do I.
Jefferson Smith:
Either I'm dead right, or I'm crazy!
See More Quotes from Mr. Smith Goes to WashingtonMr. Smith Goes to Washington Facts
See More Facts about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington >>
The Boy Scouts of America did not allow their brand to be used from the film, so Jefferson Smith got changed from being a Boy Scout leader to being a "Boy Ranger" leader.
Frank Capra and his crew went to Washington, DC, to film background material and to study the Senate chamber, which was replicated, full scale, in precise detail on the Columbia lot. James D. Preston, who was Capra's technical advisor for the Senate set and political protocol, was a former superintendent of the Senate press gallery.
Neither the Republican nor Democratic parties are ever mentioned in the film.
This film is one of five times that Beulah Bondi portrayed James Stewart's mother. The others are: It's a Wonderful Life, Of Human Hearts and Vivacious Lady, and once on his television series, The Jimmy Stewart Show.
One reason Frank Capra made this film was to help him get over the loss of his infant son, who had died following complications from a tonsillectomy. Initially Capra wanted to make a film about Frédéric Chopin, but Columbia head Harry Cohn nixed that on the grounds that it would be too expensive. Capra and Cohn were constantly at loggerheads over budgets, despite Capra being Columbia's most successful director with - at the time - two Oscars under his belt.