Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936) Director: Frank Capra
“People here are funny. They work so hard at living they forget how to live.”
★★★★★
Starring Gary Cooper and Arthur Jean, Mr. Deeds Goes To Town is a charming tale of small town dreams and big city delusions. It is based on a short story “Opera Hat” by Clarence Budington Kelland in 1935, which was originally published as a serial in American Magazine, and it reflects Frank Capra’s trademark brand heartwarming, sentimental elevation of good-natured heroes who are innocent and charitable toward their fellow citizens. Admittedly, I am a sucker for inspiring tales like this which encourage a little less greed in American society. The film poses simple moral questions about the true meaning of wealth, philanthropy, and the power of civic virtue –especially during times of great economic duress, like the Great Depression.
Mr. Deeds Goes To Town is about Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), a slightly eccentric tuba player for a local band in the small town of Mandrake Falls, New Hampshire. He works as a poet and writes lines for greeting cards. Suddenly, his wealthy uncle dies and Longfellow unwittingly inherits a vast fortune of $20 million (an extraordinary amount of money in the 1930s). He is summoned to New York City to claim the fortune where a conniving law firm tries desperately to become his power of attorney in order to claim a portion of his wealth. In addition, Louise “Babe” Bennett (Jean Arthur), a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for a newspaper, mischievously devises a scheme to get a story out of a small town rube like Deeds, though after she discovers his true nature –that he is actually a genuine, kind-hearted gentleman who is truly uninterested in his fortune– she falls in love with him. However, Deeds soon learns the truth about the morality of people in the big city: that everyone has been trying to exploit, embarrass, and mock him. He eventually decides to give away all of his money to the farmers who have been left out of work during the Great Depression in a plan to provide them each with the opportunity to work on a 10-acre farm along with access to supplies (if they work the farm for three years they may be granted ownership of the land). Upon realizing the money will all be lost, the law firm files suit against Deeds on charges of insanity. Deeds eventually wins on his own testimony and he and Louise are reunited in embrace.
Notably, Mr. Deeds Goes To Town was the start of a trio of classic Hollywood collaborations between actress Jean Arthur and director Frank Capra, which included classics like You Can’t Take It With You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) –the latter of which was initially planned to be a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. Interestingly enough, Jean Arthur didn’t think much of her performance in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, she didn’t sit down to actually watch the film until decades later in the 1970s. The film was later reimagined with Mr. Deeds (2002) starring Adam Sandler and Winona Ryder.
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Credits
- Directed by: Frank Capra
- Screenplay by: Robert Riskin
- Based on: “Opera Hat,” a 1935 story in American Magazine by Clarence Budington Kelland
- Produced by: Frank Capra
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper…..Longfellow Deeds
- Jean Arthur…..Babe Bennett
- George Bancroft…..MacWade
- Lionel Stander…..Cornelius Cobb
- Douglass Dumbrille…..John Cedar
- Cinematography: Joseph Walker, a.s.c.
- Edited by: Gene Havlick
- Music by: Howard Jackson
- Production Company: Columbia Pictures