Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Columbia Pictures
Director: Frank Capra
Starring: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur

Honors:
Academy Award for Best Director
Best Film, National Board of Review
Best Picture, New York Film Critics
#70 on AFI Top 100 Laughs (2000)
#83 on AFI Top 100 Cheers (2001)

After producing and directing a film with the surprising and unprecedented success of sweeping through all the major awards at the Oscars with It Happened One Night, bringing major notoriety to the “poverty row” studio Columbia Pictures, Frank Capra now had the daunting task of following up with an equally entertaining feature. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town has the perfect mix of a heartfelt story, humor, a moral lesson, and the image of wholesome American values that Frank Capra would seem throughout his career to will into existence. A story of a good, decent man thrown into the big city with the world of the wealthy social elite and how their clash of ideals would make for one 1936’s best pictures and all time classic Capra film. Capra was now cementing himself as one the industry’s best storytellers, with power over his own studio like few directors would, creating a masterful picture that would be loved for years by many.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a comedy of a small town American man suddenly thrown into the world of the nation’s most wealth and powerful elite as he inherits a vast fortune, and how many of the new people that now surround him try to manipulate him for their own gain. Longfellow Deed (Gary Cooper), an upright, moral, simple man from a small town in New England is suddenly the inheritor of a $20 million fortune being the closest living relative of this uncle who passed away. He is swept away to New York City were his simple ways clash with the lawyers, social elite, and other businessmen that he now has to deal with taking his uncle’s place in the fortune. Reporter “Babe” Bennett (Jean Arthur) finds Deeds as a source of great tabloid material. Posing as his romantic dream girl, a girl named Mary from a small town whom he rescues from distress, fitting his chivalrous romantic mindset. Longfellow’s becomes jaded when he discovers that the women he thought he was in love with is in fact using him for tabloid purposes and making a profit doing it, he decides to leave New York and give away the fortune to those impoverished by the Great Depression.

With the distrust of the his uncle’s business partners fearing he is wasting his money by giving it away to those in need, and with Babe’s unflattering news stories making Deeds look like a small town hick Longfellow is arrested and tried for insanity, halting his giving away of the money. At first he does not defend himself, disgusted by the people of the city and not caring about the money he does not want. Babe is the only one willing to stand up for him at the trial, hoping to turn Deeds around. This spurs Deeds to stand up for himself and make his case that he fights for the common man, damaging the image of the greedy men attempting to steal his money.

It’s an all-American story with all-American values. Okay, maybe this would not happen in real life, but Frank Capra through this film makes you believe that it is possible a man with such great standing character can stand up against the greediness and poor morals of others to represent the good of the common man. It is a feel good story with plenty of humor that keeps you entertained by the simple joys of life, not caring about things that make one crave more money or power. Longfellow Deeds is a naive man, but an intelligent person, and a romantic artist at heart, seen by his greeting card poems and tuba playing, who cares about the overall happiness or all.

From the beginning of the writing phase to the final edit, this is Frank Cara’s picture. For the first time his name was allow to be placed above the title of the feature, a right he earned from studio head Harry Cohn after the success of It Happened One Night. From his cinematography to its editing, Capra is the master artist of this simple hearted picture. He moves the camera to bring energy to the scene. He moves in when emotion is high. He adds gags to keep the picture from getting too sappy, as seen when Cooper trips over a trash can after professing his love to Babe, playing her Mary character, while she too is falling for him. Capra does not need to show you all the action, knowing when the imagination of the audience is more effective than actually showing events, in cases like more crashing noises as Deeds keeps running out of frame, or the story that keeps popping up of Deeds feeding donuts to a horse. It is hard to think of a frame that could be added to make this picture better executed than it already is by Fran Capra. For his work Capra would receive his second award for best directing by the Academy.

The cast of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town would be story in itself. Capra from the beginning wanted Gary Cooper to be his Longfellow Deeds, and despite Cooper being busy when it came to shoot the picture Capra put the production on hold to wait for when he could start on this film. As the saying goes “time is money” in Hollywood, and legend has it that by holding on to the production for Cooper the cost the budget to go up a near $100,000 sending the total budget to be over $800,000, and large sum for  such a film, especially for  the small Columbia Pictures studio. Cooper, after years of building his star image, had his  performance pay off with his Oscar nomination for best actor, his first of what would be five time.

The casting of Babe would prove to be more difficult. Originally Carole Lombard was set for the role, but she broke off the role to work on My Man Godfrey instead. To make matters worse she did so three days before principle photography. This caused for the film to begin by shooting around the female lead role until Capra could find a fill-in. Chance would have Capra discover Jean Arthur while looking through little known screen tests. Loving her demeanor and voice, Capra found her girl. Harry Cohn felt otherwise. Arthur was a nobody, a girl with minor film experience and no star to her name. Capra insisted and got her the part. Her performance was exactly what he needed in the role of Babe, but she proved to be difficult to deal with as an actress, getting camera shy, locking herself in her dressing room, arriving late, and stating that her hair and make-up were not ready. This entire headache would go away when camera finally started to role and gave a wonderful performance of a girl that was won over by Deeds. This feature would launch her career.

It is hard to believe, but Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was in fact a bigger success than It Happened One Night at the box office. It Happened One Night was a sleeper of a hit that almost out of nowhere won all those Academy Awards. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town more road off the coattails of the previous film’s success and the name it gave to Frank Capra and Columbia Pictures. This feature would be nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Sound Recording, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor(Cooper), Best Director, and be up for Best Picture. It would only take home the statue for directing for Capra, but the film was great enough to be awarded best feature by both The New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, two highly regarded panels of film connoisseurs

Still hailed as a classic Capra film and a classic feature in general, the film would inspire other forms of the story to be made.  Comedian Adam Sandler would remake the film in 2002 with his own quirky, screwball comedy, with heavy inspirations to this original picture. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town itself is a screwball comedy as well with moments of shear silliness, such as the yelling in the mansion for the echo by many of it helping hands. American Film Institute would honor the feature on its tops lists of Top Laughs (complied in 2000), landing at #70, and Top Cheers (a list from 2006), and sitting at #83. It just goes to show how a well done film would remain so entertaining after so many years.