(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Movie Review: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-21 … … … … SPOILER ALERT! If you’ve never seen Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, you undoubtedly have at least seen a clip from the movie where James Stewart, as the title character, Jefferson Smith, is employing the filibuster in the Senate. Even if you have seen the movie, however, this might be the only scene you can remember. Strictly speaking though, the filibuster doesn’t work, at least not in the sense we might have expected. It’s not as though, when Smith is through talking, enough senators are persuaded that he has been unjustly accused of graft to allow him to keep his seat in the Senate. No, toward the end of many hours of Smith’s speaking nonstop, fifty thousand telegrams from ordinary people are brought onto the Senate floor, denouncing Smith for corruption and calling for his expulsion. Utterly exhausted, Smith looks at some of the telegrams with tears in his eyes, and seeing that he has been defeated, collapses. How dark must be my soul that I wish the movie had ended right there! But before we get to how the movie did end, let us begin at the beginning. We see a reporter on the phone to his office in the middle of the night, saying that one of the senators of the state has just died. Then we see the other senator from that state, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), calling Governor Hopper (Guy Kibbee), telling him that he will need to appoint someone to take the senator’s place. In the other twin bed is Mrs. Hopper (Ruth Donnelly), who does not appreciate being awakened, and who makes sarcastic faces as she listens to her husband meekly take orders from Senator Paine. Normally, I wouldn’t make much of Mrs. Hopper, except that she is the only wife in this movie. In real life, there is nothing wrong with either having a wife or not having one. But in a movie, wives exist or not for a reason. In this movie, the role of this one and only wife is to inform us that Governor Hopper is a weak man. Senator Paine tells Governor Hopper to call political boss Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold). Taylor is not in bed, either with or without a wife. He is in the middle of a poker game, with his cronies, presumably. The next day, Senator Paine tells Taylor that he is worried about the Deficiency Bill. In it is a proposal for constructing a dam on Willet Creek in an area where a dam is really not needed. They have been secretly buying up all the property in the vicinity of the proposed dam under dummy names. Paine is worried that unless the man appointed to the Senate can be counted on not to ask questions, a scandal may break out. He thinks it might be better to let the Deficiency Bill die. Taylor tells him that might make things worse. He then tells Paine about the campaign he has started for him in all his newspapers, which means Paine may well end up being nominated for president at the national convention. Reluctantly, Paine agrees that Taylor’s choice for a replacement senator will allow the Deficiency Bill to proceed smoothly. Governor Hopper is then informed as to whom he should appoint. Hopper presents Taylor’s choice to various political committees, but they become furious, saying they want someone else instead, a man who would fight for reform. As this would likely be someone who would ask too many questions about the Deficiency Bill, Taylor tells Hopper that is out of the question. At the dinner table that night, Hopper’s own children, most of whom are boys, seem to be aware of Taylor’s influence over him, making fun of him, and they tell him that he should appoint Jefferson Smith, who is an expert in woodcraft and is head of the Boy Rangers. Smith recently made headlines when he singlehandedly put out a forest fire. Throughout this movie, Smith is associated with boys and nature, each of which is supposed to be indicative of his basic goodness. He apparently makes a living in his role as head of the Boy Rangers and by publishing Boy’s Stuff, a newspaper of interest to boys. Hopper decides to appoint Smith, and Paine and Taylor eventually agree that having a country bumpkin as senator will work in their favor, since he will be too naïve to interfere with their plans. And since Boy’s Stuff is read by fifty thousand boys, that means votes, since the boys have a hundred thousand parents. I guess girls can read the paper too, if they want. At the reception where Smith is being honored as the next senator from the state, he is seated next to his widowed mother, Ma Smith (Beulah Bondi), with whom he lives. In real life, people have different situations, so if a bachelor lives with his mother, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything one way or the other. But if a bachelor lives with his mother in a movie, that does mean something. In this case, by emphasizing his role as child of a parent, it reinforces the boyish nature of Jefferson Smith. No mention is made of Smith’s education level. Once again, in real life, a man’s education level has no special significance by itself. But in a movie like this, reference to his education is avoided for a reason. For one thing, we are supposed to think of Smith as being naïve, and his having a Bachelor of Arts in journalism, for example, would have worked against his supposed lack of sophistication. For another thing, he is too much like a boy for us to imagine him in college. Physiologically he may be sexually mature, but psychologically he seems prepubescent. I have a hard enough time imagining him in high school. To say he is a virgin is an understatement. We cannot even picture him taking a woman out on a date and giving her a goodnight kiss. It is at the reception that Senator Paine realizes that Jefferson Smith’s father was Clayton Smith, when Jefferson tells of how the senator and his father went to school together and were great friends, recalling how his father said, “Joe Paine was the finest man he ever knew.” The next day, while on the train the two men are taking to Washington, D.C., they reminisce. Paine talks of how he and Clayton were both “champions of lost causes” when they were young. Clayton was the editor of a “little four-page paper,” which Paine compares to Jefferson and his little paper, Boy’s Stuff. Paine then recalls Clayton’s last fight, which was against a mining syndicate: “And all to defend the right of one small miner who stuck to his claim. They tried everything. Bribery, intimidation... And then...” Jefferson finishes the thought, telling of how his father was found murdered, shot in the back, slumped over his desk. He concludes, “I suppose when a fellow bucks up against a big organization like that, one man by himself can’t get very far.” The story of how one man went up against a ruthless organization and was defeated prepares us for what will be Jefferson Smith’s similar struggle and defeat later in the movie. Smith gets to Washington D.C. in all his wide-eyed, open-mouthed innocence. He actually says, “Gee whiz!” on four different occasions. He wanders off, visiting the monuments. He looks affectionately down at a little boy reading out loud the Gettysburg Address that is inscribed on a wall, once more establishing an association between him and young boys. In the meantime, we are introduced to the woman assigned to be his secretary, a hardboiled dame who is referred to by everyone as Saunders (Jean Arthur). She is contacted by Senator Paine’s assistant, Chick McGann (Eugene Pallette), who is desperately trying to find out where Smith has disappeared to. She derisively refers to Smith as Daniel Boone, once more establishing a connection between him and nature. Incidentally, she already has suspicions about the proposed Willet Creek Dam. Eventually, Smith shows up. When surrounded by reporters, asking if he has any ideas he’d like to promote now that he’s a senator, Smith says he’d like to have a National Boys Camp in his state, to get the boys off the city streets, letting them spend a few months in the country during the summer, where they could “learn something about nature and American ideals.” I’m sure the boys would learn about nature, but exactly how being out in the woods can teach them anything about American ideals is beyond me. Let me try to imagine it: “Look at that stream, boys. The water moves freely, and freedom is one of the American ideals.” Or possibly, “It has started raining, and we are all getting wet, because all men are created equal.” This is to be distinguished from the conservative notion that people who live in rural communities or small towns are morally superior to people who live in the city. We saw that idea fully developed in Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). However dubious these claims about shaping character may be, at least we understand them. But that is to be distinguished from the claim that being out in the woods will teach boys about things like democracy, liberty, and equality, and do so in a manner that cannot be done in a city. As for getting girls off the city streets and into the woods where they can learn about nature and American ideals, Smith isn’t concerned about them. But I digress. The reporters get Smith to pose for pictures making bird calls, and they quote some of the things he says, making him appear to be ridiculous. This makes him furious. Like Longfellow Deeds in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Smith becomes violent. He seeks out the reporters and punches each one of them in the face. As with Deeds, we are supposed to applaud this behavior as being righteous. The basic goodness of men like Longfellow Deeds and Jefferson Smith, associated with small towns and rural communities, is not inconsistent with their physical attacks on others. They are men of honor, totally justified in defending that honor with their fists when subjected to scorn or ridicule by the words of those that are smarter, better educated, and more sophisticated. In neither movie are these two men arrested for assault. Realizing that the reporters he punched in the face are right, that he is just an honorary stooge, he goes to Senator Paine in hopes that he can become more knowledgeable about things. Paine encourages Smith to work on a bill for his National Boys Camp, imagining this will keep Smith out of the way. As it turns out, Smith figures he will need about two hundred acres for his project in the very area where Paine and Taylor have been buying land for the Willet Creek Dam. While all this is going on, we see that the Senate swarms with pages, who are young boys. The principal one is played by Dickie Jones, who was twelve years old at the time. All the other boys seem to be about the same age. Pages that young did exist in the Senate at the time this movie was made, but nothing like this has ever been seen in any other movie set in the United States Senate. In Advise & Consent (1962), for example, we don’t see any young boys at all. By this time, I hardly need to point out that this is the movie’s umpteenth way of making the association between Smith and young boys. But as if that isn’t enough, Capra takes things one step further. Initially, Saunders expresses her exasperation at having to deal with Smith: “Me sitting around playing straight for that phony patriotic chatter. Carrying bibs for an infant with little flags in his fist.” But after helping him write his bill and guide him on how to proceed in the Senate from her seat in the gallery, she tells reporter Diz Moore (Thomas Mitchell) how her feelings for Smith had changed: “I felt just like a mother sending the kid off to school for the first time. Watching her little fellow toddling off in his best bib and tucker. Hoping he can stand up to the other kids.” At a later point in the movie, Taylor refers to Smith as a “drooling infant.” Capra seems to be embracing a philosophy especially associated with that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his book Émile, Rousseau averred that “all is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things, all degenerates in the hands of men.” In an earlier work, Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Men, he argued that it is civilization that has corrupted man; for in a state of nature, he is noble and good. Modern liberal thought has been the heir to this legacy from the Enlightenment. Liberal politicians and social scientists, following in the footsteps of Rousseau, typically find the source of evil to lie in social influences, such as poverty, drugs, child abuse, and penal institutions, rather than in the individual himself. Man, after all, is basically good. If a man becomes a criminal, it is because society has corrupted him. Conservative thinkers, on the other hand, tend to place the blame for crime on the criminal himself. If a man breaks the law, he alone is responsible. If anything, conservatives tend to accept the Christian doctrine of original sin, that man is basically evil. So, it is paradoxical that Capra, a conservative Republican, would be espousing the liberal philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, first by establishing an association between Smith and nature, and second by emphasizing his childlike mentality. The younger a person is in Rousseau’s philosophy, the less chance there is for him to have been corrupted by civilization. Hence, the need to push Smith’s psychological age back toward infancy. In any event, when Senator Paine hears that Smith’s bill involves the same land that he and Taylor have planned for their Willet Creek Dam, they try to talk Smith out of promoting his bill for a National Boys Camp. Smith refuses, and the next day, on the floor of the Senate, Smith begins to raise objections to the part of the Deficiency Bill that proposes the building of the Willet Creek Dam. At that point, Paine accuses Smith of having secretly bought up the land in that area in order to make money selling the land for his National Boys Camp, should that bill pass, and calls for Smith’s expulsion from the Senate. Paine and Taylor have had documents forged with Smith’s signature to support that claim, which they bring before the Committee for Privileges and Elections. Although I am primarily interested in the ideology being presented in this movie, I cannot allow this to pass without noting a logical absurdity. The charge against Smith is that he has secretly bought up the land around Willet Creek, hoping to make a big profit if his bill for the National Boys Camp is passed. But all Smith needed to do at his hearing before the Committee for Privileges and Elections was to point out that if he had surreptitiously bought up that land in hopes of making a lot of money, he would simply have supported the Deficiency Bill and made the same amount of money, if not more, when the Willet Creek Dam was built. However, it does not occur to anyone to make this point. And so, we now arrive at the iconic filibuster. Smith holds the floor for hours, accusing Paine and Taylor of corruption. Saunders passes Smith a note, telling him she is in love with him. He is exhilarated, giving him the energy to continue the filibuster. Because Taylor owns or controls newspapers and radio stations, he has them spread the lies about Smith back in his state and around the nation. To counter this, Saunders comes up with the idea of having Boy’s Stuff print the truth. She calls Smith’s mother, who agrees with the idea. During their conversation, Smith’s mother calls Saunders “Clarissa,” and she calls her “Ma.” It is clear that Saunders and Smith will get married when this is over. However, if you think there will be a final scene in which Jefferson takes Clarissa in his arms and kisses her, you haven’t been paying attention. As for Saunder’s idea about using Boy’s Stuff to get out the truth, Taylor’s henchmen destroy the papers as they are being distributed, assault the boy in charge of printing them, and run a bunch of boys off the road, injuring them. Ma Smith tells Saunders they have to stop. And then arrive the fifty thousand telegrams accusing Smith of graft. It was bad enough having to be attacked by Taylor’s political machine, and especially hurtful to be betrayed by Paine, but when the ordinary citizens from all around the nation send telegrams denouncing Smith, that is what really breaks his heart. He manages to say a few words to Paine, reminding him about the lost causes he once believed in. Smith then vows to continue, but it’s too much for him, and he collapses. There is just one thing Paine needed to do at this point: Nothing. Smith would have been expelled and sent back home. Paine and Taylor would have made millions on the land around Willet Creek after the Deficiency Bill passed. And Paine would have gone on to become president of the United States. Instead, what follows takes less than two minutes. Paine leaves the floor of the Senate, and then a shot is heard. He had become so overwhelmed by Smith’s noble stand, and by his own wicked behavior, that he had taken out his pistol and tried to commit suicide. When prevented from doing so, he rushes onto the floor of the Senate, saying that he has been lying about Smith, and that everything Smith has been saying is true. Pandemonium breaks out as Smith’s limp body is carried off the floor. The End. 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