MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN by Frank Capra
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Direction: Frank Capra. Screenplay: Robert Riskin. Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Douglas Dumbrille, Lionel Stander, H.B. Warner, Ruth Donnelly, Raymond Walburn
Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, Frank Capra
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
There is a tendency among some to think that all the art produced by a great artist is great. This is false, but it gives cover for bad critics who just recycle old blurbs about said artist. Think of the fawning that goes on in discussions of Shakespeare. Yes, he was a great writer, though all but a dozen or so of his sonnets were mediocre tongue-twisters, and two-thirds of his thirty-seven known plays range from mediocre to terrible. In other words, by being uncritical one actually diminishes the great art that has been produced, for an uncritical stance makes it seem as if greatness is a quality alien to all but the blessed few. That sort of approach negates the hard work that all great endeavors require.
This thought was ubiquitous as I watched Frank Capra’s 1936 black-and-white classic Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, in many ways, a (lighter) precursor to the later Capra-Gary Cooper social drama Meet John Doe, as both films feature rags-to-riches tales in which men are manipulated by the women they love.
Adapted by longtime Capra collaborator and dialogue expert Robert Riskin from Clarence Budington Kelland’s story "Opera Hat," Mr. Deeds is, as all Capra fare, undeniably a good film. It is not, however, in a league with It’s a Wonderful Life or even the director’s 1934 Oscar-winner It Happened One Night. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town lacks the overall depth of the former (while being far more preachy) and the quick-paced, tart-tongued dialogue of the latter. (Mr. Deeds clocks in at 115 minutes.)
Despite the use of many familiar tropes, what sets Capra apart from lesser directors are his believable lesser characters, all of whom are given moments to shine. (Capra is much helped by Riskin’s peerless dialogue.) Add to that the director’s relentless glare at his leading actors’ characterizations, and his films — which with lesser directors would have become the cornfests his worst critics claim them to be — possess a grittiness akin to that of film noir.
The plot of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is quite simple.
Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), a greeting-card poet and tuba player, is a sweet Vermont relative of a millionaire. After inheriting twenty million dollars from his late uncle, Deeds, accompanied by his uncle’s slimy lawyer John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille) and PR man Cornelius Cobb (Lionel Stander), goes to New York City. The New York tabloids have a field day with the story, and one of the newspapers sends their top reporter, Louise ‘Babe’ Bennett (Jean Arthur), to get the scoop on ‘Cinderella Man.’
On the orders of her editor (George Bancroft), Babe poses as Mary Dawson. Under that guise, she slowly seduces Deeds. All the while, he tries to cope with hangers-on and assorted leeches. It is the Great Depression, after all.
Cedar tries to get Deeds to give him power of attorney so he can embezzle some of the money to pay off the debts of his law firm, but the apparently naive small-towner turns out to be a crafty businessman. When Cobb finds out that Babe has played Deeds, he tells him, breaking his heart. This after Deeds had proposed to her with the following poem:
I’ve tramped the earth with hopeless beat,
Searching in vain for a glimpse of you.
Then heaven thrust you at my very feet,
A lovely angel, too lovely to woo.
My dream has been answered, but my life’s just as bleak.
I’m handcuffed and speechless, in your presence divine.
For my heart longs to cry out, if it only could speak.
I love you, my angel, be mine, be mine.
Bad poetry or no, Babe has genuinely fallen in love with him.
Then comes the film’s weakest and most contrived moment — one that’s almost a deus ex machina in reverse (a deus ex homina?). An out of work farmer busts into Deeds’ mansion and threatens him with a gun. He scorns Deeds’ wealth and lack of concern for the poor. Considering that the man must have read about Deeds in the papers, this sequence is thoroughly unconvincing. Deeds comes from a regular background; he is not one of the idle rich.
The new millionaire reconciles with the angry man, feeds him, then decides to give away plots of land to dispossessed farmers. Cedar is aghast. The lawyer gets another relative and his shrewish wife to contest Deeds’ actions, and tries to get him declared insane.
Babe saves the day by finally getting Deeds to speak up for himself. It’s a corny moment, but so well written and acted that it overcomes the obvious melodrama. Deeds beats Cedar both intellectually and physically, and is declared sane by the judge. He is carried off by the farmers only to run back into Babe’s arms.
The acting is top notch. Cooper is … well, Gary Cooper — mixing strength and vulnerability in perfect amounts. Apart from his Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Mr. Deeds may be his best role. Jean Arthur, for her part, conveys both vulnerability and depth, something that a lesser actress would not have brought to the role. The rest of the cast, from Dumbrille’s lawyer and Stander’s gravelly voiced PR flack to the small-town nutty sisters played by Margaret Seddon and Margaret McWade, are all good. Even the actors playing Deeds’ manservants are convincing, especially in the echo scene in the manse’s parlor.
Joseph Walker’s cinematography is solid, while Howard Jackson’s musical score is standard screwball-comedy fare. But on a Capra film, it’s always the editing that is more important and Gene Havlick keeps Mr. Deeds moving briskly, especially during several sterling newspaper-headline montages. Havlick often cuts the film just a beat before its drama could turn maudlin, helping Capra dare the audience to be moved emotionally and then think about what they’ve seen. Capra was doing that decades before European directors of the 1960s made such a turn a staple for art-house cinema, which shows how ahead of the curve he was.
True, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town has the almost obligatory Capraesque small-town sendoff, as well as the singing of "Auld Lang Syne," but the weak moments are brief. In fact, it’s amazing that Capra could have pulled off such a film as well as he did.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was named best picture by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review, and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning Capra his second best director Oscar. The other nominations were for best picture, best actor (Cooper), best screenplay (Riskin), and best sound recording.
The Mr. Deeds Goes to Town DVD is part of the six-disc Frank Capra Collection. The picture quality is quite good, and the DVD comes with promotional materials, and a short interview with Frank Capra, Jr, who also provides the audio commentary. Capra Jr’s remarks are not that insightful, as they’re larded with aimless casting anecdotes and technical points of no interest, and is punctuated by long pauses.
Capra Jr. also spreads the tall tale that Riskin’s script invented the terms "pixilated" and "doodles." Not so, as any quick check of a dictionary will show. Yet, who can blame him for wanting to give even a bit more credit to his dad’s work? Junior, however, says his dad expressed dissatisfaction with Douglas Dumbrille’s Cedar, stating that Capra thought Dumbrille was not mean enough. This is unfortunate, since one of the film’s strengths is that Dumbrille’s heavy is wholly believable — even if not as wretched as Lionel Barrymore’s Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. But then again, how few heavies are?
All in all, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is Frank Capra in fine form, even if not at the top of his game. Although it’s true that not all art produced by a great artist is great, the opposite sentiment has merit: even the lesser art from great artists is better than much that is produced by lesser artists. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is proof of that claim.
© Dan Schneider
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Schneider, and they may not reflect the views of the Alternative Film Guide.
Six Screenplays by Robert Riskin
WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP / THE CITY UNDER THE SEA
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