An Enduring American Story

Last month marked the 85th anniversary of the release of my favorite film. Given the election results and concerns about political integrity, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is more relevant than ever.

After the director Frank Capra got hold of an unpublished short story about a young senator from Montana, his intention was to make a sequel to his “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” with Gary Cooper reprising his role as Longfellow Deeds. Because Cooper was unavailable, Capra then saw it immediately as a vehicle for Jimmy Stewart. Capra said of him: “He looked like the country kid, the idealist. It was very close to him.”

In January 1938, the story was submitted to the censors at the Hays Office. Joseph Breen, the head of that office, warned, “We would urge most earnestly that you take serious counsel before embarking on the production of any motion picture based on this story. It looks to us like one that might well be loaded with dynamite, both for the motion picture industry and for the country at large.” Breen specifically objected to “the generally unflattering portrayal of our system of Government.”

After the screenplay had been written and submitted, Breen reversed course, saying of the film, “It is a grand yarn that will do a great deal of good for all those who see it and, in my judgment, it is particularly fortunate that this kind of story is to be made at this time.”

The film was in production from April 3 to July 7, 1939. Some location shooting took place at Washington, D.C., locations. In the studio, to ensure authenticity, an elaborate set was created, consisting of Senate committee rooms, cloak rooms and hotel suites, as well as specific monuments. The major effort went into a faithful reproduction of the Senate Chamber on the studio lot.

Here’s the boiled-down plot: The governor of an unnamed western state, Hubert “Happy” Hopper, has to pick a replacement for the recently deceased U.S. Senator Sam Foley. His corrupt political boss, Jim Taylor, pressures Hopper to choose his handpicked stooge, Horace Miller, while others want a reformer, Henry Hill. The governor’s children want him to select Jefferson Smith (Stewart), the head of the Boy Rangers.

Unable to make up his mind between Taylor’s stooge and the reformer, Hopper decides to flip a coin. When it lands on edge — and next to a newspaper story on one of Smith’s accomplishments — he chooses Smith.

Junior Senator Smith is taken under the wing of the publicly esteemed, but secretly crooked, Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), who was Smith’s late father’s friend. Smith’s naive and honest nature allows the unforgiving Washington press to take advantage of him, quickly tarnishing Smith’s reputation with ridiculous front-page pictures and headlines branding him a bumpkin.

To keep Smith busy, Paine suggests he propose a bill. With the help of his secretary, Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur), who has been around Washington and politics for years, Smith comes up with a bill to authorize a federal government loan to buy some land in his home state for a national boys’ camp.

Donations pour in immediately. However, the proposed campsite is already part of a dam-building graft scheme included in an appropriations bill framed by the Taylor political machine and supported by Senator Paine.

Unwilling to crucify the worshipful Smith so that their graft plan will go through, Paine tells Taylor he wants out. But Taylor reminds him that Paine is in power primarily through Taylor’s influence.

The following day, when Smith speaks out about the bill in the Senate, the machine in his state accuses Smith of trying to profit from his bill by producing fraudulent evidence that Smith already owns the land in question. Smith is too shocked and angry by Paine’s betrayal to defend himself and runs away.

Saunders, who looked down on Smith at first, has come to believe in him, and talks him into returning and launching a filibuster on the Senate floor just before the vote to expel him.

In his last chance to prove his innocence, he talks nonstop for about 25 hours, reaffirming the American ideals of freedom and disclosing the dam scheme’s true motives. Although all hope seems lost, the senators begin to pay attention as Smith approaches utter exhaustion.

Paine has one last card up his sleeve: He brings in bins of letters and telegrams from Smith’s home state, purportedly from average people demanding his expulsion.

Nearly broken by the news, Smith finds a small ray of hope in a friendly smile from the president of the Senate. Smith vows to press on until people believe him, but immediately collapses in a faint.

Overcome with the pangs of remorse, Paine leaves the Senate chamber and attempts to commit suicide by gunshot but is stopped by other senators. He then bursts back into the Senate chamber, shouting a confession to the whole scheme.

When “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” premiered on October 17, 1939, it was attacked by the Washington press and some members of Congress as anti-American and pro-Communist for its portrayal of corruption in the U.S. government. Capra claims in his autobiography that some senators walked out of the premiere.

Alben Barkley, the Senate majority leader, thought the film “showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on record!”

But in Europe the movie was seen as a rallying cry for democracy and freedom. It was banned in Germany, Italy and Spain. When a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France in 1942, some theaters chose to show it as the last movie before the ban went into effect. One theater owner in Paris reportedly screened the film nonstop for 30 days after the ban was announced.

By the time “Mr. Smith” was released, war had begun in Europe. Both Capra and Stewart would soon be part of it. This film made Stewart a major star. He would get an Oscar the following year for “The Philadelphia Story,” then leave for five years in the Army Air Corps, flying dozens of missions as a bomber captain.

And the American public loved the film and its message: In that box office boom year of 1939, “Mr. Smith” was second only to “Gone With the Wind” in earnings.

Some stories don’t get old, even in politics.