Risselada Blog

Under discussion:

Film Name  Production Year

It's a Wonderful Life  (1946)

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town  (1936)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  (1939)

This blog entry is part of my "movie year countdown round #2".  Read more about that here.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Mr. Frank Capra scores a hat trick with me!  This is the third film of his I have seen, and I give all three a perfect score of 10 out of 10.  No man can craft a better sappy, emotionally manipulative story that absolutely works for me!  There's no mystery to these stories.  With this film, It's a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the stories are clearly about a pure man of innocence and morals in a world that seems to be all against him but reveals itself to be full of many people just as good as him.

Why do Capra's movies of this sort work over other formulaic films that attempt the same kinds of sappy stories?  Well on one side it's clearly excellence in all of the major aspects of solid movie making of this type.  Fantastic writing, filming and editing, and perfect casting and acting, especially for the leads.  On the other side, it must be just a kind of mysterious magic that Capra possesses.  Some people just have the intuition for certain things, and for Capra it was presenting you with this kind of sappy story without making you feel guilty for feeling emotional.  Well, that's the way it works for me at least.

Rating: 10/10