“Mr. Smith” is not only one of the greatest films ever made, but it also shows the love that Mr. Capra had for his adopted country.  For those of you that do not know, Frank Capra was an Italian immigrant.  He came to this country with his family as a young man and somehow ended up in Los Angeles during the early years of the motion picture industry.  He started in silent films as basically a gopher and eventually became one of the top five directors of the Golden Age of Motion Pictures.  Some would even argue today that he is one of the top five directors of all time.

In addition to “Mr. Smith,” Capra is also responsible for some of the great motion pictures of all time.  Among them are “It Happened One Night,” “Meet John Doe,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take it With You,” and, of course, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  From 1933 to 1946, Capra was nominated for six Academy Awards for Best Director and won three.  “It Happened One Night” was the first movie to sweep the Oscars in all five major categories.  This did not happen again until “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” in 1975.  It has only happened once since.

Capra single-handedly kept Columbia Pictures afloat.  He was the first of the star directors and one of the first to have his name about the title.  His movies were not just movies, they were Frank Capra movies.  And, they were basically all the same.  It was the little man taking on the establishment and usually winning.  Many of the current Hollywood stars love Capra and emulate him.  In fact, Adam Sandler has already remade two of Capra’s films, one directly and one indirectly; “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” and “Click” was basically a remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

In “Mr. Smith,” Jefferson Smith, as portrayed by Jimmy Stewart, is appointed to the Senate from a small western state as a result of the death of the sitting Senator.  He is appointed with the intent of the political machine in his home state to maintain the status quo and to protect the illicit dealing of those in charge.  He is not supposed to upset the apple cart.

However, the machine in power underestimates Smith.  They see him as a dumb patriotic man who could be manipulated and controlled.  But, his patriotism and his love for the people create just the opposite.  He believes in the “city on the hill,” as did Ronald Reagan.  He believes that good will always triumph and that the evil and greedy will be defeated.

When he uncovers a scam within his state to further enrich the machine at the expense of young boys, he takes the machine on.  The machine fights back with all its force and attempts to destroy Smith.  But, Smith uses the rules of the Senate to his advantage and begins a 24-hour filibuster in an attempt to save himself and destroy the machine.  This last 15 minutes of the movie contains some of the most patriotic speeches ever put on film.  Smith quotes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bible.  And, each of these quotes and dialogue in between show both Smith (and Capra’s) love for this country and its ideals.  It is without a doubt one of the most powerful 15 minutes in any movie ever made.

Another very poignant point of the film occurs when Smith first arrives in Washington.  Instead of going to his office and being controlled by his handlers, Smith wonders off and begins a tour of historical Washington.  The tour takes him to all of the major sites in the nation’s capital.  This sequence reaches its climax at the Lincoln Memorial where Smith sees a little boy reading the Gettysburg Address out loud to his dad.  During the sequence, Capra cuts to Smith and various other bystanders at the memorial including a black man.  Every line of the Address takes on a new meaning and leads us to an emotional high.  It is film making at its best.

In closing, I recommend that every one watch this movie and many of other Capra films.  You should also look up the series of war films that were made by Capra in response to WWII.  These films, known as the “Why We Fight” series, were made at the request of the War Department to educate the public on the reasons the US entered the conflict.  They too are very patriotic and full of Capra’s love for his country.

I just wonder, why doesn’t Hollywood show it’s love for America anymore?  Why does the product coming out of my industry only show the bad and not the good?  I just cannot answer that question!

Hillsdale Feels a Lot Like Yeshiva

Growing up in Brooklyn, I attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush, an Orthodox elementary school. Every morning, we solemnly recited the Pledge of Allegiance and then sang the Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, thus affirming our loyalty to America and our love of Zion.

At Hillsdale College, before every lunch and dinner, I am delighted to report, we recite the Pledge of Allegiance and then a student leads us in a prayer.

Hillsdale is a non-denominational college, but the spirit of Judeo Christianity is alive and well.

I am more than comfortable here at Hillsdale, I feet right at home.

And the films of 1939 that are screened, though I have seen every one of the films many times, take on a new meaning for me, aided immeasurably by the fine lectures delivered by David Thomson, Dan Ford, Scott Eyman and Peter Bogdanovich.

Ernst Lubitsch.

Lubitsch Touches Me

Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas, and directed by Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) is, for my money, the best and most effective anti-Communist film ever made. The reason is simple: Lubitsch was far more concerned with making breezy entertainment than mind bending propaganda.

Working from a pitch perfect script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, the anti-Communist zingers come fast and furious. It’s a wonderful sleight of hand, pointing out that Communism is, literally, a genocidal machine, but doing it with wit and elegance.

For example.

Ninotchka: “The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.”

Scott Eyman, the distinguished film historian and author of the excellent, Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, explains that Ninotchka was not really a film Lubitsch wanted to make. But he agreed to direct the Garbo vehicle if MGM would allow him to direct The Shop Around the Corner. In short, for Lubitsch, Ninotchka was primarily a bargaining chip.

The Shop Around the Corner is a lovely and touching film, but it’s a bit too precious for my taste. We can be thankful that L.B. Mayer practically forced Lubitsch into Ninotchka. Though Lubitsch was one of the most commercial of directors, even he didn’t always realize which material was best suited to his talents.

Early in my career, actually before I had a career, and before I wrote Body Double for Brian De Palma, the great screenwriter and frequent Lubitsch collaborator, Samson Raphaelson offered to read one of my spec scripts and give me his feedback.

Excited and frightened at meeting the legendary screenwriter, I sat in Raphaelson’s New York apartment and waited for his notes. He was, at the time, quite old, but his mind was exceptionally sharp and before discussing my script Raphaelson told me a bit about working with Lubitsch.

Said Raphaelson, “The Lubitch touch is all about what you don’t show, what you leave to the imagination. It’s about restraint.”

Finally, Raphaelson handed me my script. Great blocks of dialogue and description were thickly crossed out. And one word was repeatedly scribbled in the margins: “Too much!”

As Eyman beautifully summarizes, a Lubitsch film is the equivalent of Cartier jewelry or a Faberge egg.

A Definite Rabbi Vibe

I’m scheduled to interview Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, for about ten, fifteen minutes, but something clicks and we end up shmoozing for about an hour.

Larry P. Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College, is a leading authority on Winston Churchill, having served as director of research for Churchill’s biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, now an adjunct professor at Hillsdale.

Dr. Arnn is charming and brilliant, but he doesn’t beat you over the head with his intellect. He smiles a lot, laughs easily, and even when he’s quoting Dewey or Hegel, he does it in such a way that yours truly does not feel like a complete moron.

But more than brilliant, Arnn is wise, and when describing Dr. Arnn to my wife Karen, I say: “He’s got that definite Rabbi vibe.”

Primarily, I want to know what happened to American education. At what point did American universities turn into petri dishes for radical leftist thought and action.

Dr. Arnn has obviously given this matter a great deal of thought and he launches into a discussion of German political philosophy—why am I not surprised?—and its belief in the State over the individual, redistribution of wealth, and the use of government to control all aspects of society. Under the influence of European style statists, Dr. Arnn explains, American intellectuals of the left and their home universities are no longer satisfied with learning and understanding, but determined to undertake the role of creators, inventing political models that are in direct conflict with the Constitution and American values.

We move from German philosophy to the movies.

“What’s your favorite movie,” asks Dr. Arnn.

“The Seven Samurai,” I immediately reply, “it’s the perfect action movie and a moral fable that is eternally relevant.”

I ask Dr. Arnn about film programs at Hillsdale and he tells me that it’s something he’s been thinking about establishing for quite a while.

“It’s important, ” I say with fanatic/lunatic conviction, “Movies are the most powerful propaganda tool in the history of the world. In fact, if Hollywood does not support an American war, well, you can be sure America will lose that war. Most important, movies—even the dumbest horror film—is a moral landscape and Hillsdale students must be given the proper tools so they can go to Hollywood and make an impact.”

“Where should we start?” Asks Dr. Arnn.

“In the beginning was the word, isn’t that in the Christian bible? You start with the script, everything flows from the screenplay.”

And before I know it, I agree, at some future date, and depending upon availability, to conduct an advanced screenwriting workshop at Hillsdale.

Did I mention that Dr. Arnn is most persuasive?

Peter Bogdanovich Isn’t Interested in Blue People

The final film in the Hillsdale program is, quite appropriately, Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a classic fable of American ideals in conflict with political corruption.

The great American director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich—The Last Picture Show, (1971) Paper Moon, (1973) and They All Laughed (1981) are masterpieces—delivers a sublime lecture on The Art of Frank Capra.

Frank Capra, 1897-1991.

Bogdanovich loves the movies and his affection for classic Hollywood is infectious. Bogdanovich started out as an actor, but “when I realized that I could never be a big star, I switched to writing and then directing.”

Over his long career as film journalist and director the 71-year old Bogdanovich knew and interviewed almost every important Hollywood star and director. He was close with Hitchcock and his imitation of the droll master of suspense is, well, masterful.

On directing: Capra told that Bogdanovich that the essence of directing is making decisions. “Half the time you’ll be wrong, but the important thing is to make the decision.”

On pacing: Capra explained that for some mysterious reason film has a tendency to slow things down. So to make action in a film appear normal, it’s necessary to pick up the pace.

It Happened One Night, 1934, the film that catapulted Capra, and Columbia Pictures into the Hollywood stratosphere, is where the fast Capra pace works in perfect harmony with the story. The scenes between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert crackle with energy and sexual tension. The lightning fast exchanges feel absolutely natural, but there’s nothing normal about the pace. It’s total artifice and it works.

Like Bogdanovich, I prefer It Happened One Night and It’s a Wonderful Life to Capra’s more socially conscious movies. There’s something quite pure about these two movies. Capra does not hammer you over the head with a message. Instead, he probes life, love and the quirks of his very human characters.

In the question and answer period—he’s a great raconteur—Bogdanovich  admits that he’s not interested in special effects, CGI, or movies about blue people.

“That stuff bores me silly,” he says.

The Hillsdale audience applauds.

A few years ago, Ellen Burstyn asked me to write Within These Walls a television movie in which she would star.

On location, I told the Oscar winning actress the first time I ever saw her was in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show.

“You were brilliant,” I said. “Totally knocked me out.”

Ellen, generous as well as hugely talented, said: “Yeah, well, Peter’s a pretty great director.”

Indeed, Peter Bogdanovich will go down in the history books as not only a very great director, but one of our most important and perceptive film historians.

Marieke van der Vaart, a Hillsdale student, interviewed Bogdanovich.

Against the Grain

In my last dinner at Hillsdale, a young woman, a student, sits next to me and we fall into easy conversation.

“What prompted you to come to Hillsdale,” I ask.

“The funny thing is, I wanted to go to a big University in Chicago, but a friend told me about Hillsdale and I came here for a visit. Pretty soon, I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted, out of college, out of life. It became clear to me that Hillsdale was the place where I could discover the truth.”

“You do realize that Hillsdale goes against the grain of contemporary intellectual fashion?” I say.

The young student, just a freshman, smiles and says: “Not only do I realize it, but I’m proud of it.”

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But America’s abundance does not apply to movies about Thanksgiving.  Certainly some exist, but if you review a list of movies about Thanksgiving, the sad fact is that there are very few good ones.  Many are PC retellings of the original Thanksgiving story – one guess as to who the villains are (Hint:  It’s the dudes with buckles on their hats).  Others are tiresome melodramas about “quirky” families that reaffirm their bonds over plates of turkey, with “quirky” — meaning “annoying.” 

There simply is not a worthy list of Top Movies about Thanksgiving to be made, but there is a solid list of Eight Great Movies for Thanksgiving.  These are films that embody, in some way, what Thanksgiving really means.  You are free to disagree with the choices – as some Marines recently did regarding another list – but the freedom to think for yourself is but one of many things to be thankful for.  Maybe these movies don’t all feature turkey and trimmings – though a couple of them do – but you can’t go wrong with them this Thanksgiving Day:

1.   A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving:  No, this is not a movie.  So sue me.  Anyone who grew up in the 70’s or 80’s remembers this classic cartoon version of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang’s turkey day.  But this is not just for kids.  One of the interesting things about Charles Schultz’s kid characters is how utterly mercenary and oblivious they can be, latching onto the crassest materialism and taking what they have completely for granted.  Their behavior is really awful – much like the behavior of many adults.  But leave it to good ole Charlie Brown and his quietly intelligent pal Linus to get them to focus on what’s important.  There is a reason that, even today, every kid my kids have a play date with has a DVD of this treasure on the shelf between the Dora the Explorer and the Robo-transmorphatron adventures.

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2.  Bolt:  You know, Disney sure comes in for a lot of grief – some of it deserved – but this animated story of a little girl and her loyal dog is fantastic on every level.  It’s a technical marvel – the visuals are stunning.  But it’s more than that.  The ending is a powerful evocation of a family learning to appreciate what is important.  Throughout, it’s sad, funny, and stirring, plus it carries a powerful message about bravery and sacrifice.  When Bolt refuses to leave his little girl as a building burns around them, all I could think of is how great it was to finally see a movie that honors courage without turning it into some sort of ironic joke.

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3.  The Wizard of Oz:  This is a Thanksgiving perennial on those non-communist Ted Turner networks.  This vivid fantasy is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and still kicks butt over just about everything that’s been released since.  You can even see its cultural impact in the Avatar trailer, where the grizzled Marine commander announces to his troops: “You’re not in Kansas anymore.”  There are flying monkeys, melting witches, dwarfs and/or midgets – plus a wonderful lesson about being thankful for what you have been given.   What more could you want?

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4.  The Shawshank Redemption:  This grim prison drama is included for one reason – the scene where the clever Tim Robbins makes a deal with the guards to do a hot, dirty job for them and ends up enjoying a bucket of cold Cokes on the roof with Morgan Freeman and their pals.  That scene provides some useful perspective about the meaning and value of material goods, enjoying the fruits of one’s labors, and the importance of freedom.

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5.  The Sound of Music:  Yeah, it’s a little on the sugary side.  And yeah, I have a beef with it because it gave my mother the bright idea to inflict the first name of one of the lederhosen-clad yodelers upon me.  But this is a true family film in every sense of the word – it both celebrates family and you can safely watch it with your family without having to worry that you’ll end up having to explain some manner of perversion to your five-year old.  The widower Baron von Trapp falls for the beautiful governess he hires to wrangle his Teutonic task force during the first two thirds of the film.  The last act focuses on their attempt to flee Austria after the Nazis decide to “invite” the Baron to take a commission in the German navy.  Christopher Plummer’s righteous anger as he tears down a swastika flag will thrill anyone with a love of freedom, and his composure as he faces down the young brownshirt is awesome.  The von Trapps do, of course, escape (though not necessarily to “Climb Every Mountain”) and in reality they ended up in America.  We can all be thankful that we are lucky enough to live in the place where the world’s oppressed want to be.

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6.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington:  We can be thankful both for a government where, despite all the corruption and cronyism, our voices will eventually be heard.  And we can be thankful for men like Jimmy Stewart, not only a great actor but a veteran who flew perilous bomber missions over Germany when he could have safely flown a desk.

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7.  Blackhawk Down:  Why list a war movie on a list of Thanksgiving films?  Because we should all be damn thankful that we have men (and women) out there like the Americans who fought it out against overwhelming odds in Mogadishu in October 1993.  The fierce loyalty those troops showed, braving incredible odds to rescue their comrades from the Somali militia hordes, should give us pause to reflect on the price of the great material and spiritual bounty our nation enjoys.  America didn’t just happen – it was earned.  Today, tens of thousands of Americans are overseas continuing to earn it this Thanksgiving.  And if you are so inclined, you might want to say “Thanks” with a donation to The Wounded Warrior Project.

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8.  Planes, Trains and Automobiles:  The best John Hughes “adult” movie, and possibly his best movie overall.  Steve Martin is the uptight businessman trapped in a hilarious odyssey of misfortunes with John Candy’s lovable slob as he desperately tries to make it home to his family for Thanksgiving.  It’s funny.  It’s really, really funny, as literally everything that can go wrong goes astonishingly wrong.  Cars catch fire, wallets are stolen, deer are resurrected and buns are mistaken for pillows.  But beneath it all is the kind of heart missing from so much of the soulless, cookie-cutter dreck that passes for comedy today.  The ending truly sums up the spirit of Thanksgiving and highlights the kind of generosity of spirit that comes naturally to most Americans.  And there is another thing to be thankful for – the joy that John Candy brought to all of us during his far too short life.

This year, I’m particularly thankful to be in the USA for Thanksgiving.  Whether you are home with your loved ones, or serving our country overseas, Happy Thanksgiving.

Even though I have lived in the D.C. area for a little less than three years, I recently watched  “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” for the first time. The movie revolves around an appointed Senator who brings his hopefulness and his integrity to Washington D.C. James Stewart plays Mr. Smith, the head of a boy’s organization, who is surprisingly given a chance to serve his country in the United States Senate. He is a Governor’s political appointee who some believe will cave to political pressure and make his voting decisions on the advice of a corrupt but highly-respected Senate colleague. Mr. Smith refuses to accommodate that fellow Senator and the demands of the political machine in his state that fights against him and he eventually loses confidence in the entire political system.

When Smith recognizes how blatantly corrupt some politicians are, he heads to the Lincoln Memorial planning to leave the nation’s capital after the media and his fellow Senators have disgraced his name. His secretary, Clarissa Saunders, meets him there and she notes the following about Senator Paine and Jim Taylor, two of Smith’s high-profile critics:

Your friend Mr. Lincoln had his Taylors and Paines. So did every other man who ever tried to lift his thought up off the ground. Odds against them did not stop those men. They were fools that way. All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that. 

After that part of the movie, Mr. Smith is given a choice. He can return to his home state and try to repair the damage to his reputation that was caused by the accusations lobbed at him or he can return to the Senate and fight for his honor. Mr. Smith decides to return to the Senate, where he mounts a filibuster to get his message out to the people of his state.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Smith, an icon of idealism and integrity, has become a paradigm that politicians enjoy being compared to. Several months ago, Liza Mundy from the Washington Post, wrote a piece about the film and noted the importance of the movie. “Its influence,” she wrote, “is rooted in the idea that a virtuous innocent can take on a rotten political system — and win.” Mundy later wrote that  “perhaps at no time has the film been invoked as often as during the 2008 presidential election, a race in which everybody was trying to claim the outsider status that Smith embodies.” Bundy noted in her piece that depending on your political persuasion, both President Obama and former Governor Sarah Palin can and have been compared to Mr. Smith.

If you took a broader perspective today of Mr. Smith and viewed him as an advocate for the people over the forces of politics as usual, you would see how such “fools” are necessary in the nation’s capital these days and how critics often go after such “fools.” In Washington D.C., the amount of money given to a state or a district in earmarks can be seen as a major political plus while people who are fiscally conservative can be criticized for not soliciting or accepting more money from the federal government. Is it a “fool” who wants to fight for fiscal responsibility when our deficit is so high? On the matter of health care, is it foolish for our elected leaders to take their time and meticulously debate reform that will affect millions of Americans, like some elected leaders like Senator McConnell want to do. Is it a “fool” who wants health-care reform to be debated and discussed thoroughly while others want to push through the legislation quickly? On the same subject, is it “foolish” to ask our public officials to read this important piece of legislation before they push it through? Is it “foolish” to want to know what is actually in this massive health care bill before it becomes law?

With such questions about “foolishness,” some would likely ask the obvious question: do we have Mr. Smiths in Washington today? I believe that we do have such people in our capital. We have Mr. Smiths in Washington who fight for accountability and transparency and who fight for their ideals and their values over their party’s principles.

For one, I am reminded of Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. In 2000, Democratic Senator Lieberman represented his party as nominee for vice president but six years later, he lost the primary in his own state. Believing that the voters of both parties and many independents would support him, Lieberman ran and won as an independent and he has deserved that title in the Senate. Although he still supports the Democrats on a lot of issues, Lieberman supported John McCain in last year’s election much to his own detriment, and he has recently opposed parts of liberal health care reform, once again facing critics from within his own party. Some may consider Lieberman a “fool” for standing with Republicans on issues like health care or national security issues but others, like myself, consider him a leader willing to stand up for his principles.

If you have not seen “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” I highly recommend it as a classic film about maintaining integrity in the midst of harsh criticism. We do have a couple Mr. Smiths in Washington today but this country could always use more such leaders in our nation’s capital today.

It’s a truism among fans of classic movies that 1939 was the Hollywood cinema’s greatest year. But if it has become something of a cliche to say so, it’s only because it’s so undeniably true.

It’s really rather amazing to consider how many classic or transcendentally classic films were released during that annus mirabilis. Among the most highly praised then and in the ensuring years were the following:

• Gone with the Wind
• The Wizard of Oz
• Stagecoach
• Beau Geste
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips
• Gunga Din
• The Women
• Wuthering Heights
• The Roaring Twenties
• Love Affair

Those would be enough for a great year in itself, but there was so much more–such as Ninotchka, Only Angels Have Wings, Drums Along the Mohawk, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Allegheny Uprising, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Stanley and Livingston, The Man in the Iron Mask, Dark Victory, Of Mice and Men,Young Mr. Lincoln, The Rains Came, Midnight, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Union Pacific, Babes in Arms, The Little Princess, Another Thin Man, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, The Hardys Ride High, Golden Boy, Dodge City, Gulliver’s Travels, The Light That Failed, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Old Maid, Son of Frankenstein, Destry Rides Again, and many, many others of like quality.

And from overseas: The Rules of the Game, The Four Feathers, The Stars Look Down, The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums, and others.

And perhaps even more impressive is the high quality of even the year’s lower-budget films, such as Code of the Secret Service and Secret Service of the Air, both starring Ronald Reagan. What all the Hollywood films mentioned here shared was the industry’s ability at the time to alternate scenes of grandeur and intimacy with consummate skill and confidence.

The Hollywood movie factories had been perfected by the mid-1930s, and the studios were amazingly adept at turning out greatly entertaining movies that reflected and reinforced the values of their audience. Although the stars and other filmmaking principals were paid amazing sums of money then as they are now, the industry did not then reflect the elitism now rampant in Hollywood.

The studio moguls, who were largely self-made and from humble origins, enthusiastically accepted the nation’s founding values and made sure that their product reflected those notions.They did so both for patriotic reasons and because they knew that was the best way for them to make money.

Thus while MGM head Louis B. Mayer was a staunch Republican and the Warner Bros. were supporters of FDR, all shared a strong patriotic love for their nation and shared their audience’s values.

Also important was the more conservative social values that arose during the Depression 1930s after the social excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Audiences preferred movies to reflect values such as personal responsibility, long-term thinking, the value of hard work, personal sacrifice for the good of others, modesty, and the like. Hollywood was voluntarily under the authority of the Production Code, which set moral standards for the industry and protected the studios from a race to the moral bottom and an unbridled pursuit of sensationalism.

The Production Code was clearly not a straitjacket on creativity, given the impressive films made while it was in place during the 1930s through the 1950s. Contrary to the claims of many critics (and the Wikipedia entry cited here), the Production Code Administration was willing and in fact eager to work with producers to ensure that films could be as creative as possible without undermining the nation’s morals.

Refraining from undermining people’s morals may seem rather a quaint notion to many people today, but it indicates a sense of honor, decency, and humility that is sorely lacking among all to many purveyors of cultural products today.

Of course, there’s no sense in hoping for a return of the Production Code, but a greater sense of responsibility on filmmakers’ part would certainly be welcome. It would benefit the movies both morally and esthetically.