Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

“You Fight for the Lost Causes Harder Than any Other.”

Fake News. Deep State Collusion. Corruption. Police Abuse. Alternative News…and Alternative Facts.

In 1939.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is one of the best known Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart films that no one has actually watched (unless they were fortunate enough to be in my 8th grade civics class).

The story line is pretty straightforward. The senator of a western state suddenly dies. The state’s political machine wants someone popular - if possible - and not too politically smart - essential - to fill the seat. They settle on Jefferson Smith (Stewart), the state leader of the Boy Rangers (just substitute for Boy Scouts), an awkward history geek social organizer newly famous for helping put out a major wilderness fire.

Arriving in Washington, Stewart spends his time between visiting monuments, pestering his mentor and senior senator from his state, played expertly by Claude Rains (who I was surprised to see played King Herod in The Greatest Story Ever Told…learn something new each day), and making eyes at Rains’ daughter, Susan (Astrid Allwyn). He is ably assisted by his aide, Saunders (Jean Arthur), who can’t decide whether to support his idealistic agenda or sabotage it.

Along the way, Stewart is smeared by fake news stories, framed for corruption (resulting is a widely covered Senate trial), and faces expulsion from the Senate. The film concludes with Smith delivering a filibuster on the floor of the Senate, while police blast his supporters with water cannon, the mainstream media of his state run non-stop attack ads against him, and the Boy Rangers conduct an alternative media campaign to get the word out about his filibuster and the forces trying to drive him from Washington. As the film ends, Stewart fails to convince the majority…but succeeds in changing the mind and heart of one person who can make a difference.

Stewart lacks the polish of later roles (understandably…he was a young 31 in the film and had only been in Hollywood 5 years when making Mr. Smith) and Capra was still finding his voice, but the movie delivered an indictment about the corrupting effect of politics, the role of the media in both battling and enabling that corruption, and the difficulty of a single man making a difference against the machine.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has a lot of “feel good” moments, but it isn’t a “feel good” movie. It is a cry for a return to idealism and service that resonates as strongly today as it did in 1939. In the end, Jefferson Smith won the battle, but not the war. One imagines that two years later, Senator Smith, if still in office, would have left Washington to join the Army Air Corps and serve in another way.

You can catch this American classic HERE.

Three Out of Five Filibusters.

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