Another film by Frank Capra, and this, just like its title, reminded me a lot of his other film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It has much of the same elements; a young naive man acquires a new post of status and has to adjust himself to the new environment and expectation, but in the end learns that he was better of as he was before the film started. Oh yes, there is also the obligatory love interest.
But Mr. Deeds Goes to Town lacks one major thing that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington had, and that is: Jimmy Stewart. Gary Cooper takes the role as the naive protagonist here, and to say the least, he lacks barrels of charisma. It is so natural with Jimmy Stewart that one almost doesn’t think about it when he acts, but I came tumbling right down to reality when I was watching Gary Cooper, and at times wished I was rather watching a Capra film featuring Stewart. Generally, I don’t rate acting that highly, but in Hollywood films, this is often a very essential part, and that is why I felt the story suffered a lot. But, while the film might have been much better with Jimmy Stewart in the main role rather than Gary Cooper, it still wouldn’t have been as good as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Generally, it lacks the usual flair Capra’s films have, and his directing seems somewhat conservative, and not as spectacular nor as interesting as his films seem, especially his best. So, even though I still enjoyed the previous film I reviewed by Capra, it was still fairly weak for a Capra film. This, though, was quite weak overall, and didn’t have the overall Capra joy or enjoyment that we are usually treated to.
The ending of this film, particularly, is quite weak compared to the fantastic and epic ending of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It all feels fairly contrived, and again, the script seems to be the weak link here. But, the film suffers further from the lack of inventive or interesting directing from Capra’s part. The black and white cinematography is quite nice, but the film doesn’t have that great nostalgic feel that I love so much about classic Hollywood films. The only fairly interesting part of this film is, strangely, the love interest of Gary Cooper. She kind of reminds me of the guy in It Happened One Night. She is a reporter, and tricks her way into his way to get an exclusive on his story to the big times. She is probably the most developed element in the film, but of course, she takes the usual route these characters take, she starts out as a cynical reporter who just cares about the story, but then subsequently falls in love with the protagonist and repents her ways. Of course, here we just see it from her point-of-view, while in It Happened One Night we saw it as a development between both of the two characters, and it was thus even better developed and believable. Well, so what I mean is that, while she is the only interesting character in the film, the relationship itself is not very interesting.
I didn’t really enjoy this film, and it was really a weak film from Capra. Again, it lacked the usual depth his films have, but here, it also missed the charm and joy that he manages to capture, and it thus lost most of my interest throughout. It seems to have a high score on IMDb, so I guess somebody seems to see something in this. Not me though.
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