Classic American Pictures with Mr. Deeds and Mr. Smith

The other day, I watched the great American classic "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" featuring the great Jimmy Stewart. The other month, I watched the underrated American comedy "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" featuring the underrated Gary Cooper. On the surface, they seem like the same basic movie. At the beginning, an old man in a position of power has died. He is replaced by the main protagonist, who comes from a rural, simplistic little town and is being thrown into the big city life. The protagonist is being brought in by a corrupt group of men of power that try to take advantage of him and then, through legal and judicial means, try to frame him for criminal activity when he is actually innocent. People in the city take advantage of him and tease him for his naive, simplistic ways of living and thinking. Both movies even have the exact same love interest, a city slicker tough girl who at first is a pawn of the corrupt group and who thinks low of the protagonist but over time begins to fall in love with him due to his genuine kindness and honesty. Through her character development and by a confession of love for him, she helps him overcome obstacles in the end. Both movies are even directed by the same man, Frank Capra. And even stranger, "Mr. Smith" was, according to IMDB, originally supposed to be a sequel to "Mr. Deeds", kind of like how "The Bells of St. Mary's" was a sequel to "Going My Way".

I don't know if I would've directly noticed that they were the exact same movie if the female protagonist/ love interest wasn't the exact same, down to the same actress in both movies. Jean Arthur is an attractive blonde and everything, but the voice kinda throws me off at first because it's got that cliche 20s, almost gangster talk, manner of speech.

Yeah see, I knew that dame, that broad, that dollface looked familiar, see!

It's only through her engagement with the characters where she shows her wit and charm that kind of wins me over. It's not necessarily a problem to have the actress play similar characters in both movies because her performances and characters only add value to the movie, but it just kinda throws me off when I'm in the middle of a movie I'm watching for the first time and I'm thinking to myself "It feels like I've already seen this before".

So what's the difference, you may be asking if you've never seen both movies. Well, in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", Jeffrey Smith (Jimmy Stewart) replaces a U.S. Senator and is in Washington D.C. fighting a corrupt business tycoon from his state along with a mentor, who is a puppet of the tycoon. I'm not giving anything away that isn't basically spelled out for you in the first ten minutes of the movie. In "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) replaces a distantly related rich uncle from New York City and is fighting a greedy group of lawyers along with other distant family members. Senator Smith, who has never been in politics before and is known for being the leader of a Boy Scout type group, is accused of criminal action within the senate and is deemed unfit for his post. Mr. Deeds, who has never been in the upper class and is known for being a quirky jack of all trades, is accused of wasting his inheritance and is deemed fit for the looney bin.

Though I ask you, is this the face of a crazy man to you?

Both movies have great acting with great characters. Both men are actually sensible and intelligent in their own unusual way, often outmaneuvering the schemes of their enemies. "Mr. Deeds" is a much funnier movie. I remember several moments of honest laughter bursting out of me while watching it. However, "Mr. Smith" is much better remembered. I think the reasons why "Mr. Smith" is remembered more often than "Mr. Deeds" are because Jimmy Stewart is a popular figure in American cinema and today is a much more well known actor from that era compared to Gary Cooper and also the political connections in "Mr. Smith" keep the themes and ideas much more relevant to what we're going through today.

Mr. Deeds is a much more interesting character than Senator Smith. We see Mr. Deeds act quirky, we see him play the tuba, create his own poetry, and he just comes from a quirky place that we come to know and appreciate while watching the movie unfold. Mr. Deeds is a confident man's man while Senator Smith is often overwhelmed by his surroundings, and at first his only redeeming quality seems to be that he's idolized by the boys of his group. We're told a lot about Jeff Smith, but we don't even know exactly what town or state he hails from. We're told he likes nature and he can quote all of these presidents (for whatever reason he never quotes Teddy Roosevelt which I think would've been very fitting for this character). He talks about nature here and there, but for the most part all we really see of Senator Smith that really stands out is his admiration and appreciation for all the political monuments in Washington D.C., particularly the Lincoln memorial. We never hear him quote any of the presidents or say lines from any of the big American political documents except for when he reads the Constitution during the filibuster.

I say, my fine fellows, this appears to be the basis of modern laws and democracy. Let's debate it for the next several centuries, shall we?

What I find interesting, as far as what makes these movies powerful viewing for today, is their examination of corruption versus genuineness and honesty and what the movies and I would call American values. The protagonist in both cases is a very naive person with an ideal perception of America based on where he comes from. When he comes to the big city for the first time, this is his first experience of seeing how things can get twisted and lost and corrupted and how maybe not everywhere is living out those values and ideals. It just means that he has never really experienced it before, and all these people in the big cities are making fun of him for something he doesn't really know or understand at first for thinking the ideals can stand in that city environment. Both protagonists prove those values CAN exist in those environments through genuine honesty and community.

Community is of great importance in both films. The only reason the antagonists are able to be powerful and corrupt is because they built their own little system of corruption and rely on each other to stay in power. Compare that to the protagonists, who at first are alone and getting beaten down, but through their own genuineness and their struggles, they win over the people in order to build a strong support from the everyday, average people. The common man is important to both movies because it keeps the ideals and the characters grounded, especially when comparing it to the high society greeds and desires of the lawyers, senators, and tycoons who see themselves as better than everyone else.

Stop acting high and mighty, peasants! Don't you know money is the most important thing in this world!?

What I don't quite understand is in "Mr. Smith", the main antagonist Mr. Taylor is a very materialistic man and he's trying to win over Jeff Smith through material things and positions of power. Smith doesn't go to his side, but I wonder what is exactly holding him back. The movie really pushes and emphasizes the American values as his moral compass that keeps him from joining Taylor, but I wonder how Christianity plays a part in that. A lot of the values and ideals in America, both when it was first founded and during the time of the movie, were built on Christian values. Christ calls us to not be focused on the material, earthly things but to focused on the spiritual, heavenly things and those Christian values don't seem to keep Mr. Smith, or even Mr. Deeds, from being corrupted by the antagonists. The movies just accept that the characters were raised on common sense and traditional American values and that's all they need. Mr. Deeds seems to live out more Christian values compared to Senator Smith by using his inheritance late in the movie to help the poor and set up systems to give his money away, which causes conflict near the end.

On the surface, both films seem like classic, overly patriotic pictures. The protagonists have such strong American ideals, visit all of these monument,s and look back on all of these great historical men, who helped found and define this country, with deep reverence and awe. It's almost blowing the American trumpet too hard...on the surface.

Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Deeds. I meant to say blowing the American tuba.

At a certain point in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", where he questions whether the classic American values still exist or not, Senator Smith points out that if he quit his post instead of fight the corrupt machine, that he would have to tell all his boys and the people back home that these values he loves so much are what he would call "hooey" or what I would call "a bunch of crap". That's kind of how we, the 21st century cynical pop culture audience, view these American values when looking at these types of American movies from the perch of our present day and age. Back then, there might not've been as much cynicism towards the values and patriotism, but now we look back on these movies and we look at our own situation and laugh a little bit that those American values are gone now. I think though that because of the genuineness of the characters and because of their appreciation for what the founding fathers thought and did and how those values translated over time to apply to their own situation, we can still take the characters' appreciation for those values and apply it to our own situation and see that maybe those ideals aren't all the way gone. There's just been a continuation of corruption and improper use of power, continuing a need for true honesty and earnestness to live out those ideals.

I'm glad I sat down and have seen both movies. I'm only sorry that it took me so long to watch both. They are definitely fine examples of what made the golden age of Hollywood so stellar and excellent. Despite their similarities, they're different enough to make each story compelling and engaging. I obviously recommend that you too watch both movies as soon as you can. Even with some of my critiques and questions, I would still rank these as 4.5 out of 5 on my valuable movies ranking scale.