Jimmy Stewart takes filibustering to a whole new level in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (Frank Capra, 1939)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, July 3, 6:50 & 9:30
212-415-5500
www.bam.org
We love Jimmy Stewart; we really do. Who doesn’t? But last week we had the audacity to claim that Jim Parsons’s performance as Elwood P. Dowd in the current Broadway revival of Harvey outshined that of Stewart in the treacly 1950 film, and now we’re here to tell you that another of his iconic films is nowhere near as great as you might remember. Nominated for eleven Academy Awards, Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington caused quite a scandal in America’s capital when it was released in 1939, depicting a corrupt democracy that just might be saved by a filibustering junior senator from a small state whose most relevant experience is being head of the Boy Rangers. (The Boy Scouts would not allow their name to be used in the film.) Stewart plays the aptly named Jefferson Smith, a dreamer who believes in truth, justice, and the American way. “I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules,” Smith says of the Senate, “if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.” He’s shocked — shocked! — to discover that his mentor, the immensely respected Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine (played by Claude Rains, who was similarly shocked that there was gambling at Rick’s in Casablanca), is not nearly as squeaky clean as he thought, involved in high-level corruption, manipulation, and pay-offs that nearly drains Smith of his dreams. As it nears its seventy-fifth anniversary, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is still, unfortunately, rather relevant, as things haven’t changed all that much, but Capra’s dependence on over-the-top melodrama has worn thin. It’s still a good film, but it’s not a great one. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is screening July 3 at 6:50 and 9:30 as part of BAMcinématek’s “Frank Capra Fourth,” which continues on July 4 with four showings of Capra’s 1938 Oscar-winning You Can’t Take It with You, starring Stewart, Jean Arthur, and Lionel Barrymore in an engaging adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play.