User reviews

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a pretty standard Frank Capra film. It's a simple story with likeable characters and an obvious moral of the story. Gary Cooper does a swell job of portraying Longfellow Deeds and Jean Arthur is absolutely charming. This is definitely more serious than the 2002 remake, but it's a well-made movie with plenty of heart.

In the past, I have sometimes found myself able to enjoy Capra's populism and sometimes unable. I go back and forth on the philosophy, as well as the director's sentimentalism. The day I watched Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, I just wasn't buying it. Gary Cooper plays a bumpkin who inherits $20 million from an uncle he didn't even know. He's spirited off to New York City, where the media are chomping at the bit to find out more about him. Reporter Jean Arthur pretends to be another stranger in the city and befriends Cooper, secretly writing newspaper articles about how dumb he is behind his back (a plot line that the Coen Brothers adopted for The Hudsucker Proxy). The movie is never particularly bad. I enjoyed it at some points. But I can't say I was ever really interested in it. And it devolves into my single least favorite classic movie cliché, a courtroom sequence where the audience laughs uproariously at every revelation. Cooper, of whom I'm not a big fan, gives one of his better performances, and Arthur, of whom I am a big fan, is, as always, wonderful. The film got a bunch of Oscar nominations, but Arthur was sadly left out.

I should confess before writing this review. Haven't I seen this movie before, I wouldn't be able to point out most handsome actor in Hollywood ever. Yes, Gary Cooper is one of the most handsome actors I've seen. He delivers his skills with effervescent and attractive face emotions that anyone could fall in love with.

Now, the story revolves around some pixilated guy who has so charming skills to talk with people that anyone can easily get attracted to his simplicity, soberness and faithfulness. A guy who's been living in a small town with not much of important aspects ever faced has to move to the town and face modern societal structure and its aftermath. Now, one important message this film tries to share is-"However smart, sharp or deceit a town can be, a person who has everything good in him, everything elegant in him, can never be affected in a bad way until he himself tries to degrade him."

Frank Capra has taken so lively, so real, so effective issue in 1930s,that is still applicable to this 21st century. A guy who sounds simple, looks simple does one pixilated thing that looks a psychologically mad thing to others. But in real, that only thing helps him to be brave, neat and adroit to solve one in a million case of deceit against him. That proves that however a bad state is revolving around anyone, if you stay simple, be free from wrongs, you can easily down the impossible against you.

Coming to the movie, Gary Cooper is simply super. He has shown how a simple actor can manage a whole movie without any high-class techniques. Jean Arthur is cute as well as compelling. She delivers the most than she is expected of. Worth seeing an actress in a movie which requires a punchy role and also delivers the same without forcing too much. She was just natural into the frames. Director Frank Capra should be praised for bringing out most real issue on the screens to depict the reality of big cities and how easily one can live to the most. As simple as it is, this movie remains one of the most charming and funny movie of 1930's. The courtroom drama is shown well enough and humor is added rightly to make the audience engaged to get the required message in an enchanting way. With few of its flaws in the first half in acting and technical aspects, this remains one of a gem.

I think the director Frank Capra knew that he just didn't get it right back in 1936 with this particular story line so he jacked up his game a decade later in 1946, added a few more ingredients such as a Christmas themed picture with a charming angel and the ever popular Jimmy Stewart in the leading role and "BAM!" he had created the perfect humane interest story.

Mr. Deeds has Cooper playing a simple man who is currently single living a simple life in a small town when he inherits 20 million dollars from his uncle and the will is being probated in the big city of New York with a long line up of vultures and con artists who want that 20 million a lot more than Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) ever expected or wanted to inherit this large fortune.

I did enjoy watching Mr. Deeds Goes To Town but it was missing that sincere human interest and the romance between Gary Cooper and the news reporter played by Jean Arthur was somewhat a forced romance.

It is worth a watch but I enjoyed Capra's later film in 1946 which was his Picasso of films, It's A Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

I give it a 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

It is interesting that I watched Mr. Deeds Goes to Town just after watching the evening news. A lead story featured yet another debate over raising the national debt limit. One of the things holding up the negotiations is the Republicans' demand for a work requirement for able-bodied adults to receive welfare benefits.

A couple or reviewers here have commented that this movie is redistributionist propaganda. No it is not! It is actually more in line with compassionate-conservative values.

You may recall that Longfellow Deeds was not simply giving away farmland for nothing. He was supplying ten acres plus supplies, with the caveat that the farmers had to work the land for three years. After completing that requirement, THEN the land would be theirs. That, my friends, is a hand up, not a hand out.

I don't know if the producers and Mr. Capra were trying to make a political statement, or simply creating a box office hit. Just enjoy the film for the historical perspective and the cute storyline. A worthwhile watch!

I feel like a ton of Frank Capra bleed together in my mind, and even though I've now seen both, I think I'm doomed to consistently get this one mixed up with the similarly titles Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for the rest of my life.

As for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town? It's alright - pretty good for a 1930s classic Hollywood film. Starts funny, gets a little more serious as it goes along, but always feels good-hearted and easy to watch.

There's something comforting about older movies, and even if they can be a little slow and static at times, I still enjoy watching ones like this. Specifically here, a good deal has held up surprisingly well.

When a financier dies leaving the enormous sum of $20 millions, the race to find an heir takes us to a tiny hamlet where we meet the pixilated poet "Longfellow Deeds" (Gary Cooper). He's a honest, slightly flighty, man who hasn't the foggiest idea what to do with his new fortune except, perhaps, serenade it with his tuba! His rise to fame hasn't gone unnoticed in the press, and one newspaper decides to send a reporter to ingratiate herself with him, and to write reports ridiculing him and naming him the "Cinderella Man". She (Jean Arthur) gradually starts to realise that her naive and impressionable mark actually has a heart of gold, but when his grandest scheme of all to spend his money attracts the lawyers who try to certify him, can she do anything to help him fight back? Cooper is great here, and together with Arthur delivers a punchy comedy that shines a light on greed, power and their best counter-measure - decency. There's a great ensemble cast supporting too, especially his sagely butler (Raymond Walburn) and Walter Catlett's lively "Morrow", but it's really just down to Cooper showing us he has comedy timing, too.

I like this movie, it's quite easy to relate to, because the way the story is told is quite simple, it doesn't aim for anything surprising, it just wants to tell something, and it does it well. I like that the romance is quite well crafted, it doesn't feel forced, especially on the girl's part. The protagonist, in the same way, is genuine, he's not the typical macho who conquers and whose only characteristic is being manly, but there are nuances, he's different, he's unique, he's not afraid to be himself, and that's something good and truly refreshing. Although at the cost of that originality, at times it was very tiresome, especially in the trial, and this is the point I want to get to. The trial is poorly done, all the evidence presented was enough to lock him up, and although his speech to defend himself is magnificent, the laughter, the contempt, take you out of the movie's immersion, and to top it off, what he did at the end is something that can only be conceived in a script. That's why it could have been incredible, but those absurd mistakes tarnish a good movie that has a lot to give.

After breaking through with the screwball comedy "It happened one night" (1934), Frank Capra made two films of which not only the titles are very similar. "Mr Deeds goes to town" in 1936 and "Mr Smith goes toi Washington" in 1939.

Both films are about a normal honest somewhat naive man from a small town (it is no accident that "For he's a jolly good fellow" plays a prominent role in the soundtrack to "Mr Deeds goes to town") that accidentally ends up in the circles of cynical and selfish elites from the big city.

The big city - small town contrast is similar to the city - countryside contrast that can be seen in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau films such as "Sunrise" (1927) and "City girl" (1930).

Mr Smith is played by James Stewart, who would also play George Bailey in the all time Capra Christmas classic "it's a wonderful life" (1946). Mr Deeds is played by Gary Cooper, who would in a later stage of the career of Capra also play in "Arsenic and old lace" (1944).

"Mr Smith goes to Washington" is firmly embedded in politics. "Mr Deeds goes to town" is about a nephew who inherits a lot of money from a distant uncle. He feels very uncomfortable about it, because all of a sudden everybody wants something from him. Sounds not very political. The end, in which Deeds decides to support poor farmers, can however be interpreted as symbolizing the New Deal of President Roosevelt from the same period.

Both in Mr Deeds and in Mr Smith there is a female that at first ridicules the naive country boy but ultimately falls in love with him. So the love affair from "It happened one night" is not totally absent in the two social fairytales that followed. In both films this female is incidentally played by Jean Arthur.

"Mr Deeds goes to town" (and other Capra films) inspired Joel and Ethan Coen to make "The Hudsucker proxy" (1994).

Several of Frank Capra's Socialist films have become dated, but are still revered by the movie-watching public. People still have a high regard for Capra films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life. Even though those situations in life no longer exist (actually the situations might, but certainly not the same settings), these films have a certain egalitarian charm. They personify the American ideal that all men are created equal and have an equal chance for success, even though, mathematically, that is not true. Fun to watch for the fantasy value.

It's funny how common it was for directors in the 30s to remake their own movies, sometimes no more than a few years after they made the original.

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" isn't exactly a remake of "Mr. Deeds," but it sure bears more than a merely striking resemblance to Capra's earlier film. The idea of an idealistic everyman standing up to a bullying bureaucracy is central to both films, but "Mr. Smith" is the darker and more bitter of the two. As a result, "Mr. Deeds" is sunnier and more fun, but also feels less substantial.

Nothing wrong with the actors though. Jean Arthur is one of my favorite actresses from this time period. She was cute and flirty, but never in a self-conscious or cloying way. And Gary Cooper, despite his towering presence and good looks, excels at playing an everyday Joe who doesn't want a life of complicated wealth thrust on him when a rich relative dies and leaves him his inheritance.

Frank Capra wasn't a very versatile director, and he was rather obsessed with one theme that he revisited time and again, but what he chose to do he did very well.

Grade: B+