Mr. Deeds geht in die Stadt

Frank Capra knew that Gary Cooper was made for the part of Longfellow Deeds, he waited until Harry Cohn could get him from Paramount before making this film. It certainly is a once in a lifetime role and it got Gary Cooper his first nomination for Best Actor. He lost that year to Paul Muni for The Story of Louis Pasteur. But Capra won for Best Director that year.

Cooper, poet laureate of Mandrake Falls, inherits 20 million dollars from a rich uncle. He's not terribly impressed with that as he feels he's living just fine in Mandrake Falls. But he goes down to New York City to settle the estate and gets put up in grand style at his late uncle's mansion.

The executor of the estate, Douglass Dumbrille, is one smooth talking, white shoe bottom feeder. This is probably Dumbrille's best known classic villain, John Cedar. He wants Cooper's power of attorney real bad to cover up some dipping he's done. Cooper isn't giving it to him right away though.

In the meantime his inheritance has become news and local editor George Bancroft has dispatched sob sister reporter Jean Arthur to invade his inner sanctum. That's a common thread in the Capra populist trilogy, a woman sent to invade the inner sanctum of the hero and ends up falling for him. Jean Arthur did it again to James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Cooper had it done to him again by Barbara Stanwyck in Meet John Doe.

After a whole lot of silly incidents which Arthur duly reports on, Cooper gets a real wake up call from one of what the current president then called a forgotten man. John Wray, a desperate farmer, tossed off his land and there were plenty of those in the twenties and thirties tells him off good and proper in a very powerful scene. Cooper, his own values questioned, decides to set up a fund to save the family farm as an institution.

Then he's called insane and Dumbrille takes as clients other heirs who want to contest the will. Which leads to Cooper's hearing in court to determine his sanity.

The values of Mr. Deeds are certainly eternal, honesty and decency don't and should never go out of style. Unfortunately the family farm is a thing of the past, there are less and less of them every year. It's agribusiness now so a faithful remake could never work today.

Yet the original still has a charm that cannot be denied, due to Frank Capra's vision and the way he got great performances out of the whole cast. One performance that shocked me was Raymond Walburn who usually plays avuncular, loquacious types. He plays the butler to Cooper's uncle and now to Cooper himself. To those who expect the usual Walburn we know and love, this is one different Walburn.

Even though Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is rooted firmly in the Thirties it should still be seen and studied today.

The combination of story, cast, and director make this an entertaining offbeat comedy, and one that also has a few worthwhile things to say. Gary Cooper does well in a somewhat atypical role for him, Jean Arthur does well in the kind of role that she often played very well, and Frank Capra applies his usual touch to hold it all together.

The story has a light but interesting premise, with Cooper as the naive Mr. Deeds who is confronted with the consequences of sudden wealth. He and Arthur work surprisingly well in their scenes together, and they make both the premise and their relationship tangle-ups believable.

It's probably not as easy as it looks to make this kind of material work, as the rather ill-conceived 2002 remake demonstrated. The remake actually started better than expected, and for quite a while Adam Sandler was surprisingly bearable in the lead role. But eventually it lost its balance, inserting too much extraneous material that either did not work or that did not fit in with the tone and themes of the rest of the movie.

Capra, on the other hand, keeps a good balance between the light, gentle tone and the sometimes far-fetched plot developments. He winds it up in good fashion with a funny courtroom scene that also provides a couple of good, if uncomplicated, observations on human nature.

Capra and the stars all made other movies that worked even better than this one does, but "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" itself still remains one of the better movies of its kind.

Or is it my favorite?!

Just a wholesome, thought-provoking expose on the weirdness of typical American city thinking and behavior, being brought to light by a naïve young man who has down-to-earth small-town common sense!

From the IMDB age-bracket reviews, it seems this movie might not appeal to the younger, especially girls under 18 (go figure).

A great Frank Capra-directed film. I also really like "You can't take it with you", but that film is more off-beat and goofy.

Enjoy this film when you're in the mood for something to remind you of "goodness". Whatever that is!

No computer generated images, small 1:33 ratio black and white screen and yet there is nothing in the world that comes close to the intimacy of this experience. Just look at Gary Cooper listening, trying to understand. Look at Jean Arthur falling in love. We have lost something very important along the way and it's not just innocence. How is it possible that nobody can get anywhere near this simple magic trick? They used to call Capra films "Capracorn" I wonder what they call Adam Sandler, Freddy Prinze Jr, and Jennifer Love Hewit comedies today? I want to jump into a time machine and go to those days, the days of Mr Deeds, Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur and Frank Capra.

Frank Capra (Oscar-winning for directing) created one of the earlier Hollywood masterpieces with "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town". The film follows a good-hearted small-town Vermont man (Oscar-nominee Gary Cooper) who inherits a fortune from a relative he never knew. Now he must go to New York and take over his late uncle's estate, but he must also contend with a whole host of opportunistic bigwigs who want to take advantage of Cooper's kindness. Cooper is not as slow-witted as he appears though as he seems to outsmart all those around him. When reporter Jean Arthur comes along, Cooper falls hard for her and lets his guard down and forgetting himself, he may lose a part of himself that is priceless. Frank Capra dominated the 1930s and 1940s with life-affirming productions that were just simple human stories that would always strike emotional nerves for the audience. "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" is no exception. The remake should cause many to check this one out. This one stands up much higher than Adam Sandler's under-achiever. 5 stars out of 5.