L'extravagant Mr. Deeds

One of Frank Capra's strengths as a film director was the great team he assembled. Not only did he have a great technical group behind him, but his casts combined talent that went from the major stars to the bit players.

In this fable, Mr. Capra gives an answer to those of us that always pondered: what would one do if one inherited a lot of money, or if one won the lottery (fat chance!) It must be terrifying to suddenly have a lot of wealth, in this case 20 million during the worst days of the Great Depression. Sometimes it's better to stay poor rather than have to deal with strangers that have designs on one's newly found wealth!

Gary Cooper has never been as charming as the tuba playing, country bumpkin whose life is changed dramatically when he has to go to Manhattan to claim his inheritance. His Longfellow Deeds gets to see first hand how the high society, his uncle belonged to, deals with this unsophisticated greeting card writing poet.

Jean Arthur was a natural comedienne. She is wonderful in this movie as the reporter who tricks Deeds into speaking with her and in the process falls in love with the man, the object of the ridicule she writes about.

Leonard Standing, one of the best character actors of the era, is equally effective as Cobb, the man who knows a thing or two about those society folks. George Bancroft was also good as MacWade.

The film has a pace that never lets the viewer down. In comparison with what passes today as film comedy, this is a masterpiece. It shows the genius of Frank Capra in charge of this group of people that make us treasure films like this one even if it's pure nonsense, which after all, was what the director was looking for to make us laugh.

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!

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.

When a famous millionaire dies the media is aflame with the identity of his missing heir. The lawyers are just as interested and track him down to none other than small-town, simple-living Longfellow Deeds. He is more bemused than anything else about his sudden wealth and goes to New York to find out more. Once there he finds no end of people offering him services or selling him things and he tries to find some humanity within the city and the sharks around him. He believes he has found it with women-in-distress Mary Dawson but little does he know that she is really "Babe" Bennett – the sharpest reporter on the streets.

Unfair to watch this film with wholly modern eyes as some have done – berating it for its celebration of small-town values and perhaps depicting a naivety that is beyond the pale. Likewise though, I don't think that we should embrace it unquestioningly as many do. At its heart it is a Frank Capra film and it presents us with everything that we have come to expect from a film with that description. A simple man (many would say a "good" man) is confronted and to an extent crushed by examples of modern society that fly contrary to his moral and solid existence. That's it. It doesn't really matter what the specifics happen to be here as this is all you really need to know. To some extent of course this is all a bit obvious and naïve and indeed to some viewer it will be hard to get past that but in its favour it does manage to presence this homely cliché with an enormous wedge of charm.

This charm is evident throughout the film but one of the best examples of it is in the courtroom scene that manages to just about avoid being preachy due to the sheer cheering quality it has to it. Capra's direction and Riskin's script bring this out really well although I would question the tagline "rocking America with laughter" – it was amusing and warming but not hilarious by any means. I'm not entirely sold on Cooper in the lead and certainly not as enamoured as some are here. For my money he plays the "aw shucks ma'am" stuff just a bit too heavily, forgetting to give me a character to go along with it. Jean Arthur is better as she has more to play with, while Bancroft is fun in a bit of a cliché but a fun one. The rest of the cast do what you would expect whether they be simple men inspired, crooked men confronted or serving men treated with respect – all good but nothing earth shattering.

Overall then this is an obvious film that does just what you expect it to and watching it purely with modern eyes will kill it for many viewers. It is best watched with a mind to the period even if not total forgiveness – because it is not without flaws. The charm and the warming effect it has makes it though and, while not the Capra I would point the newcomer to, it is certainly an example of what we mean when we now say something is Capra-esquire (which is quite something – to have your name used as a descriptive word so many years later!).

What a shame that this wonderful, charming, funny movie had to be remade back in 2002 starring Adam Sandler for now whenever the title Mr. Deeds is mentioned, the majority of people will recall that train wreck instead of this timeless story. What director Frank Capra is able to do here is create a tale of little city versus big city but also in dealing with corruption and helping out your fellow man.

These are themes common to nearly all Capra films and here Gary Cooper is able to transcend the idea of a major Hollywood star playing a down to earth, small-town idealist nice and considerate to all he meets unless they get deep under his skin. To those who reside in the giant city of New York, a bewildered man like this Longfellow Deeds would certainly stick out. And it is for this reason that a hotshot reporter would attempt to use him as a basis for an exclusive story and solely for her own benefit. This other theme of the dark side of media use is another Capra feels strongly about and it shines through especially in the final courtroom scenes when all is revealed and the true colors of all characters are established.

Gary Cooper is one of the most under-appreciated leading men in Hollywood history, perhaps because he didn't show the archetype leading man quality other big stars of his time did. He was always in his movies a good old boy, filled with love for his roots and the people he associated with that. He did it here and in Sergeant York, the result being two of his best performances in a long and storied career. Capra favorite Jean Arthur doesn't do or say much- until the epilogue when her character is needed most. And in this sequence, Arthur shows her complete variety of ability to cover both comedic and dramatic areas. Certainly a film to go back to again and again, this shows Capra's ability to carefully touch on very serious subjects with a deft comic touch as well as the great chemistry between Cooper and Arthur. So, if someone mentions Mr. Deeds to you, look for the older one and not the newer "modern" version.