Robert Geist

On this date in 1939, Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” had its premiere at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the National Press Club and counting hundreds of senators, representatives, and officials from the Roosevelt administration in the audience, the premiere didn’t go particular well. Quite a few lawmakers and insiders criticized the film for being unrealistic, for disparaging Congress, and for depicting "the democratic system and our vaunted free press in exactly the colors Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin like to paint them,” as one columnist put it. Movie audiences disagreed, to put it mildly. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was the second-highest grossing film of 1939; boosted the Hollywood careers of its stars Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Thomas Mitchell, and Edward Arnold; and earned 11 Academy Award nominations, including for best picture. “Gone With the Wind” won that trophy — 1939 was arguably the best year for great movies during the entire period of classic Hollywood — but the movie did win for best original story. The plot of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” wasn’t plucked out of thin air, however. It was loosely based on the experiences of U.S. Sen. Burton Wheeler, who got blowback while investigating the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, and was first written up as an unpublished story called “The Gentleman from Montana.” While I’m a big fan of Stewart, Arthur, and Rains, the performance I most enjoy here is that of Harry Carey, who plays the president of the U.S. Senate with a wry wit. As someone who (briefly) covered Congress early in my career, I wouldn’t describe the famous filibuster scene as realistic. But the theme of the picture, political corruption, is unfortunately a hardy perennial.