Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936)

Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) dir. Frank Capra

JEAN ARTHUR & GARY COOPER as Babe Bennett & Longfellow Deeds in MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN (1936) dir. Frank Capra

Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper in 'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town', 1936.

Finally , they have always been my favorite directors The only left for me is to wait . I dont know what for .

Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936) Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglass Dumbrille, Raymond Walburn, H.B. Warner, Ruth Donnelly, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Walter Catlett, John Wray, Emma Dunn. Screenplay: Robert Riskin, based on a story by Clarence Budington Kelland. Cinematography: Joseph Walker. Art direction: Stephen Goosson. Film editing: Gene Havlick. Music: Howard Jackson Frank Capra's perennially popular Mr. Deeds Goes to Town currently has an 7.8 score on IMDb and an 91% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So let me cavil a little bit about its psychological dishonesty, namely the scene in which Deeds, engagingly played by Gary Cooper, is subjected to a sanity hearing because of his attempt to give away to distressed farmers the $20 million he has inherited -- a scheme that economically speaking doesn't bear much close scrutiny. Capra (and Robert Riskin, who as writer must bear his share of blame) brings on an "expert," a caricature Viennese psychiatrist, who explains that Deeds suffers from "manic depression," the now-discarded term for bipolar disorder, and exhibits a peaks-and-valleys chart of Deeds's mood swings. It's pretty clear that Capra and Riskin want us to regard this testimony as quackery. But anyone who has dealt with bipolarity, either first-hand or with family or friends, can see the element of truth in the diagnosis. We don't know enough about Deeds's daily life in Mandrake Falls, Vt., where, as the town's Faulkner sisters testify, everyone is "pixilated" but them, to give a confident diagnosis that Deeds is in fact bipolar, and the attempt to use the diagnosis as a smear is reprehensible. But Deeds's decision to refuse legal council at the hearing is the act of someone who really is depressed, and while we are supposed to dismiss as chicanery the attempt to classify his eccentricities -- playing the tuba, sliding down banisters, chasing firetrucks, feeding doughnuts to a horse, and above all wanting to give away his money -- as manic behavior, there's a grain of truth there. Moreover, Deeds does in fact exhibit violent tendencies: witness his punching out the poets who mock his greeting-card verses -- who beats up poets? -- and his assaulting the lawyers at the trial. Capra intends his film as a valorization of small-town virtues against city cynicism, but even that doesn't bear much close scrutiny, especially after the more critical looks at small town life in Sinclair Lewis's Main Street or Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. It has always struck me that Capra was the most empty-headed of the great American directors, making films that annihilate thought, or at least anesthetize it. I like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town more than most Capra films: At its best it's lively and funny, but its worst is pretty annoying and even pernicious stuff.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Frank Capra, 1936

"What puzzles me is why people seem to get so much pleasure out of hurting each other. Why don't they try liking each other once in a while?" GARY COOPER as Longfellow Deeds in MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN (1936) dir. Frank Capra

Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper in 'MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN' (1936). Directed by Frank Capra

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936)

Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) dir. Frank Capra

out of curiosity because I’ve been having a Not Sick (allergies) day and watching tv in my blankets: what are y’all’s fave comfort and cozy time movies?

I'm watching Mr Deeds Goes to Town and it's a silly romcom until there's a man trying to shoot him because he's inherited money while others suffer and you're like ohhhhh this is set during the Depression