Reportedly Cary Grant was later unhappy with his acting in this film, thinking it hackneyed and completely over the top. Indeed his performance is over the top, as is nearly everything else in this film. Based on a long-running Broadway play, the overall direction is stagey, all the acting is overdone, the villains are cartoonish, [...]
I have been reading a book about the production of It’s a Wonderful Life, and naturally thinking about that film a lot. Frank Capra often said in interviews that that his experiences serving in World War II lead him to make a much darker film than his earlier works, a change that was mirrored in [...]
I never thought I would see a Frank Capra film that I didn’t love. It is not that I hated You Can’t Take It with You or even disliked it, but with a cast including James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore and Jean Arthur, I was expecting a lot and was slightly disappointed. Capra’s usual writer Robert [...]
Teachers of film 101 classes always prattle on about D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille as the creators of the great early cinematic epics, but I will take Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon over them any day. Lost Horizon is not the first adventure drama film, but is one of the best. There is no swashbuckling [...]
Continuing to indulge my Frank Capra addiction… Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is one of the Capra films I hadn’t seen yet. Almost as soon as it started, I knew that it was going to turn out to be one of the best examples of Capra’s philosophy of optimism and faith in human nature. Although [...]
I have been reading a lot about Frank Capra recently, which naturally makes me want to go back and see some of his films again and dig up the ones I have never gotten around to seeing. Since Capra’s retirement from film and his later death, it has become commonplace to lump all of his [...]
There was not a lot to hold my interest on this one, but I am a Frank Capra completest and so had to watch this sooner or later. I haven’t seen many horse racing films—the only one that comes to mind is the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races, which of course is more [...]
A Lady for a Day seems to offer the perfect sentimental material for Frank Capra’s brand of filmmaking. An elderly woman in Depression-hit New York maintains a complex ruse with the aid of hotel porter to make it seem as if she is living in suite in the luxury hotel, while she is actually scraping [...]
Continuing with my Frank Capra obsession, I dug up The Miracle Woman. The story of a simple, good-hearted person getting caught up in a whirlwind of power, fortune and corruption, and throwing it all away for the sake of their principals is certainly nothing new in the Capra canon, but what is interesting here is [...]
Director: Frank Capra
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Reportedly Cary Grant was later unhappy with his acting in this film, thinking it hackneyed and completely over the top. Indeed his performance is over the top, as is nearly everything else in this film. Based on a long-running Broadway play, the overall direction is stagey, all the acting is overdone, the villains are cartoonish, [...]
Meet John Doe (1941)
I have been reading a book about the production of It’s a Wonderful Life, and naturally thinking about that film a lot. Frank Capra often said in interviews that that his experiences serving in World War II lead him to make a much darker film than his earlier works, a change that was mirrored in [...]
You Can’t Take It with You (1938)
I never thought I would see a Frank Capra film that I didn’t love. It is not that I hated You Can’t Take It with You or even disliked it, but with a cast including James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore and Jean Arthur, I was expecting a lot and was slightly disappointed. Capra’s usual writer Robert [...]
Lost Horizon (1937)
Teachers of film 101 classes always prattle on about D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille as the creators of the great early cinematic epics, but I will take Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon over them any day. Lost Horizon is not the first adventure drama film, but is one of the best. There is no swashbuckling [...]
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Continuing to indulge my Frank Capra addiction… Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is one of the Capra films I hadn’t seen yet. Almost as soon as it started, I knew that it was going to turn out to be one of the best examples of Capra’s philosophy of optimism and faith in human nature. Although [...]
It Happened One Night (1934)
I have been reading a lot about Frank Capra recently, which naturally makes me want to go back and see some of his films again and dig up the ones I have never gotten around to seeing. Since Capra’s retirement from film and his later death, it has become commonplace to lump all of his [...]
Broadway Bill (1934)
There was not a lot to hold my interest on this one, but I am a Frank Capra completest and so had to watch this sooner or later. I haven’t seen many horse racing films—the only one that comes to mind is the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races, which of course is more [...]
Lady for a Day (1933)
A Lady for a Day seems to offer the perfect sentimental material for Frank Capra’s brand of filmmaking. An elderly woman in Depression-hit New York maintains a complex ruse with the aid of hotel porter to make it seem as if she is living in suite in the luxury hotel, while she is actually scraping [...]
The Miracle Woman (1931)
Continuing with my Frank Capra obsession, I dug up The Miracle Woman. The story of a simple, good-hearted person getting caught up in a whirlwind of power, fortune and corruption, and throwing it all away for the sake of their principals is certainly nothing new in the Capra canon, but what is interesting here is [...]