Nominated for 11 Academy Awards in a year that included Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) is one of Frank Capra's most critically acclaimed films, and is considered by many to be his most...

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 drama directed by Frank Capra about American government. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards upon its release (it won Best Screenplay), the film made James Stewart a major movie star. It also starred Jean Arthur and...

LLOYD D. SMITH doesn't seek headlines and isn't a familiar figure to most of this city's residents. But ask any of the longtime homeowners in the "forgotten Washington"-those in Ward 7 and Ward 6-East who struggle to keep their neighborhoods alive and drug-free-and they...

SAN DIEGO - Washington Redskins assistant coach Joe Bugel said no one told rookie running back Timmy Smith he would start Super Bowl XXII yesterday until after pregame warmups for the simplest of reasons. "We didn't want him getting sick in our locker...

The state House voted Thursday to censure a lawmaker who kicked a newspaper photographer taking his picture — and refused to apologize.The resolution, passed 62-1, was the first censure in the history of the Legislature. It says Rep. Douglas Bruce "failed to uphold the honor...

The American Film Institute's original 1998 list of the top-100 American movies:1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.2. "Casablanca," 1942.3. "The Godfather," 1972.4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.5. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.6. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.7. "The Graduate," 1967.8. "On the Waterfront," 1954.9. "Schindler's List," 1993.10. "Singin'...

[Whatever] it is that gives the thirties their air of curious innocence also gives Capra, at this distance, a slight but distinct aspect of futility. The hero of Mr Smith Goes to Washington consciously embraces a lost cause, but twenty-four years later the nobility of this looks faintly ridiculous and pathetic. In a period insulated at one end by a technical innovation (the sound film) and at the other by the war, Capra suffers the fate of his generation…. Capra speaks to us now in accents poignant b...

Capra, by utilizing character 'types', references to Populist heroes, and comic-strip forms of editing, has created, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a film which, however much it may appear to be exploring complex issues, remains an appeal to child-like wish-fulfillment in its world of hero and villains. Long before we actually see Jefferson Smith … on screen, Capra provides us with the essentials of his character. First, Capra peoples the Taylor Political Machine with rotund, cigar-sm...

[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington] is a mixture of tough, factual patter about Congressional cloakrooms and pressure groups, and a naïve but shameless hooraw for the American relic—Parson Weems at a flag-raising. It seems just the time for it, just the time of excitement when a barker in good voice could mount the tub, point toward the flag, say ubbuh-ubbah-ubbah and a pluribus union? and the windows would shake. But where all this time is Director Capra? I'm afraid Mr. Capra began to leave...

A review of the Frank Capra film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring James Stewart. In the film, Stewart's character replaces another man from his state in the U.S. Senate. In becoming familiar with the workings of the Senate, he also becomes increasingly disgusted with the degree of corruption involved.