One of the most prolific directors of Code-era Hollywood, Frank Capra’s films are still beloved almost 100 years later. These three films, following our Dundee Hundee screenings of It Happened One Night, round out the most acclaimed stretch of his career – garnering three Best Director and two Best Picture wins at the Academy Awards®.
All of them dramatized the same theme, which Capra would define as "the rebellious cry of the individual against being trampled to an ort by massiveness -- mass production, mass thought, mass education, mass politics, mass wealth, mass conformity." Some critics have affectionately (and at times not so affectionately) labeled this viewpoint "Capra-corn."
If not subversive, the movie is at least driven by a strong distaste for the misuse of power by our elected officials. This was an exceptionally gutsy message at a time when Americans were concerned with the rise of Nazism overseas, and Capra surely knew he would ruffle a few feathers.
Get TicketsMr. Deeds Goes to Town marked a change in director Frank Capra's films. It was the first time he consciously tried to make a social statement. The film's success would lead him to continue to make socially oriented films, including the others in this series.
Get TicketsWhimsical, funny and heart warming, You Can't Take It with You, like all classics, has stood the test of time. With a Pulitzer Prize-winning play as its source material, the film is a class act in every respect.
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