Underdogs

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: written by Sidney Buchman, Lewis Foster, and Myles Connolly; directed by Frank Capra; starring Jean Arthur (Saunders), James Stewart (Jefferson Smith), Claude Rains (Senator Paine), Edward Arnold (Jim Taylor), Thomas Mitchell (Diz), and Harry Carey (President of the Senate) (1939): When the forces of political evil and chicanery in the far-flung year of 1939 in America order the police to turn fire hoses on peaceful protesters and the police happily comply, when the bad guys start attacking and injuring children trying to get the truth out and the authorities do nothing to stop them, one is reminded that the authorities have been knobs for a long time in America.

Frank Capra's beloved classic is a winning combination of Juvenalian political satire and gentle Horatian optimism -- Jimmy Stewart's character has a naivete that's funny to begin with before experience (and the love of Girl Friday Jean Arthur) gives him the power to defy corruption. If you thinks it ends abruptly, well, boy does it ever! A 15-minute epilogue that tied off every loose end was cut by the studio before release, and I think the movie's better for it. Capra's usual cast of supporting actors, along with the always great Claude Rains as a senator gone wrong, are terrific, as are leads Stewart and Arthur. Highly recommended.

The Big Heat: adapted from the William P. McGivern serial novel by Sydney Boeham; directed by Fritz Lang; starring Glenn Ford (Sgt. Bannion), Gloria Grahame (Debby), Jocelyn Brando (Katie Bannion), Lee Marvin (Vince), and Alexander Scourby (Lagana) (1953): Almost the Ur-Text for every movie in which a heroic cop turns in his badge and goes it alone (or with one loyal partner) against the forces of Evil. Ford is terse and violent as Sgt. Bannion, who's up against the Mob in an unnamed East Coast city. Gloria Grahame plays a mobster's mistress who ends up siding with Ford. A young Lee Marvin plays Grahame's gangster. This movie deals with many of German expatriate director Fritz (Metropolis, Fury, M) Lang's dominant tropes, most notably the corruption of the Elite and the heroic efforts of a few to combat that corruption. As was always true of Lang's direction, the movie looks terrific -- it's a dandy piece of police noir. Recommended.

The Mouse That Roared: adapted by Roger MacDougall and Stanley Mann from the novel by Leonard Wibberley; directed by Jack Arnold; starring Peter Sellers (Grand Duchess/ Prime Minister/ Tully Bascombe), Jean Seberg (Helen Kokintz), William Hartnell (Will Buckley), David Kossoff (Professor Kokintz), and Leo McKern (Benter) (1959): Peter Sellers plays three characters delightfully, with able supporting work from Leo McKern, First Doctor Who William Hartnell, and others. 

The tiny European country of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick finds itself bankrupt, so its Prime Minister hatches a plan. They will declare war on the United States, quickly surrender, and then watch the aid dollars flow in from the United States to its vanquished enemy. In theory, this explains the Iraq War. There's some pointed satire here about atomic brinksmanship, but the whole thing is remarkably gentle and pleasant, with many laugh-out-loud moments. One of the early high points of the career of Peter Sellers, it wouldn't be the last time he played multiple roles in a movie. Recommended.

Shangri-La

Lost Horizon, written by Robert Riskin and Sidney Buchman, based on the novel of the same name by James Hilton, directed by Frank Capra, starring Ronald Colman (Robert Conway), Jane Wyatt (Sondra), Edward Everett Horton (Lovett), John Howard (George Conway), Thomas Mitchell (Barnard), Isabell Jewell (Gloria), H.B. Warner (Chang), Margo (Maria) and Sam Jaffe (High Lama) (1937): Frank Capra's utopian 1937 epic holds up pretty well today as a populist film of ideas, though women and non-Caucasians are given a bit of a short shrift. The ideas of pacifism and shared property espoused by the perfect society of Shangri-La in this film would give Red-baiting American politicians plenty of reason to accuse Capra of being a dirty Communist. Yay 1950's!

But in 1937, this was far and away the most expensive movie the young Columbia Pictures had ever made, primarily because of its massive and elaborate sets. And Shangri-La, that hidden utopia somewhere in the Himalayas, still looks striking (and Art Nouveau) today.

Released at 132 minutes in 1937, Lost Horizon lost a full half-hour over the decades. In 1970, a major restorative effort by the American Film Institute yielded all 132 minutes of dialogue but ony 125 minutes of surviving film. Still photographs make up the last 7 minutes, with the dialogue playing. It's a fascinating restoration because besides the stills, decreased film quality in some scenes clues the viewer in to what got cut over the years. The answer? Well, a lot of Commie stuff and a lot of character development.

While supervising an evacuation of non-Chinese from a revolution-plagued Chinese city in the 1930's, British renaissance man Robert Conway, his brother George and three evacuees get kidnapped and flown into the Himalayas. There, they're taken to the secluded paradise of Shangri-La, where workers and intellectuals live in harmony with nature and themselves. Why Conway has been brought there, and what his decisions will be, make up the central plot of the movie.

This really is an unusual big-budget movie for any Hollywood era -- there's action and peril, but the central portion of the film is an idyll and a philosophical parable set in the vast sets that portray Shangri-La as an Art Nouveau paradise on Earth. Ronald Colman is earnest and convincing as the battered idealist, and the supporting cast -- including Mitchell and Horton as Laurel-and-Hardyesque comic relief -- is also solid. This is, quite simply, a movie that Hollywood would never make today, but in its time it was a box-office success. Highly recommended.