Capra Style Defined by His Good ‘Deeds’

Frank Capra had found success before “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” but he hadn’t quite found himself yet.

There were hits--snappy comedies like “Lady for a Day” (1933) and “It Happened One Night” (1934)--but not the personal revelation that came with “Mr. Deeds.” It was through the 1936 movie that the since much-discussed Capra style crystallized, setting the tone for a handful of recognized classics to come in the ensuing 10 years.

With “Mr. Deeds” (screening Friday afternoon in a free presentation at the Cypress Senior Citizen Center), Capra started to evolve into the national anthem of Hollywood directors, a pro-American sentimentalist with a knack for combining jug-eared comedy with breathless melodrama. Nobody could be quite as corny, or as satisfying, as Capra.

From “Mr. Deeds,” Capra went on to make “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939), “Meet John Doe” (1941) and “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946), all true to his vision of a utopia where doing the right thing always meant that things would turn out right in the end. There’s nothing cynical about Capra, and that made sense to a post-Depression generation of moviegoers who wanted to believe that life could be sweet again.

In “Mr. Deeds,” Capra invented the simple formula, both in plot and technique, that he learned to rely on so often. The story pits a good, naive man against a greedy, opportunistic society. As usual, a good-looking dame is tossed into the mix; she’s a little too friendly with the bad guys, but she’ll soon be reborn in the hero’s uncompromisingly pure image.

The savior this time is the ever-stalwart Gary Cooper (he also starred in “Meet John Doe”) as Longfellow Deeds, a “corn-fed bohunk” thrown onto the mean streets of New York after he unexpectedly inherits $20 million.

The girl is ever-spunky Jean Arthur (she played opposite James Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), a newspaper reporter who deceives him, then falls in love with him as hard as a Bowery tenement collapsing under dynamite.

As Capra introduces us to Deeds in the rural village of Mandrake Falls, we can see what a simple life he leads. He’d rather play the tuba when told about all that money by a team of shysters who want it for themselves.

When they talk him into going to Manhattan to settle his affairs, Deeds doesn’t even have a suitcase; he has to borrow a neighbor’s. On the train, he worries more about the town band, now that it’s minus a tuba player, than what he’s going to do with all that cash.

Arthur, as “Babe” Bennet, enters the scene after Deeds’ arrival in New York. She tricks him into believing she’s an innocent country girl, all the while feeding embarrassing stories of his antics to her circulation-happy editor (George Bancroft). Deeds finds out, and it just about does him in. It may be his most painful disillusionment, but it’s only one in a series. Welcome to the big city, boy.

The last straw comes when his plan to use the inheritance to start a farming program for the unemployed is threatened. Deeds’ moral certainty crumbles, and the comic edge of the film all but disappears. This is Capra, though, and you know the world will be bright again, usually sooner than you think.

What: Frank Capra’s “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.”

When: Friday, June 17, at 12:45 p.m.

Where: The Cypress Senior Citizen Center, 9031 Grindlay St., Cypress.

Whereabouts: Take the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway to Lincoln Avenue and head east to Grindlay Street, then go right.

Wherewithal: Free.

Where to call: (714) 229-6776.