Transcript
Archival: You all think I'm licked? Well, I'm not licked. I'm gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if this room gets filled with lies like these
Nick Capodice: You are listening to Civics 101, I am Nick Capodice.
Christina Phillips: I'm Christina Phillips,
Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: And today in our cinema civics series, we are talking about the big one. Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
Archival: What do you know about laws are making laws or what the [00:00:30] people need? I don't pretend to know. Then what are you doing in the Senate?
Nick Capodice: Now, first off, I wanted to tell you, too, that this was not initially my first pick for Cinema Civics. I was going to do network, which is one of my favorite films of all time.
Archival: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale.
Nick Capodice: But then I had a conversation with my mom and I said, well, I can't decide if I'm going to do network or Mr. Smith goes to Washington. And she was like, you have to do. Mr. Smith goes to Washington. I said, why? And she [00:01:00] said, because it's a really hard time right now and people need hope. They don't need media cynicism. They need a story about, you know, one person can fight against a problem or a difficulty in the government. So I followed her advice. Before we launch into the movie, Hannah, Christina, the three of us are people who love to be sarcastic and speaking for myself and myself. Only a little bit of a no at all. From time to time it would be easy, and [00:01:30] it would be fun to sort of talk about how corny and propagandist, rah rah rah America and completely naive this movie is. Let's just break that for like one day, or at least for ten minutes of one day. Uh, so I wanted to start just by asking each of you. And I'll start with you, Hannah, if there's anyone in some way or another in your life, in your childhood, or anywhere that resembles Jefferson Smith in terms of a person who, regardless of how [00:02:00] impossible it seems, continues to try to do the right thing. Up against all of the machines.
Hannah McCarthy: My father has worked in housing for 35 years, I believe, and many days of his job include things like trying to tackle the problem of waste in the building, you know, the endlessly piling up garbage, [00:02:30] for example, or believing that he can convince the owner of an apartment to invest more money in the health, safety and function of that apartment than in the way that apartment looks, so that you can charge more money. And he does it every day. He goes back every day, and he does it even if he repeatedly gets pushed back down the hill. You know.
Christina Phillips: This is going to be so navel gazing, but whatever. Um, [00:03:00] I think of some of the journalists and particular friends that I have that are journalists who are reporting on just an avalanche of things. And, and the reporting itself becomes just an act of witnessing. Um, and the like, I think with, with climate coverage, for example, whatever you may define as the lost cause, the outcome of trying is not necessarily that there [00:03:30] is a win. The the outcome of trying is demonstrating that he tried like that, that, that you can try and that will actually that matters to people that you are trying.
Nick Capodice: I feel like it's cheating, Hanna, but mine's also my dad. Uh, as somebody who is perpetually, you know, was perpetually told, you know, stop doing this act. Acts. Quote unquote, more normal, no matter what. He would go to every social situation with like [00:04:00] full on love and full on excitement and attention. Uh, never hurt anybody to the best of his ability. Uh, and he kept getting hit in the head by it over and over and over again, but he just never stopped doing it. Um, and the the line in the movie that made me think of that is when Jefferson Smith is speaking, he says, I wouldn't give $0.02 for all your fancy rules if behind them they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little [00:04:30] looking out for the other fella too. Mhm. And we're a show about rules. So we talk about like what our show is, is talk about the rules about how things operate. And this movie kind of, uh, helped me realize sometimes the rules are there for a really good reason, be it to preserve democracy or to preserve kindness or something like that. And it's easy to get cynical about it, but, uh, just for this, like two hours last night when I watched the movie, I felt that. With [00:05:00] that said, let's launch into it. Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Directed by Frank Capra, starring Jimmy Stewart.
Archival: It's just the blood and bone and sinew of this democracy that some great men handed down to the human race. That's all.
Nick Capodice: Jean Arthur.
Archival: This is no place for you. You're halfway decent. You don't belong here. Now go home.
Nick Capodice: The gentlest actor in the world, Claude Rains.
Archival: You can come here and pull that steamroller stuff. No methods won't do here.
Nick Capodice: The not so gentle Guy Kibbee.
Archival: Oh, my nerves are strained to the breaking point. [00:05:30]
Nick Capodice: Hollywood's resident bullfrog. Eugene Pallette.
Archival: I haven't been able to show him a single monument. Not even one that high.
Nick Capodice: And last but not least, Baby Dumpling.
Archival: Oh, it's a briefcase Jeff
Nick Capodice: So, Hannah, just give me your, like, first impressions of the movie. Like, what did you think?
Hannah McCarthy: I was incredibly moved by it. I was crying by the end of it. I really appreciated the fact that in this film, Washington is pretty much [00:06:00] what we, um, when cynical, think Washington is, that you can have all of your rules and it's such a civics lesson because you've got this man appointed senator who has to be told the very, very basics of things like how to craft a bill, which was a brilliant scene. Um, yes. And he's often being told this information by cynical people who are sort of rolling their eyes at him. And then so you've got these things, you've got the how it's supposed to work. Right, which we're very familiar with here at Civics 101. And [00:06:30] then you have the deep and incredibly effective corruption that has seeped into even Jimmy Stewart's, you know, most revered friend of his father, who's been a senator for decades now, even he has been poisoned and he won't let go of it. And I, I actually, you know, snicker in terms of like, hokey or propaganda or all of that. Sure. But at the same time, to make a movie that is honest about [00:07:00] the deep and almost, uh, inescapably powerful corruption in Washington, I think was pretty honest.
Christina Phillips: I think my couple stray thoughts for this is that it's got a lot of really good physical comedy, and the scenes are nice and long and lingering, which I really found refreshing. Um, and I think it's interesting that the audience learns very on that. Mr. Smith is being set [00:07:30] up to fail. And because it makes me wonder what the experience would be like if we learned with him about the corruption. But we learn, you know, like the first five minutes, there's not a lot of subtext. It's all text. Like he's just they're just saying straight out, we're going to do this and we're going to do this, and we need a guy that will just be a body in the room. And and so we get really clear, like pretty straightforward corruption right on the surface. And then to Hannah's point, this [00:08:00] is a really great civics lesson in so many ways. And so I really loved that. I think that that, you know, we have an episode about how a bill becomes a law. And the way that Saunders laid it out is just a really it's so succinct and fascinating, and it has a little bit of humor to it. At one point, I muttered, everything Saunders says is poetry, and I didn't even realize I'd done it. But my partner was watching it with me was just like cackling. And every time she said something, he'd be like, [00:08:30] was that poetry? Was that poetry? But I stand by it. Everything she says is poetry. It's so good, I agree. So yeah, I think I just yeah, it was it. I didn't walk away feeling cynical at all. I walked away being like, yeah, people know how the government works. And also, uh, look at all these human beings. So that's my takeaway.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I also feel like it was one of the better love stories I've ever seen. Not to give it away that you.
Christina Phillips: Spoiler [00:09:00] alert for 1939.
Hannah McCarthy: You know, you never know. But you have. You have someone falling in love with, um, you know, sort of initially being, uh, I really about someone's naivete and then sort of coming around to realize that it's, it's almost not naivete that it is the, the necessary ingredient in the functioning of a democracy [00:09:30] and a society. And so it's almost like she's not falling in love with the man, or she's falling in love with the man alongside falling in love with what he represents, and it's something that she lost. You know, she said she she came to Washington with blue question marks in her eyes, and now she's got green dollar signs in her eyes. And you can tell she's constantly saying, I want to quit because I'm over all this, this, this is terrible. It's there is no government. It's just business [00:10:00] guys running the world. And then he, she she also sort of falls in love with the fact that he's able to bring her back into a belief, I think, in American democracy, which I found really touching. His editor needs a little work, though. Those are some of the roughest cuts I've seen in a long time. But you know what? I didn't really care.
Christina Phillips: I couldn't tell if they were because of restoration or what, but there were some rough cuts.
Nick Capodice: I'm so glad you mentioned the sort of bad edits and the bad cuts in the movie Hannah, because [00:10:30] Frank Capra was sometimes kind of known for that, for his in delicacy with the camera, uh, later on in life. In an interview, he said undisguised camera tricks are the mark of beginners who fall in love with bizarre camera angles and hand moving camera shots. Wrong. Fall in love with your actors. So yes, that's a little self laudatory.
Hannah McCarthy: I appreciate that, no, I really do.
Nick Capodice: I appreciate the fall in love with your actors. Let me tell you about Frank Capra. We are a nation of immigrants, so I'm going to leave it to one to [00:11:00] tell us about what America stands for. He was born Francesco Rosario Capra, and he comes from the land of the Kapodistrias, which is Sicily, just outside of Palermo in Italy. He came to Los Angeles when he was five. He came in steerage, a 13 day trip with his family to come to America. One moment he remembered, even though he was five, was his father looking at the Statue of Liberty, grabbing his son and pointing to it and saying, look at that. That is the greatest light since the Star [00:11:30] of Bethlehem. That is the light of freedom. And remember that freedom. He was broke. He was penniless in Los Angeles. He went to Caltech for chemical engineering, and he paid for it by waiting on tables and playing the banjo in nightclubs.
Hannah McCarthy: Wow. Man. After your own heart.
Nick Capodice: That's right. My own grandfather played the banjo. So, uh, that really sticks to me. Uh, and he finally. How he got a gig in filmmaking was he lied to a Hollywood producer and said he had experience making movies. And [00:12:00] this producer allowed him to shoot a one reel short film. And step by step, he becomes Frank Capra.
Christina Phillips: Incredible.
Nick Capodice: His career after Mr. Smith goes to Washington is very interesting, and I'm going to talk about it sort of at the very end. But now let's get to the movie itself. Christina, can you sort of tell us, like, how we jump into the scene, like, you know. How does this whole thing begin?
Christina Phillips: Well, a senator has died.
Archival: Senator has died.
Archival: Senator Samuel Foley. Dead? Yeah, yeah. Died a minute ago here at Saint Vincent.
Christina Phillips: A senator from a state [00:12:30] that is not explained. That appears to be Midwestern, based on the Washington of it all. Um, not that I'm really someone who should be speaking with expertise on accents, but, um, and the other senator, the governor, and then the political boss, I guess we'd call him, who seems to be the media press guy, all get together and are like, who do we put in charge of this position? Because we have a very important [00:13:00] vote coming up, and we need a body in a chair to vote. Is that about cover it?
Nick Capodice: That was pretty good for a quick civics 1 to 1 lesson. Do either of you know how we fill a seat? If that senator dies or resigns.
Hannah McCarthy: The film would have us believe that the governor appoints the, uh, senator, I think, to fill the seat until there can be an election. However, I also know that Senate seats sometimes sit vacant.
Nick Capodice: Very good.
Nick Capodice: Hannah, in 35 states, you get a temporary senator who is appointed by the governor, [00:13:30] and then you got a special election to fill that seat the next time your state has an election. So that's what happens in this movie. Governor Hopper. Happy Hopper is in a whole pickle. He needs to pick a senator. But as you mentioned, Kristina, he is entirely in the pocket of the villain of this movie. Or, in my opinion, the villain. Jim Taylor. Uh, Hannah, would you tell us a little about, like, who is Jim Taylor?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. So I don't know exactly what his business is, but I know that he [00:14:00] is the person who has a hand in every newspaper and as many businesses as possible and, uh, can move and shake Congress because of all of his many connections and because of his strong arming. But it's specific to the state that Mr. Smith is from, that he's really in control of this state. And in the case of this film, he wants a deal to go through that he will personally financially benefit from.
Nick Capodice: He is [00:14:30] basically a party boss as much as I can find out. Yeah. He owns all the newspapers. He owns all the media in the state. And by the way, when I started to notice that I didn't know what the name of the state was, I became obsessed with it. I would like, look for, like, license plates or billboards or anything to just give me an idea, like, what state are they from? But I think it's in the West. I think it's like some sort of nearest California, just judging by his description of the prairies.
Hannah McCarthy: Right.
Christina Phillips: I so I have a question. I, I sort of once I realized they weren't going to identify the [00:15:00] state, I just assumed they didn't want us to know. And then that made me wonder, do we know what party these people are and are we?
Archival: That was my next question.
Hannah McCarthy: Do not we do not.
Christina Phillips: Good. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: No, it's very clever. We have no idea what party they are.
Nick Capodice: There's no indication because we don't know what other kinds of bills they're passing. And we know that it's 1939. So, like, what did Republicans and Democrats stand for in 1939? I actually don't even have the greatest idea, but we didn't know.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, it's a curiously aligned Senate [00:15:30] and that they all seem to agree with each other in the way that they all leave at the same time they come back. I know that's further in the plot, but there seems to be absolutely no, uh, like political parties in this Senate that we're shown.
Nick Capodice: Taylor needs a yes man to push through this dam, because this dam is a big piece of craft. And I was going to ask for one of you to tell me what what graft is. But, Hannah, you kind of just did it, right.
Hannah McCarthy: I don't know, perhaps I did. I always thought of [00:16:00] graft as an action you do for profit. That isn't actually what it seems to be for other people. Does that make sense? Like you're sort of tricking people. Is that correct?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Well, actually, you said it earlier. The definition of graft is for in politics. It's a politician using their position for personal gain, usually financial gain. Okay. So it's being like a senator or a president and using that power to make yourself some money. Uh, we've done episodes before on like the Emoluments Clause, [00:16:30] which are things that are sort of created to prevent people from doing this. But it still happens a lot, doesn't it?
Christina Phillips: This does make me think, I don't know if, like the literal origin of the word graft is is meant to be taken in the biological sense, where you sort of graft on to things. But, uh, this the fact that this is happening in a, what they call a deficit bill, which seems to be a large bill, is something we see strategically all the time in Congress, where there's a big bill that's [00:17:00] very easy to sell on certain populist policies. And you sneak in things in the text of that bill or in the like, the fine print that seem to be more targeted towards specific policy aims for individual politicians or certain parties.
Nick Capodice: So Jim Taylor tries to appoint a stooge, sort of a chair warmer, to go in and vote through his dam. But the governor, Governor Hoppy, says, uh, no, we can't do that. The people will revolt. The people are demanding this sort of progressive other guy and Jim Taylor's like, [00:17:30] absolutely not. That night at dinner, the governor gets no peace from his children, including Baby Dumplin, who insists that there is one man only who can hold the job of senator for this mystery state. It is a wide eyed lover of nature, head of the Boy Rangers, Jeff Smith.
Archival: He's the greatest American. We got to dad. He can tell you what George Washington said. My heart.
Nick Capodice: The reason it's the Boy Rangers is the Boy Scouts of America refused to be involved in the movie and to have their name used, so they had to [00:18:00] make up the Boy Rangers. So Jefferson Smith's appointed, there's a celebration party, and interestingly, they play old Lang signs.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. What was that?
Nick Capodice: It's just like It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart just has that song following him around wherever he goes. And at that party, the fellow senator of the Missouri state Senator Payne, who is played by Claude Rains, whom I love so deeply. For anyone out there who doesn't know Claude Rains, he plays Louis Renault in Casablanca.
Archival: I'm shocked. [00:18:30] Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. You're winning, sir. Oh, thank you very much.
Nick Capodice: So at that party, the corrupt Senator Payne learns that Jefferson Smith's father was a Clayton Smith. Clayton Smith was Senator Payne's best friend back in school. I love the scene where the two of them are taking the train to D.C., and they sort of reminisce about Jefferson Smith's dad, who was a newspaperman who took on a corrupt mining interest and eventually was murdered for [00:19:00] it was shot in the back over his rural top desk, still with his hat on.
Hannah McCarthy: Still with his hat on.
Archival: Still with his hat on.
Christina Phillips: My note watching this was. We are two minutes into this plan and it's already falling apart. That being the plan of getting Jefferson Smith there and that he means nothing because it appears as though he means a lot, as is very deeply connected to the other senator.
Nick Capodice: I would also like to note that it was. I made a little note to myself, [00:19:30] to Christina, two minutes in. And that's the first cry.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: I can't help it. Claude Rains can make anybody cry. So at the end of that train ride, finally, Mr. Smith goes to Washington. And before we get into what happens in Washington, we have got to take a quick break. All [00:20:00] right, we're back. You're listening to Civics 101. We're talking about Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939, and we are here. We made it to Washington, DC. Hannah, you want to lay out, you know, Jeff Smith's arrival in the wacky, turbulent Capitol.
Hannah McCarthy: So they get off the train, they're being followed around by porters, um, one of whom is carrying Jeff Smith's messenger pigeons that he has brought along with him.
Archival: Pigeons to carry messages back to mall.
Hannah McCarthy: You know, all of the other sort of the handlers, the other senator, the other people, [00:20:30] they just want to get Jeff to his offices. But Jeff wanders off because he sees the Capitol Dome.
Nick Capodice: What'd you think of that part when he was wandering around D.C.? And this is the emotional, emotional musical part of the movie where he wanders around Washington, D.C..
Christina Phillips: So I feel two ways about it. One way I'm like, oh, this is so lovely. And I just kept thinking, audiences of that time, this is maybe the first time you see the [00:21:00] detail of D.C. through the eyes of this person. You know, you get to get a tour yourself. And at the same time, I was sort of like, this is a two hour movie, and we got all four sides of the Lincoln Memorial in this movie. But I really loved it. I was so moved. You know, just seeing him experience these things. And then we've got that long pause for the child to read a line from something in the Lincoln Memorial. And the man [00:21:30] is teaching him how to read. And I was like, ah, yeah, I'll be here forever. This can be five hours. I don't care.
Archival: That we here highly.
Archival: Resolve.
Speaker6: Resolve that these did not have died in vain.
Hannah McCarthy: What was interesting for me is the fact that although it was so terribly cheesy and drawn out and long and and I don't, I don't necessarily think that an audience member who's not like me or perhaps like Christina, someone [00:22:00] who's who's very vulnerable to that sort of thing, would be convinced of it or won over by it. But as someone who has cried in the Lincoln Memorial every single time, including on tape, I was like, yeah, well, you know, I mean, I get it. I totally get what he's feeling. I just don't. I'm not sure about the execution. I have to be totally honest with you. But it still worked on me.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, it worked on me too. It did feel a bit much, but it worked on me. And by the way, listeners were going to put a link in the show notes to the episode where Hannah [00:22:30] cries at the Lincoln Memorial, because that's one of my favorite ones.
Christina Phillips: That's really sweet.
Nick Capodice: Well, Jefferson Smith finally makes it to his office, where he meets his hard nosed, whip smart secretary, Hannah McCarthy. Just kidding, just kidding. Clarissa Saunders, she is cynical. She dates a reporter named diz who keeps asking her to marry him.
Hannah McCarthy: I don't know if she's dating the reporter.
Hannah McCarthy: Be honest with you. I think he's just. I think he's [00:23:00] in her space. He's constantly hitting on her, and he is her closest press connection. She's. He's the one that she's like. She tells what to do. Give me this headline. Do this for me.
Nick Capodice: Hmm. Maybe you're right. Maybe they're not dating. They just go out and eat oysters and steak and drink a lot together. Saunders hates the fact that she has to babysit this idealistic bumpkin, so she decides to quit. She's like, I've had enough of this job, I'm out and she's gonna go out in a blaze of glory. So she's [00:23:30] six. The Washington reporters on Jefferson Smith now is where I'd like to ask you both what you think about the depiction of the media in this film.
Speaker8: Oh, they're utterly corrupt.
Hannah McCarthy: Utterly corrupt. But, you know, it's what's interesting about it to me is that, um, the media are either bought in this movie or they are doing anything to catch someone out and to to get a good headline. Right. But [00:24:00] then at the end.
Archival: Jeff has a paper. They're boy stuff, right? They aren't letting what Jeff says get printed in the state. Now, if I give you a raft of it over the phone right now.
Hannah McCarthy: I thought to myself, well, there's there's little old public radio. You know, like. Just for.
Christina Phillips: Voice.
Archival: Just for periodical.
Nick Capodice: Us, our little public radio station. Just getting run over by Cybertruck. Sorry. That's too hard. Our public radio station is getting run over by a truck. [00:24:30] That is the complete recission of funds already promised to us. Well, eventually Jeff Smith goes to bed and he arrives for his first ever session in the Senate the next day at noon. By the way, the the the the Senate in the movie, that was the largest set that Columbia Pictures had built to that point. Wow. It's a complete replica of the US Senate. Capra had gone to DC and filmed, like, every square foot of it, to make sure he recreated it perfectly. [00:25:00] And when he gets into the Senate, he is shown the ropes by a young Senate page named Richard, who he calls Dick. I love in movies where there's like some person who knows what's up, who's telling the protagonist how everything operates. That's like my favorite trope.
Christina Phillips: There's a lot of that in this movie. There are several characters who do that for him.
Archival: They are not a bad desk either. Daniel Webster used to use it.
Archival: Daniel Webster sat here.
Archival: Give you something to shoot at, Senator. If you figure on doing any talking.
Archival: Hold on.
Archival: I'm just going to sit around and listen.
Archival: That's a way to [00:25:30] get reelected.
Nick Capodice: Then we see the swearing in of Jeff Smith by the very avuncular president of the Senate, played by Harry Carey. Uh, next civics question. Who's the president of the Senate?
Hannah McCarthy: Um, the vice president. Right?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Do you think this guy was the vice president?
Christina Phillips: Now he's the president pro tem?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, he is the president pro tem.
Hannah McCarthy: He's got to be.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. What I find so interesting about the president pro tem, which is the person who acts to lead the Senate in the absence of the vice [00:26:00] president, is. It's the longest serving senator from the majority party and also third in line of succession.
Nick Capodice: I was going to ask for a definition of president pro tem, but you already got that right.
Christina Phillips: I'm so ready.
Nick Capodice: And after that first day in the Senate, Jefferson Smith finds out all those newspaper men wrote all those horrible, salacious fake articles about them. And then what does he do, Hannah?
Hannah McCarthy: He goes and punches as many reporters as he can find.
Archival: Who will let you in here? Why is she out chasing ambulance? That guy [00:26:30] Smith's punching everybody he meets.
Archival: Just got away from him. Oh, Tarzan.
Christina Phillips: I went through the entire movie assuming that was a dream sequence. I was like, he's just imagining it, but I'm realizing he doesn't actually, like, leave that dream sequence. He just ends up in the bar.
Hannah McCarthy: But now he's, like, totally punches everyone. That's that's real. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: That's so funny.
Nick Capodice: My favorite is when he punches a reporter out and then leaves, and then the reporter shaking his head like.
Nick Capodice: Oh, what just happened? He looks up.
Nick Capodice: And it's a portrait of George Washington [00:27:00] looking smug, like, yeah, you deserve that. Yeah, that's what you get for messing with the stuff that I created. And that is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, when all the press reporters get them together and say, well, what are you doing here, man? Don't you know what an honorary senator actually does?
Archival: When the country needs men up there who know and have courage, as it never did before? He's just going to decorate a chair and get himself honored. What would you vote? Sure. Just like his colleague tells him to. Yes, sir. [00:27:30] Like a Christmas tiger. He'll nods his head and vote. Yes, sir. You're not a senator. You're an honorary stooge. You ought to be shown up.
Nick Capodice: Do either of you know what a Christmas tiger is?
Hannah McCarthy: It's a it's a bobblehead.
Nick Capodice: How did you know that?
Hannah McCarthy: Because I've seen them a million times.
Nick Capodice: In England, they used to call them naughty dogs. You know, Dee Dee, why, you'd put a dog, like, in the back of your car, and it would just kind of be nice. And that's what the Christmas tiger.
Christina Phillips: Wait, so how does that connect to Mr. Smith? [00:28:00]
Nick Capodice: Oh, because what's he actually going to do? He's just going to do what Senator Payne tells him. He's just going to be constantly nodding his head and saying, you're so depressed and powerless. He goes to his fellow senator Joe Payne, who says, look, I gotta do something. I'm not just a Christmas tiger. And Senator Payne has the great idea of just how to keep Jeff Smith busy. He convinces Jefferson Smith to write his very own bill to create a national boys camp in [00:28:30] his nonexistent state. Now we get to the tremendous civics lesson decades before schoolhouse Rock.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, I loved it.
Archival: Finally, they think it's quite a bill. It goes over to the House of Representatives for debate and a vote, but it has to wait his turn on the calendar. Calendar, huh? Yeah. That's the order of business. Your bill has to stand way back there in line. Unless the steering committee thinks it's important. What?
Archival: The steering committee.
Hannah McCarthy: For me, it was the first moment where I realized that this actress is very, very, very special. [00:29:00] The way that she plays, the line between annoyed and An incredibly patient, was brilliant. And even just like the way she holds her mouth in a straight line was remarkable. And she just delightfully is explaining to him, essentially the fact that what he has just been told to do is sit on his hands and play or play in the sandbox, and then she explains to him that this thing will not happen. [00:29:30]
Archival: Yes, sir. The big day finally arrives and Congress adjourns.
Hannah McCarthy: And he's like, great, let's get started. And she's like, don't you understand that? I've just told you this is a play pretend project that you don't understand. And it was just it was wonderful.
Nick Capodice: One thing that caught me off guard is when she's explaining what committee is, she says, how else are you going to get 96 people to agree on something? And I was like 96. There's 100 people in the Senate. Yeah, what's up with that? And then I realized it was [00:30:00] 20 years before Hawaii and Alaska were added to the United States.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: So Smith writes his bill with Saunders. But Saunders knows something that he doesn't, which is the site for his proposed national boys camp is where the dam is going to be. Do you remember the dam from so long ago, Jim Taylor's draft. So Smith introduces his bill. Senator Payne runs out all flustered. Jim Taylor and Senator Paine decide they have got to get this damn legislation through. Toot sweet or their scandal is going to be [00:30:30] revealed. So they use Senator Paine's attractive daughter to lure Smith out of the Senate for one day when they propose the bill.
Hannah McCarthy: Wait, may I just say something quickly? Because I know we moved past this fairly fast. Sure. In in the scenes where we're first in the Senate and the very, very basics of the senator being explained to us. I feel like you can feel the movie already telling you everyone in this room is pretending to abide by the rules. They all know the rules. They all [00:31:00] look as though they're following the rules. But as has already been established, this is a place steeped in corruption. And it's almost like these rules are for not until you bring in an individual who doesn't just follow the rules, but he believes in the power and democracy thereof. I just wanted to say.
Nick Capodice: That that's a really good.
Hannah McCarthy: Point. I found that really interesting.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's like the senators are doing [00:31:30] nothing but maintaining their reputations. Like that's all they care about. They're not passing legislation, they're not impassioned about anything. They just follow the rules step by step. Um, leading to, you know, back to that quote again. You know, what's the point of rules if there's not some humanity behind them? There's some reason why you have them other than just protocol and reputation.
Hannah McCarthy: Right.
Nick Capodice: So Smith is kept out of the Senate the day that bill is introduced. Do you guys remember what it was called in the movie, this bill with the damn stuff crammed into it.
Christina Phillips: A deficiency bill, right? [00:32:00]
Nick Capodice: A deficiency bill. Have you ever heard of a deficiency bill?
Christina Phillips: I had not.
Hannah McCarthy: I had not, but I. I assume it's some sort of appropriations bill. Perhaps, I don't know.
Nick Capodice: It is. It's even, like, referred to in essays about the movie as just the appropriations bill, but it was called the deficiency Bill, which is a spending bill that asks the government to spend money to make up for some deficiency. Like, you know, Medicaid was budgeted for X billion dollars, but we're a billion short. Can we have that money? We are deficient. And that's a deficiency bill. Got [00:32:30] it. And you may wonder, like how does a building of a dam fit into that? The same way all legislation happens, like you said, omnibus bill, things are just crammed in. So Saunders goes out and gets drunk with diz, eats some oysters and steak. Uh, comes back to the office while inebriated to tell Jeff Smith that he was played by Senator Payne, Senator Payne's daughter, and the big bad Jim Taylor. She spills all the dirt on the dam. And then the next day in the Senate. Jeff Smith makes a bit [00:33:00] of a mistake. He rises and accuses members of the Senate of graft, of being corrupt and in the pocket of Jim Taylor, and he has no idea how the Taylor machine is going to break him down.
Archival: Either he falls in line with us and behaves himself, or I'll break him so wide open they'll never be able to find the pieces. Jim, I won't stand for it. You won't stand for it. I don't want any part of crucifying this boy.
Christina Phillips: What struck me about him [00:33:30] kind of standing up and calling out the corruption, and that being a problem for him is that so often, I think in current politics, like the way that you get attention in a way that advances you seems to be standing up and being like, you're corrupt and you're corrupt, like, um, this ends up backfiring on him in a way that I think a lot of politicians deliberately kind of go after that sort of opportunity to take out their colleagues.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, so this is far more cynical. Um, [00:34:00] I, I, I think that this is pretty close to what actually goes on. Certainly there's, there's a lot of show in Congress lately, and I know that there's, there's not a great deal of, um, getting anything past when it comes to disagreements between the parties. However, I think it's far less likely that individuals are called out for real corruption and more that they are called corrupt. Um, [00:34:30] I have a little bit of a hard time believing that everyone's as much of an angel as the lack of evidence of deep, deep corruption, uh, at least espoused by members of other parties would have us believe. You know, I don't know, they're just people. Um, so I actually felt like, yeah, this is probably how it would go. Like if if someone were being sort of hamstrung by the political machine that got them the job and that keeps them the job, [00:35:00] they would probably be like, fire that guy. You know, if he's revealing that something actual is going on here.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. It's like what you were just saying about how he's like, he's following the rules earnestly. He's like calling out corruption earnestly. And, you know, the rule that happens in the Senate is perhaps more like, no, we're all sort of like assuming these roles that we play. And he's actually coming in and being like, well, wait a minute. No, this is how I understand it to work on the surface.
Hannah McCarthy: Right.
Nick Capodice: So what they do is [00:35:30] they just turn the tables and say, no, you're corrupt. They accuse him of graft. They forged signatures. That was really scary to me. Just this notion of someone who is truly innocent can just, in a blink of an eye, be accused of all sorts of crimes with zero actual evidence. It's just they all, they all fall in line, and.
Hannah McCarthy: It happens every day. Nick.
Archival: I have conclusive evidence to prove that my colleague owns the very land described in his bill. He bought it the day following his appointment to [00:36:00] the Senate, and is holding it using this body in his privileged office for his own personal profit.
Nick Capodice: Smith is then hauled in front of the ethics committee, and he is asked to defend himself, and he runs out without saying a word. So it looks like a lone man cannot fight for a lost cause. The odds are all against him. Hanna. Christina, what's the one way? A man like Jefferson Smith can fight back against the machine a dame.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, it starts [00:36:30] with the dame he has to be. He goes. He goes to cry at the Lincoln Memorial, which don't we all. And, um. And he's planning to head out of town, and Saunders finds him, and she essentially says to him, you know, I was wrong in my understanding of you. Uh. She calls. She hearkens back to, uh, Senator Smith saying it seemed like Lincoln was sitting there waiting for someone, and she says to him, maybe he [00:37:00] was waiting for you. Right? Maybe you're the one. Um. And so he goes back to her place, and, uh, they decided to craft a plan.
Nick Capodice: And, uh, Christina, what is the tool that Saunders teaches him to use the next day?
Christina Phillips: The filibuster?
Archival: And I'll tell you one thing.
Archival: The wild horses aren't gonna drag me off this floor until those people have heard everything I've got to say, even if it takes all winter.
Nick Capodice: Did you ever think [00:37:30] you'd romanticize the filibuster? Which is kind of like that was.
Christina Phillips: The thing is, I was like, oh, man, what a take that the filibuster is done for honor. Um, but then again.
Nick Capodice: Do you one of you want to just we've done episodes on the filibuster, but one of you want to just explain briefly, one on one what it is.
Hannah McCarthy: In certain circumstances. If a senator is granted the floor by the president of the Senate or the president pro tem, then so long as that Senator does not stop speaking, does not sit down, [00:38:00] and does not leave the chambers, and does not yield their time, except in sort of like brief interruptions, that Senator may continue to hold the floor. So what that means is that person could theoretically, although, you know, we are human beings, could talk forever.
Nick Capodice: And, Christina, do you know how we stop a filibuster? How you interrupt it?
Christina Phillips: Doesn't it require two thirds of the Senate to interrupt a filibuster? [00:38:30]
Nick Capodice: Yes. Well, now it's 3/5. But at the time of the movie, it was two thirds of the Senate. They invoke something called cloture. Cloture is, hey, you know, we've had enough of this guy talking. So my question is, these senators all were miserable listening to him talk. Why didn't they just invoke cloture?
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: However, however, they do maintain a quorum in the Senate at all times.
Archival: And that among.
Archival: These are life, Liberty and the pursuit of. It looks like the night shift is coming on.
Nick Capodice: The [00:39:00] current record for a filibuster in U.S. history is Strom Thurmond, who was filibustering against the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. That was 24 hours and 18 minutes. That record was recently beaten by Cory Booker, but he was not filibustering. This is very important. So the filibuster record is still Strom Thurmond. Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours and five minutes. So the people in the gallery who were, you know, visiting the Senate and watching the filibuster, they're [00:39:30] kind of like they like what he's saying. They're getting behind it, and he's saying a ton of good stuff, great speeches off the cuff and then resorting to, you know, reading the Declaration of Independence or Letters of George Washington or the Constitution slowly, but Jim Taylor is stopping all of the news coming into his state. Unless it is anti Jefferson Smith. So Jim Taylor runs a smear campaign saying that the deficiency bill needs to pass right now or [00:40:00] people will starve.
Hannah McCarthy: Keeping it vague.
Nick Capodice: I don't think a deficiency bill going through is going to be something that, you know, in one day lets people starve.
Hannah McCarthy: But it's of course not about that. It's all about how you sell it. That's the whole point of this, and it's about who has enough power to manipulate people.
Christina Phillips: I did just like how he started to get kind of, um, chippy, you know, like, this is the opportunity.
Hannah McCarthy: For, [00:40:30] like, punchy.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. Like, he gains confidence throughout his filibuster. Whereas before he was so uncertain, it's like now that he's been empowered with the knowledge of how the filibuster works, he starts being like. Is it a question? I guess I'll yield for a question or I'll be like, ah, my favorite text. And and so he starts, you know, actually kind of operating in the language of the Senate in a way.
Nick Capodice: Like we've created a monster. Exactly. Somebody who knows the rules but actually cares about them.
Hannah McCarthy: But he's still he's utterly [00:41:00] reliant on Saunders to give him cues for everything because she knows exactly what to do and when to do it.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, she's like the real hero of this movie, I think. So since Jim Taylor owns the media, nobody in the state hears anything that Smith is saying to defend himself. But then Saunders remembers that Jefferson Smith ran a little paper for the boy Rangers, so she and diz dictate copy over the phone to Smith's mother and these plucky little kids. They write their [00:41:30] own coverage, and they bike and wagon these papers all over the state.
Christina Phillips: Boy stuff?
Nick Capodice: Oh, yeah. Boy stuff.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. And then Taylor. Taylor attacks them.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. He runs. He runs children who are inexplicably driving. It's it's actually kind of shockingly violent. Mhm. That he, he would basically kill people children. And that's I think the point is that it's sort of illustrating. No you don't get how much this guy doesn't care about human beings.
Nick Capodice: And [00:42:00] Taylor is telling the kids you don't get to be a journalist because that's me. I am in charge of what people learn. I'm in charge of the truth. You don't get to share your truth with the people.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: And it was a heartbreaking moment, that scene, I got very emotional when the kids were getting beaten up and knocked off the road and stuff. I like the David versus Goliath man versus machine thing of the little kids with their tiny little press putting a paper together, contrasted and juxtaposed against the spinning [00:42:30] iron wheels of Jim Taylor's press machine. I love it when things like that happen so boys get beaten up. It's very sad. And finally, Jefferson Smith passes out after about 24 hours of filibustering.
Archival: And the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place.
Archival: Somebody will listen to me.
Nick Capodice: When [00:43:00] Jefferson Smith falls, Senator Payne runs out of the Senate. And this part was always confusing to me. I think to shoot himself. But I don't see a gun. But you hear gunshots?
Hannah McCarthy: Yes, that's my understanding.
Nick Capodice: So he runs in again and shouts that everything Smith has been saying is true and that he, Senator Payne, is the corrupt one. He's not fit to serve. He's not even fit to live.
Archival: Every word about Taylor and me and graft and the rotten political corruption of my [00:43:30] state. Every one of it is true. I'm not fit for office. I'm not fit for any place of honor.
Nick Capodice: And after that, it's pretty much the fastest ending in Hollywood history.
Hannah McCarthy: That's it. Yeah. That's it. You don't even get to see Jeff Smith wake back up.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, that's a really good point.
Hannah McCarthy: He's just he's passed out cold at the end of it. But you know what? I really, really liked that because while you had this turnaround, while you have the crowd is cheering and the [00:44:00] president of the Senate doesn't even try to call order any longer. And, you know, Saunders yells, yippee! Um, he's still passed out cold after completely draining himself in the name of democracy and representation of the people. And I do think we're meant to say to ourselves, look at what it takes. And usually even this is not enough. You know, look at what they make you get.
Nick Capodice: I was just about to say, look what they make you give. So are you too curious how audiences reacted? [00:44:30]
Christina Phillips: Yeah, yeah. Deeply curious.
Nick Capodice: We're gonna talk about it after a quick break. All right. Hannah. How do you think Mr. Smith goes to Washington? Was received.
Hannah McCarthy: I don't have a very good reason as to why I believe this. My guess is that it was initially poorly received and that now people think it's a masterpiece. That's my guess.
Christina Phillips: I'm gonna guess that the public loved it. Because [00:45:00] we love a movie that tells us how to feel. And it's funny and I think it's, uh, accessible. I'm going to guess, and I hope I'm wrong, but I'm going to guess that a lot of politicians and journalists were real grumpy about this one.
Nick Capodice: All right, so here's what went down. The film premiered in the Constitution Hall on October 17th, 1939. This premiere was sponsored by the National Press Club. About 4000 [00:45:30] people came, including 45 of the 96 senators, and this movie was absolutely eviscerated. Oh, gosh. Just like you said, Christina politician said that it showed DC as a bunch of crooks that are rife with corruption. And it was also accused of being communist and socialist propaganda. Now, again, this is coming out. You know, right before our involvement in World War Two. So, [00:46:00] you know, saying, uh, you know, there are problems with America because senators are corrupt. That was considered communist. Yeah. Also, the fact that anybody can stand up and speak their mind about whatever they think, even if it harms the country, is a danger to the United States.
Christina Phillips: Mhm.
Nick Capodice: Send a majority leader. All been Barkley. He called the film quote silly and stupid. Uh he said that the film was, quote, a grotesque distortion of the Senate, as grotesque as [00:46:30] anything ever seen. And the last line of his that I appreciated was, uh. Barclay said the film showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on the record. In addition, newspaper reporters despised the film. One from The Washington Star said that it showed, quote, the democratic system and our vaunted free press and exactly the colors that Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin like to paint them.
Christina Phillips: Oh my goodness. I'm sorry, [00:47:00] but this this feels a little bit like the Streisand effect, where you just, um, if you make a big deal about a thing about you, it never works. Well.
Nick Capodice: Uh, the biggest complaint from the press at large was that it depict them all as, uh, drinking too much. Really?
Christina Phillips: Yeah. Oh, that's what they're upset about.
Hannah McCarthy: You know, it is interesting. Members of the press are often shown. Well, I guess if you're going to depict the press and you need them to be chatting.
Nick Capodice: In highball drinking?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, yeah. Well, if you need them [00:47:30] to be talking to one another, they need to be at, like a bar in Washington where people rub elbows and they're drinking and smoking. Yeah, you see that a lot, I guess.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. It's much less interesting to see them, like, hunched over their phone or like in a in a corner.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I.
Christina Phillips: Think.
Hannah McCarthy: That all the time I yeah, I often think.
Nick Capodice: Like, real journalism looks like.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, if, if members of the, if they tried to make a movie about what so many of us spend so much of our time doing, it would be, you know, no one would, no one would watch it.
Nick Capodice: So [00:48:00] last thing I want to say is that Frank Capra at the premiere was seated next to a senator from Montana, and Frank Capra said, quote, that night was the worst shellacking of my professional life. Oh, so American politicians despise this movie. Interesting. But you know who else did? Fascist countries. Hitler's Germany, Franco's Spain, Italy. They [00:48:30] all banned this movie because it showed America and democracy in a positive light.
Christina Phillips: Interesting.
Nick Capodice: Isn't that interesting? There was one theater in occupied France during the war. There was. The theater was told it's not allowed to show any American movies whatsoever. So they put on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for 30 days nonstop until the government shut the movie theater down.
Christina Phillips: I love it.
Nick Capodice: And as to the question of the public, the public loved it. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. It made $3.5 [00:49:00] million in the box office, the third highest grossing film of the 1930s, beaten only by Gone with the Wind and Snow White.
Christina Phillips: That's a tough year.
Nick Capodice: What fascinated me most, sort of at the end of this story, is something to do with Frank Capra himself. So he made a lot of movies, he made a lot of money. He was the president of SAG for a while. December 7th, 1941. Bombing of Pearl Harbor. Frank Capra quit [00:49:30] directing entirely. He gave up his SAG presidency. He stopped making films and he enlisted in the US Army. And he wrote. He wrote this line about it. He said, I had a guilty conscience in my films. I championed the cause of the gentle, the poor, the downtrodden. Yet I had begun to live like the Aga Khan. The curse of Hollywood is big money. It comes so fast it breeds and imposes its own mores, not of wealth, [00:50:00] but of ostentation and phony status. He was 44 years old when he enlisted after Pearl Harbor, and he was told, buddy, you know you're too old to fight. Uh, so Chief of Staff General George C Marshall asked Frank Capra to come to the Pentagon for a special meeting. And this general told Capra he was worried about soldiers in the US Army.
Nick Capodice: He was worried about them being unwilling to fight because they're overseas. Right. You're [00:50:30] not at home defending your house or defending your country. You're fighting a war overseas that mainly is dealing with other countries and other people. Frank Capra was asked by this general to make a film that told soldiers and Frank Capra's own words, quote, why the hell they're in uniform? And Frank Capra made a seven film series, a series of documentaries that is titled Why We Fight. Wow. The first one came out. President Franklin Roosevelt said, quote, I want every [00:51:00] American to see this motion picture. Winston Churchill ordered the films to be screened in British theaters and the very last coat of Frank Capra. He was asked in an interview why he made movies to inspire soldiers, and he said, quote, because for two hours you've got him. Hitler can't keep him that long. You eventually reach more people than Roosevelt does on the radio. Do you guys have any last thoughts in the movie? What [00:51:30] was the part that made you cry the most?
Hannah McCarthy: I probably about halfway through. I was just sort of tearful. Um, I think I think that earnestness is important, and I think that in so many ways we have become a nation and a world that looks at earnestness as, um, reflective of a lack of [00:52:00] intelligence or an ability to swan around with other people or, um, or a sign that you don't carry the cultural capital that would make you useful. And I think that's generally Not good for the world. And so to have a character who is not just earnest but quite intelligent, played by someone who can also [00:52:30] make that character very charming and very enigmatic, I think accomplishes a kind of beautiful feat.
Christina Phillips: I think that the moment that made me tear up unexpectedly and then now that I think about it, makes a lot of sense, is after Saunders lays out how a bill does or does not become a law. And Jefferson Smith says, okay, so should we order food first or should we get started? And she [00:53:00] says, I think, let me go get a pencil. And I thought, because I'm cynical, unfortunately.
Hannah McCarthy: That she was gonna.
Christina Phillips: Leave like that. She was gonna.
Hannah McCarthy: Leave. Yeah, I thought so, too.
Christina Phillips: And then. Yeah. And then she comes back. The next scene, you just see her sitting there And also what happens next is that he opens his mouth and he just starts like he's on it, like it's it's like they're like, okay, we're doing it. And then they just start doing it. And like [00:53:30] he's like, here's why this bill matters. Here's like the why, the how, the what. Um, and they just kind of dive in and it feels like that's a moment. I don't know where they both seem to understand the reality of the situation. And they're like, okay, we're here. We're doing it. Uh, and that was like, really touching for me.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Christina, I agree with you. That moment for me was, I guess, and, you know, you know that the bill is supposed to be doomed either [00:54:00] way. But I think also a reminder that you can choose to do something, even if it it's, you know, as you asked at the very beginning, Nick, a quote unquote lost cause. Right. And that I think so often when it comes to American politics, there's a lot of throwing up of hands and saying that will never happen. Uh, and I think that that is really dangerous for things actually happening because if everyone agrees, oh, no, that'll never get done, [00:54:30] then someone has won and it is not the people.
