It's a wonderful life 1946 - The most loved Christmas classic of all time

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IMDB rating: 8,7

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Gloria Grahame

"The image of It's a Wonderful Life has undergone a complete transformation since its 1946 release. In its own time, Frank Capra's comedy-drama about the dark side of human nature was a modest failure, neither a box-office success nor a critical favorite, though it garnered some recognition in the form of 5 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. For the next 28 years, the movie remained a cult favorite among movie buffs and Capra fans. Then the movie's copyright was allowed to lapse and suddenly, during the early 1980s around Christmas (the season in which the film is set), it seemed possible to flip on the TV at random some nights and find the movie playing somewhere on the dial, and that went double for Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, and New Year's. The public came out regarding the film as a lost classic; Capra lived just long enough to reap some of the belated acclaim, and his estate later benefitted from the sales of the films that he owned outright, such as Broadway Bill and Lady For a Day. The movie is in fact a dark, disturbing look at small-town American life between the two world wars, rife with class envy and fears of modernity, and featuring a before-its-time portrayal of George Bailey's middle-aged sense of failure that seems more appropriate for an American film of the Seventies." - www.allmovie.com

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Meet John Doe 1941 - Capra's dark and powerful comedy about the power of the press

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington, James Gleason, Gene Lockhart, Rod La Rocque

"Meet John Doe is the Frank Capra movie that spoke most directly to the mood of the United States at the time that it was made. It's a fundamentally pessimistic film, without a positive resolution, and also an astonishingly mature movie - virtually groundbreaking as a 'message' movie aimed at a mainstream audience. Appearing in 1940, it closed out a decade that had been dominated by despair, disillusionment, dislocation (economic and personal), and desperation, a period characterized by a reliance on often inept government officials or duplicitous would-be leaders. All of these elements are present in Meet John Doe from its opening scene (a mass layoff at a newspaper), and they get addressed over and over again as the plot unfolds. The movie also had the courage to put some very attractive stars - Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck - in some very unattractive roles, as two people putting over a huge fraud on a public that trusts them. It wasn't considered a very successful film in its own time, being a little too dark and mature amid the ominous reality of the European war being waged at the time, but it is probably the best of Capra's 'message' pictures and his best slice-of-life drama other than It Happened One Night." - www.allmovie.com

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https://archive.org/download/meet_john_doe/meet_john_doe_512kb.mp4

Mr. Smith goes to Washington 1939 - One of the greatest American films about American ideals

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IMDB rating: 8,3

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Thomas Mitchell, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi

"Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was the director's final film for Columbia Pictures, the studio where he'd made his name in the 1930s with an enviable array of comedies and topical dramas. It also marked a turning point in Capra's vision of the world, from nervous optimism to a darker, more pessimistic tone. Beginning with American Madness in 1932, such Capra films as Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and You Can't Take It With You had trumpeted their belief in the decency of the common man. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however, the decent common man is surrounded by the most venal, petty, and thuggish group of yahoos ever to pass as decent society in a Capra movie. Everyone in the film - except for Jefferson Smith and his tiny cadre of believers - is either in the pay of the political machine run by Edward Arnold's James Taylor or complicit in Taylor's corruption through their silence, and they all sit by as innocent people, including children, are brutalized and intimidated, rights are violated, and the government is brought to a halt. The film's story of innocence and righteousness triumphant over corruption frames a chilling picture of an ineffectual and venal government fronting for gangsters. Coming at a time when the American public was growing weary (and wary) of the New Deal, then in its seventh year, it may have caught the public's mood just right. The world was indeed becoming a darker place - as the movie acknowledges by the presence of representatives of various European dictatorships in the Senate gallery as Smith's struggle on the Senate floor continues. The movie was so potent in its time that it cemented the image of James Stewart, then a good working dramatic actor who'd portrayed a range of roles, into the quintessential good-natured hero, the archetypal common man. That image made him a star, but also straightjacketed him to some degree. Stewart did some of his most interesting work in later years when he escaped from that image, as in Winchester '73, The Far Country, Rope, and Vertigo." - www.allmovie.com

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The bitter tea of general Yen 1933 - Capra's most atypical and sensual film

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IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Toshia Mori, Walter Connolly, Gavin Gordon

"The Bitter Tea of General Yen is the oddest, least characteristic talkie effort of director Frank Capra. Barbara Stanwyck stars as the intended of an American missionary (Gavin Gordon) who is sent to spread the good word in China. During a military revolution, Stanwyck and her fiance inadvertently wander into forbidden territory while trying to help a group of orphans escape. The couple is forcibly detained by elegant warlord General Yen (played by Swedish actor Nils Ashter), who relies upon the financial advice of drunken American expatriate Walter Connolly. Yen is overcome with desire at the sight of Stanwyck; at first repulsed by his attentions, Stanwyck finds herself strangely drawn in by his charisma. When everyone but Connolly deserts Yen when he needs them most, Stanwyck offers to stay behind with the General. Fearing that he will never be able to truly attain the woman he so loves, the honorable General Yen commits suicide by drinking poisoned tea rather than put her in harm's way. The one scene that everyone remembers takes place during one of Stanwyck's fevered dreams, in which she imagines Yen as a Fu Manchu-type rapist, who then melts into a gentle, courtly suitor. Directed with the exotic aplomb of a Josef von Sternberg by the usually down-to-earth Frank Capra, The Bitter Tea of General Yen was unfortunately a box office failure, due in great part to its miscegenation theme (this was still 1933)." - www.allmovie.com

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American madness 1932 - A fast-paced, exciting early social drama

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Constance Cummings

"American Madness was the first of Frank Capra's topical social dramas, anticipating his later, broader work in this sub-genre with Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Meet John Doe, and It's A Wonderful Life (two vital elements of which - a key scene midway through the picture and the denouement - were derived from the key dramatic moment in this movie). Indeed, it stands at the nexus of Capra's early career, between actual events that took place at the Bank of Italy, involving its founder A. P. Giannini, and the decade-and-a-half of cinematic storytelling that the director would generate out of moments such as that. And for fans of the filmmaker's uplifting, socially conscious brand of story-telling (which also figures into such comedies as It Happened One Night and You Can't Take It With You), this film is a great discovery on that basis alone. It has its flaws but those can be overlooked in the context of the bigger picture here - in 1932, Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin were getting away with a lot just making a movie like this, which was not entirely well-received in cities that had seen bank runs in recent months and years (it closed in Baltimore, where such incidents had occurred, in just two days). But American Madness is much more than a social statement - it's a great visual and cinematic narrative achievement, showing how a master filmmaker's vision, coupled with that of a bold screenwriter (Robert Riskin, who would loom large across Capra's career through the 1940's), could devise what amounts to a symphony on the screen.
Walter Huston is terrific as Dickson, a quirky but shrewd financier who is capable of understanding people's financial problems. He's also courteous to his employees and very faithful to his bored wife; at the same time he has a deep grasp of the duty of financial institutions to distribute money into circulation. In what is perhaps the most astute quote in the film, 'Character', he muses, 'is the only thing you can bank on!'
This was one of Huston's earliest roles; it ranks with Dodsworth (1936) and Abraham Lincoln (1930) as his very best." - www.allmovie.com

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Dirigible 1931 - Standard storyline with great footage

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IMDB rating: 6,4

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Ralph Graves, Hobart Bosworth

"Audiences who only know Frank Capra for his middle/late 1930s and 1940s socially relevant comedies might be surprised by Dirigible. The product of a story by Frank Wead, it's a two-fisted adventure yarn about two US Navy pilots (Jack Holt, Ralph Graves) with very different approaches to work and life. At the center of the story, with apologies to screenwriters Dorothy Howell and Jo Swerling, is the competition of these two men, and their shared goal of reaching the South Pole by air. The romantic triangle with Fay Wray never really takes center-stage, despite a considerable amount of screen time devoted to it - she tries very hard, and Holt, especially, pushes himself to make their scenes together credible, but the best and most convincing parts of the movie are those aerial sequences aboard the dirigible, and the polar scenes in the final 30 minutes. Back in 1931, when many audiences were still dazzled by airplanes and light-than-air ships, Dirigible was considered a major achievement in the field of adventure filmmaking, with superb stunt and model work and even better photography - and fortunately, Capra and his cast threw enough of themselves into their work so that it all still holds up nearly as well today, and even twenty-first century audiences may well find themselves feeling the dazzle factor that filmgoers in 1931 were expected to experience. (For filmgoers in the twenty-first century, there is also the treat of seeing extensive footage of the airship facilities in Lakehurst, New Jersey as well as material shot around New York's City Hall at the time). Additionally, there are surprises to be had in the performances, including Roscoe Karnes, who would later be associated almost completely with comedy, in a serious dramatic role (and, at the risk of spoiling the plot, an agonizing final scene for his character); and Ralph Graves, who is pretty stiff and superficial in his performance here, intoning lines in the film's final section that would later belong, more rightfully, to John Wayne.
While Dirigible is notable as Frank Capra's best early film, the real credit for making something that was both a huge hit during the early years of talking pictures and an old film that will interest even today's jaded action movie fans should go to Editor Maurice Wright. Wright had to assemble this early blockbuster from what Capra shot and what the U.S. Navy provided in the form of stock and promotional footage. He did a great job and you rarely are aware that you watching a movie, let alone a fictional drama." - www.allmovie.com

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Ladies of leisure 1930 - The movie that made Stanwyck a star

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021040/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Ralph Graves, Lowell Sherman, Marie Prevost

"23 year old Barbara Stanwyck became a leading film star in 1930 with the release of Ladies of leisure, after having starred in two flops in 1929. This is a very slender story of a good time girl who falls in love with a millionaire's son who basically is just interested in her as a model for a painting he wants to do. Given how free-wheeling and blunt most early talkies were on morality, this movie is surprisingly discreet about Stanwyck's character's past. We are supposed to read into the story she's a prostitute (or more accurately, a former mistress) - but in her first scene she is fleeing a yacht party that's too risqué for her!! Stanwyck rings honesty out of a cardboard script and she's got good support from three second-tier silent stars who are quite good in talkies - Ralph Graves as the object of her affection, Marie Prevost as her wisecracking, less prudish pal, and especially Lowell Sherman as Graves' drunken buddy who is very open to being Stanwyck's next sugar daddy yet the best scene is the confrontation being Stanwyck and Graves' mother, superbly played by a somewhat unsung character actress, Nance O'Neil.
The movie's minor fame today rests on it being Stanwyck's first screen success and an early hit for director Frank Capra yet Capra's direction is rather dull and often awkward and the movie is very badly edited with some scenes conspicuously made up of different takes with shot angles and acting rhythms off among other giveaways.
A 'silent' version of the film was also shot (the smaller studios like Columbia were still making silent versions of some of their films up to 1931 for the ever dwindling number of movie theaters that were still not wired for sound)."

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http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL334D6D7429259515

You can't take it with you 1938 - A family of free spirits

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030993/
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

"Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. The result is a joyful celebration of good-natured people and unconventional lifestyles. In some ways, it presages the 'do your own thing' philosophy of the 1960s, and it is easy to imagine free-spirited families of the '60s as creative descendants of Hart and Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning characters. The cast features some of the finest comic actors of its era. While Lionel barrymore and James Stewart were equally adept at drama, the film also features fine performances from such humor specialists as Spring Byington, Dub Taylor, and Mischa Auer. Of special note is the presence of comic legend Eddie Anderson, who, with his supporting performance in Gone with the wind, became the first African-American actor to appear in more than one Oscar- winning Best Picture.
You can't take it with you earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/you-cant-take-it-with-you-v55902

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Lost horizon 1937 - A wonderful fantasy in the shadow of World War II

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029162/
IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo

"It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen.
The movie belongs to a genre that reached its heyday in the 1930s: the philosophical drama. Usually based on plays, films such as Street scene, Death takes a holiday, On borrowed time and The petrified forest dealt with driving issues of the day and embraced weighty questions of life and death. Adapted from the novel by Hilton, Lost horizon proved more popular and enduring than any of them, principally because the filmmaker pulled out all the stops in translating the material to the screen. It was the grandest production ever attempted by Columbia Pictures, a studio which, for all of its renown and respect, was little more than a Poverty Row outfit when financing was concerned. Aided by Dimitri Tiomkin's outsized score, Capra created an utterly convincing screen portrayal of Shangri-La, and his audience's suspension of disbelief was such that no one even thought to ask how the inhabitants of Shangri-La could have gotten their grand piano over those mountain passes. The most compelling element of the film, however - proof of Capra's keen sense of public mood - was its message. At the time of the movie's release, it was clear that the First World War, still very much in peoples' minds, had been fought in vain; the world was preparing to tear itself apart anew. Lost horizon offered a notion of hope, based in fantasy, that it was essential for good men to keep themselves at the ready, to lead when the carnage ceased. In a sense, the movie was a not-so-distant cousin to a British production of the same era, Things to come, which presented a similar idea in science-fiction terms. Capra's choices in casting were uncanny, particularly Ronald Colman as disillusioned diplomat Robert Conway and John Howard as his brother - Howard had taken over the role of Bulldog Drummond from Colman in a series of films from the same period, and they looked enough alike that they might've been brothers.
When Lost horizon was shown to preview audiences, it ran nearly three hours and it was a disaster. In his autobiography, Capra claims to have rescued his pet project by merely burning the first two reels and opening the film with the evacuation scene; In fact, while Capra did remove the film's 'flashback' framework, he made most of his cuts in the body of the picture. The release length of Lost horizon was 132 minutes, pared down to 119 when it went into general distribution. When it was reissued in the 1940s and 1950s, it was rather clumsily pared down to anywhere from 95 to 100 minutes. Only in the mid-1980s was Lost horizon restored to its original length, with stills used to illustrate certain scenes for which only the soundtrack existed. While not the enormous hit Capra and Columbia had hoped it would be, Lost horizon was popular enough to allow the name 'Shangri-La' enter the household-word category." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/lost-horizon-v30150

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Mr. Deeds goes to town 1936 - A light-hearted classic Capra screwball comedy

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027996/
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft

"Frank Capra built his career around the themes that he explores in Mr. Deeds goes to town. For the populist Capra, the battle lines are clearly drawn; he makes his points (sometimes heavy-handedly) by pitting small-town simplicity, selflessness, and idealism against big-city sophistication, greed, and cynicism. Capra raised the 'little guy' to iconic status, stereotyping him as effortlessly as he stigmatized the corrupt city slicker. Gary Cooper's Longfellow Deeds often looks as if he is visiting from a different era, an errant knight guided by an anachronistic code of chivalry. He is not afraid to resort to violence if words don't get the job done, although his impassioned speeches tend to get him in more trouble than they get him out of. He is looking for a 'damsel in distress' and he is guided by an archaic and romantic notion of 'noblesse oblige'. Jean Arthur makes her first of three Capra appearances as this damsel, the hard-nosed reporter who exposes Mr. Deeds to ridicule. Her nasally, pointed line delivery is sharp and precise, and Cooper's trademark laconic delivery is also perfect for the role. Playing the part as if born to it, Cooper is at the top of his game, imbuing Deeds with just the right blend of empathy and intelligence.
Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Mr. Deeds goes to town won Capra his second of three Best Director trophies." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/mr-deeds-goes-to-town-v33624/

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It happened one night 1934 - The movie which set the pace for screwball comedy

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025316/
IMDB rating: 8,3

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly

"Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Scripted by Capra's frequent collaborator Robert Riskin, Frank Capra's It Happened One Night became the prototypical screwball comedy and elevated Columbia Pictures from Poverty Row status to respectable 'major minor' studio. Starring Clark Gable, on loan from MGM as punishment, and Claudette Colbert, on loan from Paramount for twice her usual pay, Capra's and Riskin's comic romance between a down-to-earth newspaper reporter and a spoiled runaway heiress set the standard for screwball. Its fast-paced repartee, kooky heroine, witty gags, and class-crossing love story became hallmarks of the genre in such later films as My Man Godfrey (1936) and Bringing Up Baby (1938); the overt lustiness barred by the 1934 Production Code was transmuted into clever banter and the romance conveyed an ideal Depression-era fantasy. A critical and commercial hit, It Happened One Night was the first film to sweep the top five Oscars, rewarding Capra, Riskin, Gable, and Colbert, and fulfilling Columbia impresario Harry Cohn's desire to turn his B-studio into a class act.
The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991)." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/it-happened-one-night-v25509

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Lady for a day 1933 - A rags-to-riches tale during the Depression

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024240/
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee, Glenda Farrell, Walter Connolly, Jean Parker, Ned Sparks

"Based on a story by Damon Runyon, this Frank Capra film was nominated for several Oscars after it was released in 1933 (it was remade by Capra as Pocketful of Miracles in 1961). A tenderhearted Depression-era comedy, it tells the story of Apple Annie (May Robson), a panhandling street vendor who has kept her real identity hidden from a daughter being reared in Europe. When the grown-up daughter comes to New York for a visit, Annie turns to gambler Dave the Dude (Warren William) for help. He transforms her - temporarily - into a high-society grande dame, but not without complications. The film is nearly stolen by Guy Kibbee, as a judge posing as Annie's husband, but Warren William, a John Barrymore lookalike, and dour Ned Sparks get laughs too.
A Cinderella fairy tale set in the early 1930s, Lady for a Day is a delightfully charming mix of drama and comedy that propelled Frank Capra to the top ranks of popular filmmakers. Capra is too patriotic to take many pot-shots at the American rich, though his vindication of the common man seemed to be just what the public wanted. The acting is crisp, particularly May Robson in the central role of Apple Annie."

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