IMDb #124 Review: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1936)

Source: Wikipedia

Washington politics ain't no party. Especially not for a naive nobody from a conveniently unspecified state of the union. He's appointed senator because his simplicity makes him easy to manipulate. Along with being boring and incomprehensible, politics are actively malicious. Like if a Cat's Cradle string sprouted fangs and bit off your hands.

And what dirty things people do for a position whose authority equates to the power of a peep in a cyclone.

When a senatorial office opens up, a crooked politician's son suggests Mr. Jefferson Smith, a Boy-Scout-in-all-but-name (because that name's copyright is violently defended). Thus the squeaky-clean simpleton hops blindfolded aboard the crazy train to the roiling cesspool of government.

His legitimate patriotism worries people. He visits the major and monuments. Takes pictures. And actually seems to like people. The horror.

But rather than financial crises or national employment or foreign policy with the Third Reich, our hero deems the most important issue facing Congress to be his own bill: building a boy's camp in his unspecified state. On land which his fellow senators plan to raze to build a dam, because creating jobs by dubious means is apparently still evil.

Kids love him. Congress doesn't -- they think he's a bumpkin wasting their time, and they're not wrong. (Example: he sends letters to his mother by carrier pigeon.) The press loves to hate him, to twist his honest gaffes into national news. But this same sincerity affects his jaded secretary. Her support changes from compulsory to genuine, and her newfound high-pressure passion threatens to blow the lid off the whole crooked land-grab operation.

Perhaps most famously, and the crux of the story, is Mr. Smith's last ploy to get his personal project across the Senate floor. The filibuster. The way a discouraged optimist can play the political game by the rules and have a chance to beat the cheaters.

Long before Kickstarter kicked off, he appeals to a grassroots effort to bypass bureaucracy. The good citizens of the U.S. of A., who seem to care a lot about congressional procedure (not much on TV back then), send telegrams begging him to bugger off. He keeps gabbing. Without ingesting nutrition or engaging in necessary bodily functions. While the bare minimum quorum of Congress don't even pretend to listen.

He talks so long, he accidentally starts making sense. Even making a difference. Poking guilty hearts, if not cracking calcified minds.

Jimmy Stewart's set of dumbfounded expressions perfectly sell a character who can't be bought.

But does this champion of lost causes achieve anything? Let me ask you. Who directed this picture? There's your answer. Have a swell day, and be grateful you're not watching C-SPAN.

126 minutes.