Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27742 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-02-22
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Georgian, Thai
• Dubbed in: Portuguese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 129 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Political heavyweights decide that Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an obscure scoutmaster in a small town, would be the perfect dupe to fill a vacant U.S. Senate chair. Surely this naive bumpkin can be easily controlled by the senior senator (Claude Rains) from his state, a respectable and corrupted career politician. Director Frank Capra fills the movie with Smith's wide-eyed wonder at the glories of Washington, all of which ring false for his cynical secretary (Jean Arthur), who doesn't believe for a minute this rube could be for real. But he is. Capra was repeating the formula of a previous film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, but this one is even sharper; Stewart and Arthur are brilliant, and the former cowboy star Harry Carey lends a warm presence to the role of the vice president. Bright, funny, and beautifully paced, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is Capra's ode to the power of innocence--an idea so potent that present-day audiences may find themselves wishing for a new Mr. Smith in Congress. The 1939 Congress was none too thrilled about the film's depiction of their august body, denouncing it as a caricature; but even today, Capra's jibes about vested interests and political machines look as accurate as ever. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Jimmy Stewart's Finest Performance in Capra Gem!
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a timeless, brilliant parable of Good Vs. Evil, played out in the U.S. Senate. Good is represented by Jimmy Stewart, in the film he SHOULD have won an Oscar for (MGM, trying to bolster 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips' at the box office, influenced it's Academy members to award Robert Donat with the statue; the following year, Stewart appeared in 'The Philadelphia Story', for MGM, and won Best Actor!). He is magnificent as Jefferson Smith, an idealistic youth leader, who is offered up as an innocent and gullible replacement for a Senate vacancy. Evil is personified by Claude Rains, as the suave and corrupt senior Senator, and Edward Arnold, brilliant as a ruthless party boss.

In many ways, 'Smith' is cut from the same cloth as Capra's earlier masterpiece, 'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town', and both films costar the radiant Jean Arthur, here cast as Smith's secretary. She is an old hand at understanding political wheelings and dealings, and at first, she considers her new boss a total idiot! But Smith's integrity wins her over, and with the help of reporter Thomas Mitchell (1939's busiest actor!), the three manage to outlast the forces of Evil, in the most rousing filabuster Hollywood has ever filmed!

Two supporting characters deserve special attention; Harry Carey, one of Hollywood's most beloved Western stars, plays a warm, sympathetic Vice President, in a small but very crucial role; and Beulah Bondi is terrific as Stewart's mother (she would play his mother again in the Capra/Stewart classic 'It's A Wonderful Life').

The new DVD edition offers the insights of Frank Capra, Jr., son of the legendary filmmaker, as well as trailers, vintage material, and a whole lot more!

If you've seen 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' before, treat yourself with this lavish new edition! If you haven't seen it, you are in for one of the most wonderful cinema experiences you'll ever have, from the best year Hollywood ever had!

Simply put, this film is a masterpiece!

A Wonderful Movie, Properly Restored
MR.SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON is one of the greatest classic of american cinema. Jimmy Stewart is wonderful, Capra's direction is so great. The sory may sound a bit naive, but the emotion of the film so great can overcome this very naiveness and turns into a powerful, truthful idealism. Hollywood then could do that, not today, and I really don't understand why.

I just would like to add one fact to praise this DVD, and encourage everybody who visits this page to buy it, even if they have seen the movie; in many cases, great polular classics are oftenly viewed on poor prints and video masters, because of the very popularity of the film, the prints and negatives tend to get damged. overused, often replaced with inferior film elements. Thus, a great classic for everybody becomes a great film that one's grandpa talked about, and would really look that old.

That is why a special notice should be given to this DVD, because The Library of Congress did a wonderful job rescuing and restoring the film. The trasnfer is from their restored print, which they worked out of the original camera negative. Some parts of the negative were also damged, but they succeeded in replacing them with film elements that are not apparently inferior. The result is, a sharper, detailed look that we have been unable to see for over 4 or 5 decades.

These film archive people are doing a wonderful and important job. Restoring a film is not an easy job, and certainly is not cheap. That why these DVDs are so important, so that you can understand the importance of what they are doing.

This movie taught me the ideals of America
I first watched this wonderful movie about six months after I arrived in America from a country where there was little personal freedom. I had just taken an ESL American history class in high school, and had understood little. This movie was simply a great eye-opener for me, a foreigner with little notion of the American freedom.

Capra's masterpiece depicted an America rife with with corruption, with lies and ruthless men to whom America was a money and power machine. Against this backdrops stands Jefferson Smith, the hero, who is picked as a stooge senator for his home state by the political machine. (The original screen play identifies the state as Montana; Capra said it was Illinois; but isn't Jackson City the capital of Mississippi?) His innocence and ideals -- and incorrutibility -- immediately warm the heart of every audience member. He's indeed the light in the dark tunnel, the hope for every American who feels that what this great country stands for is shamelessly disregarded and discarded by our politicians.

The classic filibuster scene is such a joy to watch, esp. for people who don't quite get what a filibuster is. (Of course, how Mr. Smith could go on talking for 23 hours 16 minutes without going to the toilet puzzles me.) The movie also lucidly explains how a bill is written, submitted for consideration, debated, compromised, and finally sent for vote, in the House and the Senate. It's both an entertaining and educational movie.

The filibuster scene may strike some us lecturing. Indeed, the senators in the movie turn a deaf ear to the earnest speeches of Mr. Smith. Democracy, freedom, accountability, "government of the people by the people for the people", all mean nothing to these people. Equally amazing, when the film was screened by Congress in 1939, they damned the film as un-American for depicting them as thieves and stooges. Alas, in film and in real life, politicians are simply people without a conscience. As a naturalized American, I feel all these people should be executed, for betraying the very basic foundation of this country.

I re-watched the movie recently in the aftermath of Sept. 11. My eyes became wet as I listened to Mr. Smith begging his colleagues to wake up their conscience. It's a shame that our politicians, ranging from George W. Bush to the donkeys in Congress to some judges, are still thieves, clowns, and traitors to the American ideal of universal liberty. Every day they chip away at the foundation of America by allowing corrupt business leaders to rob the nation of its wealth, by letting terrorists come in at ease and killing us at will, and by turning blind eyes and deaf ears at the plight of the middle class. Like Senator Paine in the movie, every politician of today pretends they represent the people, while in fact they represent nothing but their selfish needs.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is IMHO the best movie of all time. It's not because it has great acting or fancy special effects. It's because it addresses an endangered concept, first brought forth by America's founding fathers, the concept that this country was to be better than any other country, past or present. And I'm not talking about just being richer or having more Playstation games.