Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Category: Drama/Comedy
Starring: James Stewart
A sitting senator dies and a governor needs to replace him. Feeling pressure from wealthy lobbyists to appoint one of their guys to the post he is torn because his constituents don’t want him and he’s worried about his career. He eventually concoct a scheme to appoint a local man, Jefferson Smith, because they seem him as naïve and easy to manipulate.
Smith is a ‘true patriot’ and when he gets to Washington he immediately walks away from him handlers and does the full tourist experience in DC.. While his handlers go crazy because they have no idea where he went and they have meetings and press lined up for him. Once he eventually gets to his office he meets the secretary of the old senator Clarissa Saunders – who is jaded with politics and is considering leaving.
Smits is mentored by Joseph Paine who was a good friend of Smith’s father. He is part of a group of corrupt senators working with a ‘boss’ Jim Taylor to get rich through senate policy. Paine has a party at his house and invites Smith who becomes smitten with Paine’s socialite daughter who toys with him like a cat with a mouse due to his naivete. Shortly after the Washington press gets a hold of him unsupervised and it’s a bloodbath – they make him out to be a bumbling fool who doesn’t belong there.
Angered by the press Smith complains he’s not really doing anything in his new job Paine suggests he submit a bill and Paine will bring it to the floor. Smith thinks it over with Clarissa and decides to create a national boys camp with a federal loan that will be paid back by the boys with pennies. The problem with that is the particular parcel of land that he’s trying to buy is part of a graft scheme by Taylor hidden in a much larger appropriations bill. Taylor tells Paine to get Smith to drop it but Smith is too principled and ignores the directive and speaks about the bill in the senate the next day.
Taylor immediately puts his corruption machine to work and the results is an accusation that Smith already owns the land he’s trying to buy with the federal funds and this is all a grifting scheme (they even had a land deed and everything!) Smith overwhelmed by this runs away. Clarissa finds him near the Lincoln Monument and convinces him to stand up for himself and suggest he do a filibuster in order to hold up the senate and get them to see his point of view.
Armed with the policy of procedures Clarissa explained to him the get the Senate president to give him the floor against all of Taylor’s co-conspirators and once he’s given the floor he refuses to relinquish it filibusters late into the night. In order to dissuade him Taylor has all the papers he owns print attack ads and articles calling Smith corrupt. Smith sees these but still perseveres. Paine shows him fabricated letters from his home state saying they want him to drop his bill and face expulsion from the Senate. None of the other senators will support his bill and he is beginning to despair.
Meanwhile his boy rangers realize what’s going on and start making newspapers with the truth and start delivering them across the area. Taylor’s goon squad sees this and literally drive this kids off the road. Talk about heavy handed – I’m pretty sure in the good handbook attacking kids is a violation of goon ethics.
Back to the Senate where Smith is flagging and all the other senators have walked out but a smile from the Senate leader renews his determination to go on – until not long after he passes out from exhaustion. Paine upon seeing the dedication Smith had to doing the right thing is overcome with guilt and runs out of the senate and tries to eat a bullet. The other senators stop him and then in the commotion he runs back an and admits on the floor his guilt, that Taylor was behind it and Smith is innocent.
5/5 – Just a great feel good movie about doing the right thing and sticking with your principles no matter what the cost. Jimmy Stewart shines here as a conflicted man outwardly peaceful but with a simmering rage directed at people who he considers unjust. The corruption angle and patriotism is a bit heavy but for the time the film was released it makes sense. There comedy parts are laugh out loud funny and the drama is moving even if it seems a bit cliched to modern tastes. Overall a really enjoyable movie with well acted parts!