A Vision of Faith

Francesco (Frank) Rosario Capra was born on May 18, 1897. In 1903, he and his family emigrated from Italy to the United States settling in Los Angeles, California. Immersed in the Italian-Catholic culture of early 20th-century America, Capra’s childhood was defined by a tension between spirituality and the realities of material needs. “I was born into a family that worshipped, first, the Crucifix, and second, a coffee can stuffed with cash, preferably gold,” Capra later explained. “God was our faith, but cash our security.” This struggle between valuing the community and pursuing individual interests became a theme Capra wrestled with throughout his life.

Witnessing his family’s daily struggles, Capra dreamed of experiencing something different. “All the Sicilians where I lived would chitter-chatter in the same language, eat the same food, share the same traditions, the same church, the same values,” he explained. “When I was a teenager, I decided I wanted to see other things.” Seeing education as a way to rise out of poverty, Capra read all the books he could, from science and history to literature and poetry. In 1918, he earned his degree in chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. 

With America’s involvement in World War I, Capra enlisted in the Army and served for the duration. After the war, Capra returned home to L.A., adrift in a bleak, postwar economy. Interested in the burgeoning medium of film, which he had written about during his college studies, Capra held a variety of odd jobs in early Hollywood including work as an extra, film editor, and director of short films. In 1920, Capra landed his first major directing project.

By 1934, Capra had become a national success. Already an Academy Award-nominated director, he experienced his first blockbuster hit in the film It Happened One Night, the first film to sweep the top five Oscar awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress. With this win, Capra became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after directors. 

However, health complications plagued Capra shortly after filming. Despite his public optimism, Capra secretly feared the worst. “I thought I was gone many times,” Capra admitted later. Believing that his illness stemmed from a spiritual malaise, Capra found reassurance in the revisiting of his faith. Wrestling with sudden fame, Capra was searching for larger meaning in his life, for something more than commercial success. After his health scare, Capra decided his films needed to deliver a bigger message, and work to address the human condition.

The vehicle for Capra’s message was Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the first of his social comedies. The story centers on the character of Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), a simple-hearted man from Vermont who reluctantly inherits $20 million from a deceased relative. As a result of his inheritance, Deeds battles a series of financial opportunists from the big city hoping to capitalize on his goodwill and naiveté. 

In the film, the morally unshakeable Deeds decides to spend his money on farms that employ the homeless. This gesture lands him in court, accused of insanity by unscrupulous relatives who want to use his fortune for their own selfish gains. During his courtroom defense, Deeds makes a speech defending his desire to help the downtrodden.

Film critics saw the character of Deeds as an allegorical version of Franklin D. Roosevelt defending the New Deal, which many political opponents viewed as a waste of money on the poor and unemployed. But Capra’s vision was much less subtle: “It was the rebellious cry of the individual being trampled to an ort by massiveness—mass production, mass thought, mass education, mass politics, mass wealth, mass conformity.” The story of a virtuous, forthright character who triumphs over the obstacles of greed, corruption, and maliciousness resonated with audiences. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town earned Capra his second Oscar for Best Director in 1937.

Capra felt the weight of his success keenly, burdened by what he perceived as heightened social responsibilities. As a result, he began writing a series of essays that revealed his thoughtfulness as a filmmaker, and his growing need to express more than frivolous entertainment in his work. He called on other creatives in the industry to buck the system, and “have the artistic guts to make only the pictures they want to make, or go into the business of making pictures for themselves.” 

Capra, locked in business dealings with Columbia, struggled to take his own advice. However, he still managed to express his vision through movies like, You Can’t Take It with You. The 1938 film focuses on Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), a stenographer with an eccentric family who values family over money, and her fiancé Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart), the vice-president of a powerful company owned by his wealthy, industrialist father (Edward Arnold). The elder Kirby, dealing in the trade of weapons, needs to buy one last house in a twelve block area—which happens to be owned by Alice's grandfather.

On its face, a story about two families from very different worlds coming together through an unlikely marriage, Capra admitted he “also saw something deeper, something greater.” He believed the story “could prove, in theatrical conflict, that Christ’s spiritual law [love] can be the most powerful force in anyone’s life.” This is illustrated in a scene where the whole neighborhood comes together to pay court fines for Alice’s grandfather when a whacky family fireworks project turns out to be illegal.

But the most direct expression of Capra’s belief in the sanctity of communion with God comes in the climax of the film, as the elder Kirby begins to understand the grandfather’s view that he’s wasting his life by pursuing empty riches. "Maybe it'll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use,” the grandfather (Lionel Barrymore) tells Kirby. “You can't take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends."

You Can’t Take It with You—the first of Capra’s films to feature his name above the title—became a hit, winning him his third Best Director Oscar. More importantly, it solidified Capra’s larger message for audiences: that though the world may be filled with villains, through the support of family and community, simple human decency prevails. This theme would appear again and again in his later works.

In 1939, Capra took on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The story focused on idealistic Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart), appointed to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy. Smith, who Capra later equated to “a young Abe Lincoln,” has an idea to create a national camp for Boy Rangers. However, his enthusiastic work exposes unethical behavior in the political world, nearly crushing the hero’s optimism and determination. 

In a climactic moment, Smith navigates the turbulent waters of the Washington political machine through a powerful filibuster that includes citations from the Declaration of Independence and the Bible, including 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 22:39. Smith is triumphant, rallying the support of the common man and revealing the misdeeds of the corrupt. One of Capra’s most patriotic films, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reveals the director’s continuing belief that an honest man can work against the odds to triumph over evil.