My rating: 3.5 popcorns
Every time I talk about this movie someone gets it confused with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. That’s not a surprise as they both send an earnest small town man to the big city where he meets Jean Arthur. This one is the Gary Cooper one.
Longfellow Deeds (Cooper) is a small town Vermont man who writes poems for greeting cards until a distant relative leaves him twenty million dollars. The lawyers for the deceased bring him to New York, partially to take care of the legal business and partially to get his power of attorney as they have misappropriated some of his funds.
Deeds is a little too blunt, a little too honest and a little too credulous for New York and most of the people initially think he is a clueless rube. This includes reporter Babe Bennett (Arthur) who works her way into his inner circle while writing the mocking articles in the daily paper. You can probably guess what happens eventually there. (It’s a Frank Capra film, after all. The little guy wins and gets the girl. I don’t think that’s a spoiler.)
Does it hold up? Well…
There are some great comedy bits in this movie and a very good courtroom scene. However, this film was made in 1936 and it shows. It was a different time. Some of the ‘scandals’ attributed to Deeds might actually be sought after in today’s look-at-me world. There are also references to bread lines and the depression. Oh, and there were newspapers.
I enjoyed this movie. You just have to remember to place yourself back in time a bit.
By the way, DO NOT WATCH THE ADAM SANDLER VERSION! In case I needed to say that.
This movie is available via iTunes or Amazon Video. Or the DVD arm of Netflix, which is how I watched it.