“...When one reads the memoirs of Frank Capra...he does not use the word ‘revolutionary,' but it's the same: he thinks he has made a film that has changed America. He talks of himself as Eisenstein might talk of himself. Well, today one doesn't see that as more than a small game....” --Godard, “...Histoire du cinéma.” (trans. J.B.)
The first of the big social comedies of the Thirties, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town demonstrates the victory of small town innocence and good intentions over big city greed and sophistication. “With Mr. Deeds, Capra finds the classic mold for his story: the innocent betrayed, publicly tested, and emerging victorious. Longfellow Deeds, writer of greeting cards, tuba player, solid citizen of some small New England town, is catapulted into national prominence with the inheritance of 20 million dollars. He thus becomes the first of Capra's heroes to be thrust among the cynics and scoffers with nothing more than a ‘Kick Me' sign of a personality, and an increasingly rampant paranoia. Deeds is also the first of Capra's pictures in which a growing audience allegiance to the unlikely hero is cued by the changing attitudes of fundamentally goodhearted wiseguys - here, as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, represented by the press....” --Harold Meyerson, Audio Brandon Films