Review of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) by Mike C — 22 Feb 2010

My favorite movie when I was a kid. Well, a young teen. I think I saw it three times with my father. I never tired of watching it and apparently I still don't. It's why I love America as an idea. It's also an incredible essay on the precise nature of political corruption, and how the roots of self-interest can overpower the growth of an idea and twist it from within, and a precise essay on the nature of truth and the lengths we must sometimes go, into the lion's den, to extract it.

It would be easy to dismiss the film as naive and ideal were it not for the true depths of the corruption it portrays. I defy anyone to watch this and not see the current crop of political issues, or recent crop, in the same light. There is no question that the man who stands behind the man is the one with the power. There is no question that the power allows us access to ways to serve ourselves, bending the ideal machine of arbitration to our own ends, at the expense of the integrity of the original design.

It's easy to throw mud at people who accept powerful offices, far more challenging to understand the nature of corruption and then act in defiance of it, knowing full well that it is not a mysterious or evil thing, rather a human device, and a dangerous one that can harm and hurt those who refuse to capitulate.

When Jefferson Smith decides to act on his principles he does so knowing the cost, but it's better than accepting defeat. Impossible, I think, to watch this film without getting a clear idea of how things work in the United States senate, and how truth works, and what it means to take the stand. Jimmy Stewart delivers the perfect performance but is easily approximated by Jean Arthur who is gosh golly darn about the most winsome woman one could imagine, and easily the smartest one of the bunch. Claude Rains is, as always, perfection on film. Whether he's Bogey's nemesis-turned-friend in Casablanca, or the Invisible Man, he never fails to express the complexity of our dual nature, the shadow-self father to Jefferson Smith's naive young hero. Harry Carey almost steals the whole show.

Still one of the great American films to this day, and a worthy lesson in all that is admirable about the USA, the idea of freedom, the practice of truth. No matter how far along our own roads, it's never too late to take a second look at an old classic film and revisit ideas that count for something to strive and hope for, ideas that beg questions and strive for answers.

What a great film.