In the past, I have sometimes found myself able to enjoy Capra's populism and sometimes unable. I go back and forth on the philosophy, as well as the director's sentimentalism. The day I watched Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, I just wasn't buying it. Gary Cooper plays a bumpkin who inherits $20 million from an uncle he didn't even know. He's spirited off to New York City, where the media are chomping at the bit to find out more about him. Reporter Jean Arthur pretends to be another stranger in the city and befriends Cooper, secretly writing newspaper articles about how dumb he is behind his back (a plot line that the Coen Brothers adopted for The Hudsucker Proxy). The movie is never particularly bad. I enjoyed it at some points. But I can't say I was ever really interested in it. And it devolves into my single least favorite classic movie cliché, a courtroom sequence where the audience laughs uproariously at every revelation. Cooper, of whom I'm not a big fan, gives one of his better performances, and Arthur, of whom I am a big fan, is, as always, wonderful. The film got a bunch of Oscar nominations, but Arthur was sadly left out.
Review of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
