FRANK CAPRA (1897-1991)

FRANCESCO ROSARIO CAPRA

Born: May 18th, 1897 (Sicily)

Died: September 3rd, 1991 (heart attack in his sleep)

Marriages: Helen Howell (1923-1928), Lou Capra (1932-Her death in 1984)

Children: He had four children with Lou: Frank Capra Jr., Tom Capra, Lulu Capra & John Capra.

Interesting Fact: Capra had enlisted in all three wars. WWI at the age of 21, WWII at the age of 44 and The Korean War at the age of 53.

Success: Capra's successful era spanned from his film spanned from the thirties on into the forties. His most successful films were done at Columbia Pictures, setting the standard for all the other Directors of the Studio. In the fifties the mood began to change and he withdrew himself from making his type of films.

Awards: He has won three Oscars for Best Director: "It Happened One Night" (1934), "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) & "You Can't Take It with You" (1938). He was also nominated for Best Director on his films: "Lady for a Day" (1933), "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) & "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). He has also received eight other achievements while being nominated for an additional five. With all of these awards his greatest was the Distinguished Service Medal for his contributions to the war through his War Documentaries.

My Favorite Film: With Frank Capra there is no favorite film, only favorite era. From the mid-thirties to the mid-forties he made of the best films known to man. All of those films are among my favorites. When it comes down to it though "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) sneaks it's way to the top.

On the first week of this Blog I had dedicated it to my favorite Director, Frank Capra. Normally I would skip a previous individually to make room for another on a post, but since the beginning, my formatting has evolved, and I thought I would like to study Capra again.

CLAUDETTE COLBERT (1903-1996)

EMILIE CLAUDETTE CHAUCHOIN

Born: September 13th, 1903 (Saint-Mandé, France)

Died: July 30th, 1996 (suffering from multiple strokes)

Marriages: Norman Foster (1928-1935), Dr. Joel Pressman (1935-His death in 1968)

Children: None, but she adopted became a godmother to a few including June Allyson's daughter Pamela Powell.

Interesting Fact: You will rarely see the right side of her face in any picture since she had a bump on her nose. The camera-men would call it the "dark side of the moon" and Doris Day later said that "God waisted half a face on Claudette."

Success: She originally began on the stage and only came to films when the depression hit. Her first film "For the Love of Mike" (1927) was a flop and she vowed to never make another film. One of her next films however was a success in "The Lady Lies" (1929) and she continued to become popular. Her most notable achievement was her role in "It Happened One Night" (1934) where she won her only Oscar. She began to wain in popularity around the 1950's and returned to the stage.

Awards: She one a surprising Oscar for "It Happened One Night" in 1934 and received two nominations for "Private Worlds" (1935) & "Since You Went Away" (1944). She also won five other acting achievements and was nominated for her role in "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" in 1987.

My Favorite Film: I just watched her in "Without Reservations" (1946) with John Wayne and loved it. My two favorite films of her are "Since You Went Away" and of course "It Happened One Night." Another hidden gem is her performance in "The Egg and I" (1947).

Claudette can be both sophisticated and personable at any time she wishes. Her laugh is contiguous as well as any and all of her expressions. She was a Queen of the silver screen.

I mentioned in a previous post about her unexpected Oscar win. Below is a quote from her on the occasion.

"I was surprised when I got the prize. I really had no idea I would get it. In fact, I was ready to leave for New York the night they called to tell me about it. Dressed in a mousy brown suit, I was escorted into the banquet hall full of diamonds and tail coats. It was especially embarrassing because I imagined they thought I was putting on an act, making an entrance."

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Producer: Frank Capra & Harry Cohn

Director: Frank Capra

Awards: Here is the first movie to win the top major Academy Awards at the Oscars: Best, Actor, Actress, Director, Picture and Writing. It has also won a PGA & NBR award along with and award from the National Film Registry. It was also nominated for the Mussolini Cup.

Interesting Fact: Many other actors were offered the leads but turned it down. Among them are: Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy & Constance Bennett. Even Gable and Colbert were unhappy to be a part of it. Rumor has it that on the first day of the set Gable walked and said: "Let's get this over with." Colbert salary was doubled to keep her on and she skipped the Oscars ceremony to leave on a trip. Before she boarded they found her and rushed her into the Awards for her acceptance speech in her traveling clothes.

My Favorite Scene: The hitch-hiking scene is my favorite. Seeing Gable portray frustration is priceless.

A spoiled woman is betrothed to a man she doesn't love and runs away to escape her father. On a bus she runs into an arrogant traveler who turns out to be a reporter looking for a story. Not wanting to loose sight of her they stick together as they keep running. Though they can't stand each other from the start they soon begin to fall in love. Now that he feels quilt about his alternative motive he seeks to correct it. While he is gone she suddenly realizes that maybe her love was one sided and returns to her father. With everything upside down from the way it was it seems they may never be together.

-"Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars."
-"Well, ooo, I'll remember that when we need forty cars."

*Trailer

*Here is my favorite scene.

THEME OF THE MONTH (ROMANCE)

As we enter the month of February, it is only fitting to have the theme around romance. Below are my favorite top ten vintage romance films. It was a lot harder to make than I thought. Feel free to comment on your favorite romance films, I may be intrested in watching it.

#1 Random Harvest
(1942)

#2 An Affair to Remember
(1957)

#3 Pillow Talk
(1959)

#4 Brigadoon
(1954)

#5 It Happened One Night
(1934)

#6 New Moon
(1940)

#7 The Thrill Of it All!
(1963)

#8 Casablanca
(1942)

#9 Sabrina
(1954)

#10 Meet Me in St. Louis
(1944)

I THOUGHT I KNEW CAPRA

IN HIS YOUTH
-Was born in Sicily
-His last name, "Capra," was translated "She-goat" to show his families relationship with the land.
-He was Catholic.
-Immigrated to the US in 1903 when he was six.

Frank & his wife Lucielle with
one of their Sons

SCHOOLING & YOUNG ADULTHOOD
-Graduated from High School, and attended the California Institute of Technology.
-Studied Chemical Engineering and graduated in the spring of 1918.
-Enlisted in the army as a Second Lieutenant during WWI.
-Became a naturalized U.S. Citizen in 1920.
-Around this time he suffered from an undiagnosed burst appendix.
-Hopped freight trains for a few years.
-He married actress Helen Howell in 1923 but they divorced in 1928.
-Married once again to Lucielle Warner in 1928, of which, they had a daughter and three sons.
DIRECTING
-Wrote scripts for the Silent Star Comedian Harry Langdon.
-Started his life-long partnership with Harry Cohn and his studio, Columbia Pictures, in 1928.
-Later in life Capra would only make one MGM movie whis was an unsuccessful "State of the Union" in 1948.
-His adaptation to the new sound pictures was as a direct result of his College degree.
-It was said of him by Cohn as his films were released, "It was the beginning of Columbia making a better quality of pictures"
-His salary was raised from $1k a movie to $25k per year.
-His first real sound picture was "The Younger Generation" in 1929.
-Some have stated that this picture was close resemblance to Capra's own life as an immigrant, of which, Capra denied.
-His favorite screenwriter was Robert Riskin, of which, most of the wise-cracking and sharp dialogue came from in Capras films.

"It Happened One Night" Oscars

SUCCESSFUL PICTURES
-"It Happened One Night" was the first to win all five of the top Oscars; Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. (This was not repeated until 1975 with "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest).
-After his success and the making of "Broadway Bill" he conceived the new dimension of conveying a message to the public through his films.
-"Mr. Deeds Goes To Town" and "You Can't Take It With You" also won him the Best Director Oscars totaling in the only three he would receive.
-He received three nominations for Best Director:
     -"Lady For a Day" won out by Frank Lloyd's "Cavalcade"
     -"Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" won out by Victor Flemming's "Gone With the Wind"
     -"It's a Wonderful Life" won out by William Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives"
MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
-The U.S. Senate voted 96-0 on having the film, "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" removed from public distribution.
-Capra himself questioned whether or not to release a "political" movie as WWII began, but realized it was rather a movie about America's democratic ideals.
-Harry Cohn paralleled his concern on releasing this film to the feelings of Abraham's who was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac.
-Nominated for 11 Academy Awards but only winning two, was unfortunately contributed to the other releases in the year; "Gone with the Wind" & "The Wizard of Oz."
-Before France became occupied by the Nazi's they chose this film as their favorite stating it as the film that most expressed the "perseverance of democracy and the American way."

Distinguished Service Medal
presented by General Marshal

WAR YEARS
-Film author Richard Glazer speculated that John in "Meet John Doe" was an expression of Capra's rise from drifting to a national figure.
-On Dec. 11th 1941 after Pearl Harbor Capra quit directing and enlisted in the Army for the second time at age 44.
-Capra said of this; "I had a guilty conscience. In my films I championed the cause of the gentle, the poor, the downtrodden. Yet I had begun to like the Aga Khan. The curse of Hollywood is big money.
-He was assigned to work directly under Chief of Staff George C. Marshall on directing War Documentaries.
-Footage used came from military and government sources and many newsreels secretly found from enemy sources.
-Walt Disney aided with animated charts and many famous Hollywood composers like Alfred Newman and Dimitri Tiomkin created the background music.
-Winston Churchill ordered that all of them be shown to the British public in theaters.
-After his career ended, Capra regarded these films as his most important work.
-As a Colonel he received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.
AFTER THE WAR
-Capra along with William Wyler and George Stevens founded "Liberty Films" which only had on completed film, "It's a Wonderful Life."
-As a box office disappointment it still was nominated for five Academy Awards.
-The movie has been listed by "The American Film Institute" as one of the top 100 films of all time.
-He was sent to India to combat the Communist films and defend the right of Free Enterprise.
-On his return Secretary of State Dean Acheson commended Capra for "virtually single-handily forestalling a possible Communist take-over in Indian films."
WINDS OF CHANGE
-In the 1950's his ideas that had been popular to depression-era and pre-war audiences, became less popular to the prospering post-war Americans.
-Directed two more films with Paramount; "Riding High" in 1950 and "Here Comes the Groom: in 1951.
-Though Capra was not called to testify by the HUAC he was still a prime target because of his past associations with blacklisted screenwriters.
-He said of this time; "The winds of change blew through the dream factories of make-believe... The hedonists, the homosexuals, the hemophiliac bleeding hearts, the God-haters, the quick-buck artists who substituted shock for talent, all cried: 'shake 'em! Rattle 'em! God is dead. Long live pleasure! Nudity? Yea! Wife-swapping? Yea! Liberate the world from prudery. Emancipate our films from morality!'"
-He re-enlisted a third time at age 53 when the Korean war broke out, but was rejected for his age.
-Retired from Hollywood in 1952 at the age of 55.
-Another of his last pictures was "Pocketful of Miracles" made in 1961 which was a remake of his earlier film in 1933 "Lady for a Day."

Frank Capra with Jimmy Stewart

LATER LIFE
-Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty by vote, declared May 12th 1962 as "Frank Capra Day"
-On this occasion John Ford announced that Capra had also received the Order of the British Empire by the recommendation of Churchill.
-In 1982 he received the AFI Life Achievement Award.
-In 1986 he also received the National Medal of Arts.
-He Died of a heart attack in his sleep at age 94 in 1991.
-He was buried at the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery in Coachella, California.

 All of these above were facts on Capra's life I was unaware of until now. How touched I am by his heroism and American ideals that he so powerfully expressed on films and through-out his life. I am sure that I have missed quite a few and would appreciate your comments to add to this list.

CAPRA MOVIE TIMELINE

FRANK CAPRA
1930	Pluto Discovered	Starting in 1922 to 1932 Capra made over 20 movies many of them Silent and including shorts.
1931	America adobts their National Anthem
1932	Scientest Split the Atom
1933	Hitler becomes chancelor in Germany	"The Bitter Tea of General Yen"
	Prohobition Ends	"Lady for a Day"
1934	Dust Bowl	"It Happened One Night"
1935	Social Security enacted
1936	Nazi Olympics in Berlin	"Mr. Deeds Goes to town"
1937	Japan envades China	"Lost Horizon"
1938	Chamberlain announces "Peace in our time"	"You Can't Take It With You"
1939	WWII Begins	"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"
1940	Battle of Britain
1941	Japan attacks Pearl Harbor	"Meet John Doe"
1942	Battle of Stalingrad	From 1942 to 1945 Capra made 11 War Documentory movies
1943	Italy joins the Allies
1944	D-Day	"Arsenic and Old Lace"
1945	V-Day and Atomic Bomb Dropped
1946	Churchill "Iron Curtain" Speech	"It's A Wonderful Life"
1947	Sound Barrier broken by Chuck Yeager
1948	"Big Bang" Theory Formulated	"State of the Union" (MGM)
1949	China becomes Communist
1950	Senator McCarthy begins Red Scare	"Riding High"
1951	Color TV Introduced	"Here Comes the Groom"
1959	Castro becomes Dicatator of Cuba	"A Hole In the Head"
1961	Berlin Wall Built	"Pocketful of Miracles"

Director of the Week:

Frank Capra (Francesco Capra)

Born: May 18th, 1897 (Italy)

Died: Sep 3rd, 1991 (Heart Attack)

Winner of over 11 awards, three of which were Oscars

Directed over 50 movies


"My films must let every man, woman and child know that God loves them, that I love them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other."

"During the dark decade of the 1930s, director Frank Capra became America's preeminent filmmaker, leavening Depression-era despair with his irrepressible optimism of the Everyman triumphing over seemingly insurmountable odds. Packaging hope for the hopeless, his goodwill movies were as important to national morale as Franklin D. Roosevelt's famed Fireside Chats and well-deserving of the three Best Director Oscars they brought him.

"A true rags-to-riches story, Capra rose above his working-class immigrant background to earn a degree in chemical engineering and serve in the U.S. Army in WWI, only to enter into filmmaking once his post-war career options became limited. He received his start in comedy, helping vaudeville star Harry Langdon make it big in Hollywood, before landing a deal with notorious head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn. During this time, Capra segued from the silent era to talkies with action pictures like "Flight" (1929) and "Dirigible" (1931), before commencing his lifelong collaboration with writer Robert Riskin on the first of their socially-conscious films, "American Madness" (1932).

"Capra reached fruition with "Lady for a Day" (1933), only to suffer public embarrassment after believing he had won the Oscar for Best Director. But he received his due the following year with "It Happened One Night" (1934), the first movie to ever sweep the five major categories at the Academy Awards. Capra entered into a particularly fruitful period with "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936), which he followed with the classic "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), starring James Stewart as the director's prototypical idealistic Everyman triumphing over evil.


"During World War II, Capra reentered the U.S. Army to make several acclaimed wartime propaganda movies, including "Prelude to War" (1942), which won the Oscar for Best Documentary. Upon his return to narrative filmmaking, Capra reunited with Stewart on "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), a heartwarming tale that failed at the box office during its initial release, but later became a perennial holiday classic. That last film proved to be Capra's last great achievement, as the director made several underwhelming films over the next two decades before officially retiring and moving out of Hollywood. With a career that celebrated patriotism, idealism and small-town American values, Capra's strength as a filmmaker marked him as a true giant of Hollywood's Golden Age."

Excerpt from http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/28439%7C53185/Frank-Capra/

*Climax of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Nominated for Best Picture in 1940 but won out by "Gone With the Wind."