FRANK CAPRA: MR. AMERICA

 

Debut documentary feature film from British director Matthew Wells

This debut feature from Wells focuses on perhaps the first name above the marquee director, a man whose name sold a movie as much as an actor performing in his film be it Clark Gable or Barbara Stanwyck.

Capra's dominance of American popular culture from 1934 to the start of US involvement in World War 2 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. While that global event curtailed his career like others, he returned to make the most beloved of American movie classics but strangely a film that marked the beginning of his demise suddenly.

Frank Capra was born in Palermo, Italy and the first thing he wrote in his memoir when he started to write his life was 'I hated being poor'.

The film takes us through the major milestones of Capra's career stating that he had to work hard, but the fortuitous landing spot of Columbia Pictures which allowed him to expand as an artist and work in different genres before finding something that works. Capra would make war films, aerial flight films, dramas and yet he worked hard looking for the next project and building up a base of loyal soldiers around him from a regular cameraman and writer which culminates in the success of It Happened One Night in 1934. The first (and one of only 3 film still) to win the five major Academy Awards which itself was a happy accident.

Yet it was a success because of the work that came before hand along with some good fortune. Clark Gable was sent to Columbia as punishment for asking for more money, Claudette Colbert did not believe in the script and yet as the archive footage shows, the film is full of wonderful moments of cinematography and laid the blueprint for many a romantic comedy, buddy comedy and road trip movies which are repeated to this day. It was a slow burn of a box office hit, as positive word of mouth and repeat viewers led the film to glory.

Following that, Capra took a break and then returned to the spate of social commentary films for which he became renowned for starting with Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, You Can't Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

The film then ends with a lot of talk about It's A Wonderful Life, Capra's favourite film and the archive interview of Capra throughout the film is vital to show his strength as a director and artist; normally in these documentaries it is rare to hear from the subject themselves mostly instead leaving it to the talking head experts and critics. Those are welcome here such as Alexander Payne - a director himself who uses small budgets, good casts to tell good human stories.

This is a vital documentary that serves as a reminder that Capra was perhaps the first superstar director, the man whose name above the title alone would serve as box office gold. That is until his career post Wonderful Life sadly lost steam and was only rekindled when that film was given a new lease of life in the 1970s when it was endlessly repeated on American television. 

Capra did not die poor and as Clarence says to George in his inscription within Tom Sawyer, 'no man is a failure if he has friends', Capra was universally admired at the time and his career from 1928 to 1948 was one of striking while the iron was hot. His films serve a great importance in the birth of talking American cinema, building up the mythos of right and wrong and the power of community that can share the problem and make the life of an individual all the better for it.

FRANK CAPRA: MR. AMERICA will be out later this year.