It’s entertaining as hell, but you couldn’t make this film today. Most of us can’t digest earnestness such as this anymore. It’s the most non-political political comedy/drama ever made. Director Frank Capra takes a stand against one thing only here: corruption in government. He assigns no party affiliation to his hero, humble and likable American ultra-patriot Jefferson Smith, a newly appointed senator who takes over after the previous senator’s sudden death, nor do we know the state that he represents. All of that would be so much distraction from this film’s primal conflict, which is the honest man versus the dishonest man.
The dishonest man here is personified by Edward Arnold, playing his usual gruff businessman, and Claude Rains as the once-honorable senator who’s now in Arnold’s plush pocket. The dishonest man has money, media and the devious mind that helps him acquire all of that on his side. Meanwhile, the honest man has only the truth and the stamina to keep speaking it.
The dishonest man doesn’t stand a chance. This is a Frank Capra movie, after all. Plus, the lead role belongs to James Stewart, the most charming actor of Hollywood’s Golden Age and reliably brilliant here. He goes from a man full of illusions to a man disillusioned without the slightest stumble. His highs are breezy and weightless. His lows sear the screen. Capra throws most of the film onto Stewart’s shoulders and the great actor carries it handily. The formidable Jean Arthur holds her own as the sharp-tongued secretary who’s been around the block and back in Washington. She gets some of the film’s best moments (that drunken conversation between her and Thomas Mitchell!) and is so comfortable in her jaded character that you almost forget the great screwball she played in Easy Living a few years previous. Meanwhile, Frank Capra is Frank Capra. He’s a superb, if sentimental, craftsman of catharsis. He lets it roar here, though he’d perfect it (with much of the same cast) about seven years later in It’s a Wonderful Life.