Frank Capra Has A Cure For The Christmas Blues

Flopper

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Mar 23, 2010
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Feeling blue, lonely, or just plain tired, why not try some Frank Capra movies. They are sure to put a smile on your face if anything will. We all know his most famous movie, It's a Wonderful Live, but there are others just as good.
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with James Stewart and Jean Arthur.
  • It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
  • You Can't Take It With You with a cast that includes Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, and James Stewart
  • Arsenic and Old Lace with Carry Grant, Josephine Hull, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorrie, , and Edward Everett Horton.
  • Meet John Doe with Gary cooper and Barbara Standwyck,
  • Mr. Deeds Goes to Town with Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur
  • Lost Horizon with Ronald Coleman and Jane Wyatt
 
Arsenic and old lace is my favorite Capra film but I agree that all of them are good. Cary Grant's role in that movie was kind of overbearing but the rest of the movie was priceless!
 
Slightly off topic:

It isn’t Capra.

But that one scene in in Home Alone in the church during the choir practice where the formerly scary old next-door neighbor chats with young Kevin is my favorite scene. I like the rest of the movie. But the church scene makes it all a “feel good” movie for me. Watching that movie and especially that scene makes Christmas blues almost impossible.
 
Feeling blue, lonely, or just plain tired, why not try some Frank Capra movies. They are sure to put a smile on your face if anything will. We all know his most famous movie, It's a Wonderful Live, but there are others just as good.
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with James Stewart and Jean Arthur.
  • It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
  • You Can't Take It With You with a cast that includes Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, and James Stewart
  • Arsenic and Old Lace with Carry Grant, Josephine Hull, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorrie, , and Edward Everett Horton.
  • Meet John Doe with Gary cooper and Barbara Standwyck,
  • Mr. Deeds Goes to Town with Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur
  • Lost Horizon with Ronald Coleman and Jane Wyatt
Lost Horizon was a great movie. Too bad a complete copy of the movie doesn't exist anymore. They have the complete sound track but not the complete visuals. About 15 minutes of the original footage is missing.
 
Slightly off topic:

It isn’t Capra.

But that one scene in in Home Alone in the church during the choir practice where the formerly scary old next-door neighbor chats with young Kevin is my favorite scene. I like the rest of the movie. But the church scene makes it all a “feel good” movie for me. Watching that movie and especially that scene makes Christmas blues almost impossible.
That and the scene where Kevin watches him from the window as the Old Man hugs his granddaughter and walks away with his son and his wife.

Chokes me up
 
The sad thing is that you think that's clever.
No, the sad thing is that it's true.

I made that joke every year, dragging it out with the decorations... but a couple years ago, some wingnut actually wrote an article with that very premise.


 
No, the sad thing is that it's true.

I made that joke every year, dragging it out with the decorations... but a couple years ago, some wingnut actually wrote an article with that very premise.



Never understood George Bailey mocking a crippled old man

How was he brought up?
 
Arsenic and old lace is my favorite Capra film but I agree that all of them are good. Cary Grant's role in that movie was kind of overbearing but the rest of the movie was priceless!
I saw the play many years ago and later the movie. I liked the movie better. Capra also did Pocket Full of Miracles which is a nice movie for Christmas but I don't think it was as good as his other movies.
 
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A Zombie Christmas Special.
Funny story behind that sequence. It was part of an otherwise forgettable horror movie called 976-Evil.

Because both It's a Wonderful Life and Night of the Living Dead were in the public domain at the time, they producers could use clips from both. So the skit was female victim kept switching back and forth between the two movies, until she got sucked up into the mashup by whatever forgettable evil was causing the movie.

again, the rest of the movie is forgettable and I couldn't tell you the plot on a bet. But that one sequence was memorable.
 
Funny story behind that sequence. It was part of an otherwise forgettable horror movie called 976-Evil.

Because both It's a Wonderful Life and Night of the Living Dead were in the public domain at the time, they producers could use clips from both. So the skit was female victim kept switching back and forth between the two movies, until she got sucked up into the mashup by whatever forgettable evil was causing the movie.

again, the rest of the movie is forgettable and I couldn't tell you the plot on a bet. But that one sequence was memorable.
Got to sign off. I think Meet John Doe is coming on.
 
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I watched Meet John Doe last night. It is a typical Capra movie. Barbara Stanwyck stars as a fired newspaper reporter who publishes a letter from a nonexistent person, the “John Doe” of the title who threatens to jump off City Hall on Christmas Eve in protest of social injustices. When the letter causes a sensation, she hires a homeless man, Gary Cooper to impersonate John Doe, and his made-up philosophy starts a political movement. The ending of the movie is completely fantastic like most Capra movies.

Today Capra movies, Capracorn seem a bit silly but in the 1930's and 40's when life was pretty grim for most people, these movies were exactly what people wanted, a happy ending where good triumphs over evil, and tears of joy flow freely.
 
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I saw the play many years ago and later the movie. I liked the movie better. Capra also did Pocket Full of Miracles which is a nice movie for Christmas but I don't think it was as good as his other movies.
In the Play, was the Mortimer character as manic as Grant played him in the movie?
 

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