- Byname of:
- Francesco Rosario Capra
- Died:
- September 3, 1991, La Quinta, California, U.S. (aged 94)
- Awards And Honors:
- Academy Award (1939)
- Academy Award (1937)
- Academy Award (1935)
- Notable Works:
- “A Hole in the Head”
- “Arsenic and Old Lace”
- “Broadway Bill”
- “It Happened One Night”
- “It’s a Wonderful Life”
- “Lost Horizon”
- “Meet John Doe”
- “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town”
- “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”
- “Platinum Blonde”
- “Pocketful of Miracles”
- “Riding High”
- “State of the Union”
- “You Can’t Take It with You”
Frank Capra
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Who was Frank Capra?
Frank Capra (1897-1991) was an Italian-American film director who won three Academy Awards for best director.
Capra directed many successful films, including It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). His films often featured a naive, idealistic hero triumphing over selfish individuals.
During World War II, Capra served in the Signal Corps and directed the Why We Fight series of documentaries. After the war, he co-founded Liberty Films and directed It's a Wonderful Life (1946), now considered a classic.
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What kind of movies did Frank Capra direct?
Frank Capra directed a variety of movies, including comedies, dramas, and documentaries. His "golden period" in the mid- to late 1930s was marked by films that celebrated the strength of the American character, often portraying a naive, idealistic hero triumphing over selfish individuals.
Some of his notable works include:
- It Happened One Night A romantic comedy about a runaway heiress and a newspaper reporter.
- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town A populist fable about a small-town man who inherits a fortune and decides to give it away.
- Lost Horizon A film about a British diplomat who finds a hidden utopia.
- You Can't Take It with You A madcap portrait of an unconventional family.
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington The story of a freshman senator who fights corruption in the U.S. Senate.
- Meet John Doe A film about a cynical reporter who hires a former baseball player to pose as a fictional protest figure.
- Arsenic and Old Lace A dark comedy about a man who discovers his aunts are murdering lonely old men.
- It's a Wonderful Life A Christmas tale about a despairing banker who sees how much poorer the world would be without him.
- Why We Fight A series of documentaries made to increase American support for World War II.
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What are some famous films directed by Frank Capra?
Frank Capra was a prominent American director known for his patriotic and sentimental films celebrating the common man. Some of his famous films include:
- It Happened One Night A romantic comedy about a runaway heiress and a newspaper reporter who fall in love. It was the first motion picture to win Academy Awards in the five major categories.
- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town A smash hit about Longfellow Deeds, a principled man who inherits a fortune and decides to give it to the less fortunate.
- Lost Horizon Based on James Hilton’s novel, this allegorical film stars Ronald Colman as a British diplomat who finds a hidden utopia after a plane crash.
- You Can’t Take It with You A madcap portrait of an unconventional family, this film won the Academy Award for best picture.
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Jefferson Smith, an everyman, refuses to compromise his ethics while facing pressure from power brokers in the U.S. Senate.
- Meet John Doe A cynical newspaper reporter hires a former baseball player to pose as a fictional character.
- It's a Wonderful Life Now a classic Christmas tale, this film is about a despairing banker who sees how much poorer the world would be without him.
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What made Frank Capra's movies unique or special?
Frank Capra, an American film director, was known for his unique approach to filmmaking, particularly during the 1930s. His films often featured a naive, idealistic, and courageous hero in a humorous way. These heroes triumphed over selfish individuals in a world filled with darkness and despair, reflecting Capra's belief in individual expression.
Capra advocated for a "one man, one film" theory, convinced that a director should oversee every aspect of their projects. He fought for creative freedom for directors as head of the Screen Directors’ Guild. His films often presented an essential optimism, with the "little people" triumphing, celebrating the strength of the American character. This blend of idealism and sentimentality, dubbed "Capra-corn," later became known as "Capraesque".
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How did Frank Capra's films reflect American society during his time?
Frank Capra's films mirrored American society through patriotic, sentimental stories of virtuous everymen challenging power for the common good, particularly during the Great Depression.
Capra's "golden period" films often humorously presented a naive, idealistic, and courageous hero who triumphed over selfish individuals, reflecting an essential optimism. Films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) showed an ordinary man fighting corruption in the U.S. Senate. These films celebrated the strength of the American character, though some critics viewed them as overly utopian. Capra's work, with its blend of patriotism and sentimentality, captured the spirit of the New Deal era, appealing to a broad political spectrum.
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How has Frank Capra influenced modern filmmakers or movie styles?
Frank Capra's influence on modern filmmakers and movie styles is evident in the recurring themes and stylistic elements found in contemporary cinema. Capra's films often celebrated the triumph of the average person, emphasizing sentimentalism and the importance of individual expression.
Capra's "one man, one film" theory, advocating for a director's creative control, has also had a lasting impact. His deep belief in the importance of individual expression became a hallmark of his own filmmaking creed and of the characters in his films.
The term "Capraesque" is used to describe films that share similar qualities.
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Frank Capra (born May 18, 1897, near Palermo, Sicily, Italy—died September 3, 1991, La Quinta, California, U.S.) was an American motion-picture director who was the most prominent filmmaker of the 1930s, during which he won three Academy Awards as best director. His most-beloved films, many of which were made during the Great Depression, were patriotic sentimental celebrations of virtuous everymen who selflessly speak truth to power in pursuit of the common good.
Early life and work
Capra’s family immigrated to Los Angeles from Bisacquino, a Sicilian village, when he was six. After graduating in 1918 from the California Institute of Technology with a degree in chemical engineering, Capra received a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps commission and spent the last year of World War I teaching mathematics in the U.S. Army. For the next two years he traveled, doing odd jobs and working as a book salesman. Despite lacking any filmmaking experience, in 1922 he persuaded a San Francisco stage actor who wanted to make a movie based on poetry to hire him to direct the one-reel film, The Ballad of Fisher’s Boarding House. Capra then took a job with a San Francisco film studio and began learning about filmmaking from the ground up, working as film cutter, camera assistant, property man, writer, and assistant director. A stint as a gag writer for Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” film comedy series followed in 1924. Moving on to Mack Sennett’s Keystone Company, Capra directed Harry Langdon in some of the silent comedian’s most successful films—including The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927)—but when the two had a falling-out, Capra was fired.
In 1928, after directing Claudette Colbert in her unremarkable debut for the studio First National, For the Love of Mike (1927), Capra began his long association with Columbia Pictures and its head, Harry Cohn, as well as with cinematographer Joseph Walker. One of the so-called Poverty Row studios, Columbia lacked the financial wherewithal, big-name contract actors, and prestige of major studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount, and Warner Brothers. During his first year at Columbia, Capra directed seven silent features, mostly on B-film budgets: the melodrama That Certain Thing; So This Is Love?, a boxing-themed comedy; The Matinee Idol, a romantic comedy whose tension between big-city and small-town values anticipated some of Capra’s signature later works; The Way of the Strong, a crime melodrama; Say It with Sables, a melodrama that starred Francis X. Bushman; Submarine, a big-budget (for Columbia) action film; and The Power of the Press, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as a justice-seeking reporter.
As the studio moved into the sound era, Capra became Cohn’s most trusted director. The Younger Generation (1929) was a part-sound drama about a man who leaves his family on New York’s Lower East Side to seek the good life on Park Avenue. Capra’s first all-talkie was the comedic murder mystery The Donovan Affair (1929). Flight (also released in 1929) was notable for Capra’s insistence on staging and filming all of its aerial action without tricks or special effects.
The early 1930s
Ladies of Leisure (1930) was the first of Capra’s films to star Barbara Stanwyck. In it she played a gold digger reformed by her love for a sensitive painter. When Capra adapted the 1928 Broadway hit Rain or Shine for film in 1930, he retained comedian Joe Cook in the role of the saviour of a circus, but he dropped the stage show’s music. Capra’s next film was the ambitious Dirigible (1931), an expensive aerial adventure set at the South Pole. Stanwyck then starred again in The Miracle Woman (1931), a thinly disguised meditation on evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.
Playwright Robert Riskin, who would become Capra’s most essential collaborator, was one of the writers of Platinum Blonde (1931). Jean Harlow and Loretta Young starred in this comedy of manners, which owed much to Lewis Milestone’s The Front Page (1931) and foreshadowed the romances between female journalists and regular guys that would be at the centre the later Capra-Riskin efforts Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe. Forbidden (1932) found Stanwyck again a victim of cruel fate; this time, as a woman in love with a married man, she is forced to become a murderer. In American Madness (1932) a compassionate bank president (played by Walter Huston) tries to stem the tide of Depression-panicked customers making a run on his beleaguered institution. Written by Riskin, the story would be recycled more than a decade later by Capra in It’s a Wonderful Life. Its “little people versus heartless big business” theme would become a hallmark of Capra’s best-known works.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) was Capra’s most erotic work. Stanwyck starred as a missionary in civil-war-torn Shanghai; she becomes the unwilling guest of a Chinese warlord (Nils Asther), who falls hopelessly in love with her. Joseph Walker’s lush, intoxicating cinematography in Bitter Tea was atypical for a Capra film, recalling instead the work of director Josef von Sternberg.
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Whereas Bitter Tea was not a commercial success, Capra’s next film, the sentimental Lady for a Day (1933), was. Capra both produced and directed Riskin’s adaptation of Damon Runyon’s short story “Madame La Gimp.” It concerned a decrepit peddler, Apple Annie (May Robson), who enlists a sympathetic gangster (Warren William) to transform her into a society matron so that her estranged daughter (Jean Parker) will not be embarrassed by her lowly station when she visits from Europe with her fiancé and prospective in-laws. A charming comedy with a touching payoff, Lady for a Day was nominated for an Academy Award as best picture. Capra, who was also nominated as best director, would refashion the material less successfully in 1961 as Pocketful of Miracles.