Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Matt Wesley

Small-town virtue squares off with the big-city experience in Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The film opens with the death of billionaire Martin Semple, whose entire fortune ends up going to Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), author of greeting cards and the tuba player for the band in his hometown of Mandrake Falls. New York attorney John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille) oversaw Semple’s estate and whisks Deeds away to New York to give him the same treatment. Deeds recognizes something fishy about Cedar, and the audience knows it’s the holes in the accounting ledgers.

In addition to crooked lawyers, Deeds will also have to deal with a gossip-hungry public and press, led by reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur). We know Deeds has a soft spot for a “lady in distress,” and Bennett wastes no time in presenting herself as one. Their manipulated friendship (Deeds doesn’t know about Babe’s real day job) leads to popular “Cinderella Man” headlines for Bennett and infatuation for Deeds.

While Deeds shows a surprisingly strong will and isn’t the easily-persuaded country bumpkin that many of the New York elite at first expect, he’d be picked clean by the society vulture in a month if he didn’t have some help. This help comes primarily in the form of the surprisingly loyal Cornelius Cobb (Lionel Stander) – surprising because Cobb is highly cynical, an ex-newspaperman and under Cedar’s employ, tasked with keeping reporters away from Deeds. Deeds’ honesty and purity of spirit eventually wins over Cobb, who starts looking out for Deeds’ best interests.

Ultimately, neither Babe’s articles nor Deeds’ love can go unacknowledged. By the time Deeds proposes to Babe, she’s fallen for him as well and is willing to risk everything by coming clean. Before she can, however, Cobb discovers her secret and outs her. Deeds is crushed and it seems the corruption and greed of the big city has finally beaten the simple goodness of small-town America. Upon trying to give away his fortune to hungry farmers desperate for jobs, Deeds ends up in court on charges of mental instability and another possible heir is dug up. His eccentricities are enumerated by a panel of experts and witnesses, and all appears lost. Only Deeds, representing himself, can explain his position and why on Earth he’d ever want to help people who need a hand.

For those of us caught up in the hustle-and-bustle of life, the film questions what we really work for and how we look at the world. It also reprises the “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson while in a way questioning our government’s ability to keep farmers (and eventually everyone else) from starving. Deeds isn’t perfect - his standard defense for getting his feelings hurt involves laying out the offending party – but he reminds us that if we try to look out for each other, good things happen. And no matter how cynical you are, good luck not smiling at the end.