Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Overview:

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was a Comedy - Romance Film directed by Frank Capra and produced by Frank Capra.

The film was based on the serial story Opera Hat written by Clarence Budington Kelland published in American Magazine from April-Sept 1935.

SYNOPSIS

Capra's populist favorite is about a Vermont hayseed (Cooper) who inherits a fortune and his encounters with the cynical, heartless metropolis. Small-town "pixilated" poet and guileless good guy Longfellow Deeds inherits $20 million, and, when he wants to use it to help the needy, various unsavory types try to get him declared insane. As might be expected, Cooper embodies the simple virtues and wins over hardened newspaper reporter Arthur. Capra favorite Riskin wrote the screenplay and Capra won his second Oscar for the direction. Both leads worked for Capra again in Meet John Doe (Cooper) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Arthur). Based on "Opera Hat," a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Budington Kelland.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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Academy Awards 1936 --- Ceremony Number 9 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best ActorGary CooperNominated
Best DirectorFrank CapraWon
Best PictureColumbiaNominated
Best WritingRobert RiskinNominated
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Quotes from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Longfellow Deeds: He talks about women as if they were cattle.
Walter: Every man to his taste, sir.


Longfellow Deeds: [to the Court] From what I can see, no matter what system of government we have, there will always be leaders and always be followers. It's like the road out in front of my house. It's on a steep hill. Every day I watch the cars climbing up. Some go lickety-split up that hill on high, some have to shift into second, and some sputter and shake and slip back to the bottom again. Same cars, same gasoline, yet some make it and some don't. And I say the fellas who can make the hill on high should stop once in a while and help those who can't. That's all I'm trying to do with this money. Help the fellas who can't make the hill on high.


Babe Bennett: Here's a guy that's wholesome and fresh. To us, he looks like a freak. Do you know what he told me tonight? He said when he gets married, he wants to carry his bride over the threshold in his arms... I tried to laugh, but I couldn't. It stuck in my throat... He's got goodness, Mabel. Do you know what that is?... No, of course you don't. We've forgotten. We're too busy being smart alecks. Too busy in a crazy competition for nothing.


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Facts about Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Carole Lombard was originally down to play the female lead but she backed out three days before production began to go work on My Man Godfrey. Shooting had to begin without a female lead in place.
Russell Hicks is in studio records/casting call lists for the role of 'Dr. Malcolm,' but he did not appear or was not identifiable in this movie
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 1, 1937 with Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur and Lionel Stander reprising their film roles.
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Best Director Oscar 1936






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