Americanism, Liberty, and Neighborliness: 3 Inspiring Scenes From Frank Capra Films

Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra was one filmmaker who truly cared about imparting important values through his movies, not just making a profit. 

Many of Capra’s most famous movies have political themes. A traditional conservative with strong anticommunist leanings, he loved stories that glorified and celebrated the American way of life, and his films are just as inspiring today as they were 80 years ago. 

Film director Frank Capra, circa 1930s, presented a message of patriotism in some of his greatest movies. Public Domain

Let’s consider three particularly uplifting scenes from Frank Capra movies.

‘You Can’t Take It With You’

“You Can’t Take It With You” is a touching story about two families with very different ideas about what’s important in life. The Vanderhoffs are an eclectic group of fun-loving, generous relatives and friends, headed by lovable old Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff (Lionel Barrymore).

The Kirbys are an extremely wealthy but cold social-climbing family with just one son, headed by ruthless financial wizard Anthony P. Kirby (Edward Arnold). 

The two families are brought together when the Kirby son, Tony (James Stewart), falls in love with his secretary—and Vanderhoff’s granddaughter—Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur).

The Kirbys are hostile toward their eccentric, potential in-laws because Grandpa Vanderhoff’s refusal to sell his home is halting Kirby’s plans for a huge factory.

One particularly poignant moment happens early in the film when Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa Vanderhoff’s daughter and Alice’s mother, is struggling with writing a play.

Spring Byington as Penny Sycamore considers what to write in "You Can't Take It With You," which won the 1938 Oscar for Best Picture. MovieStillsDB

Grandpa suggests, “Penny, why don’t you write a play about Ism-Mania?”

“Ism-Mania?” she repeats.

“Yeah, sure, you know: communism, fascism, voodooism. Everybody’s got an ‘-ism’ these days. ... When things go a little bad nowadays, you go out and get yourself an ‘-ism’ and you’re in business.”

When Penny suggests that she could give her character an “-ism,” Grandpa replies,

“Only, give her Americanism. Let her know something about Americans: John Paul Jones, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Lincoln, Grant, Lee, Edison, Mark Twain. When things got tough for those boys, they didn’t run around looking for -isms. Lincoln said, ‘With malice toward none, with charity toward all.’ Nowadays they say, ‘Think the way I do, or I’ll bomb the daylights out of you.’”

This speech is Grandpa’s patriotic moment in the film, and it expresses his political views. Neither Capra in real life nor Martin Vanderhof in the story was against capitalism. When Vanderhof quit the lucrative job he hated, he didn’t become idle. He instead decided to earn money doing something he loved: appraising stamp collections.

‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’

 While “You Can’t Take It With You” is a family story, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is an unashamedly political drama. Set mostly in Washington, young scoutmaster Jefferson Smith (Stewart) is thrust into the political arena when appointed an interim senator.

He is excited about serving his country alongside revered Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), his late father’s best friend. Little does he know that his whole state is controlled by a political machine run by businessman James Taylor (Arnold). 

James Stewart as Jefferson Smith gives an impassioned speech on the floor of the Senate in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." MovieStillsDB

Jeff innocently drafts a bill for a boys’ camp, not realizing that the camp’s intended location collides with Paine’s graft-ridden plans. While composing this document with his cynical secretary, Clarissa Saunders (Arthur), Smith tells her that he wants it to convey his goals of helping American youth remember their nation’s uniqueness.

“You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading ‘The Land of the Free’ in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: ‘I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t. I can, and my children will.’ Boys ought to grow up remembering that.”

This inspiring speech, passionately delivered by Jimmy Stewart with his inimitable sincerity, is a motivating reminder for every American not to take our precious rights for granted. 

In his 1971 autobiography, Capra wrote of this film: “The more uncertain are the people of the world, the more their hard-won freedoms are scattered and lost in the winds of chance, the more they need a ringing statement of America’s democratic ideals. The soul of our film would be anchored in Lincoln. Our Jefferson Smith would be a young Abe Lincoln, tailored to the rail-splitter’s simplicity, compassion, ideals, humor, and unswerving moral courage under pressure.”

‘Meet John Doe’

“Meet John Doe” is the third Frank Capra film with Edward Arnold as its villain. This time, he faces Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck as his character’s opponents instead of James Stewart and Jean Arthur. Cooper plays morally ambiguous hero Long John Willoughby, a down-on-his-luck baseball player with an injured arm.

Willoughby agrees to become John Doe, whom columnist Ann Mitchell (Stanwyck) invented in protest of being fired. He makes the decision in order to make enough money to treat his arm. However, he quickly becomes wildly popular. Just as he wants to quit, he realizes that his speeches, ghostwritten by Ann, have inspired people to start a John Doe club. His first speech, delivered on the radio, is an inspiring call for average citizens to love and help each other.

Barbara Stanwyck as journalist Ann Mitchell has written the speech that Gary Cooper as Long John Willoughby (John Doe) is about to deliver to a crowd in the Frank Capra film "Meet John Doe." MovieStillsDB

“I’m gonna talk about us, the average guys, the John Does. ... In our struggle for freedom, we’ve hit the canvas many a’ time, but we always bounced back because we’re the people, and we’re tough. They’ve started a lot of talk about free people going soft, that we can’t take it. That’s a lot of hooey! A free people can beat the world at anything, from war to tiddlywinks if we all pull in the same direction. ... Yes sir, my friends, the meek can only inherit the earth when the John Does start loving their neighbors. You'd better start right now. Don’t wait till the game is called on account of darkness. Wake up, John Doe, you’re the hope of the world.”

“Meet John Doe” builds on the frightening theme introduced in “Mr. Smith” of one powerful tyrant fooling honest folks into believing him. The stakes are high in this film, but Capra created seemingly hopeless situations to illustrate that a problem is never too big to overcome if honest people band together.

John Wakeman’s “World Film Directors: Volume One, 1890–1945” quotes Capra as having said: “My films must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, that I love them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other.”

Eighty years later, his dream lives on as long as people can watch and be inspired by his beautiful movies.