Caltech alum Frank Capra (left) directed the
1939 classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur.

Film Fest to salute alum Capra

For decades, Caltech has churned out world-class scientists and researchers, who continue to pursue careers in everything from aeronautics to biology to physics.

But it may be surprising to some that Caltech has also prepared its alumni to excel in the arts and humanities. Witness 1918 graduate Frank Capra, a Sicilian immigrant who put himself through college and later became a preeminent Hollywood film director of his time. His extensive body of innovative work has left an indelible mark on the motion picture industry.

In recognition of his illustrious career, Caltech will show four of his classics during a film festival in his name. The Frank Capra Film Festival kicks off on Tuesday, January 14, with a screening of the 1936 comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, for which Capra won an Oscar for best director. The story concerns Longfellow Deeds, a gullible tuba player and heir to a fortune, who falls under the sway of crooked big-city opportunists yet triumphs over them. One of Capra’s sons will offer insights into his father’s life and work during the panel discussion that follows the screening.

The second film in the festival, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, was released in 1939 and is generally considered to be Capra’s masterpiece. Its plot concerns a politically idealistic man who goes to the nation’s capital and trounces government corruption and the shysters who benefit from it. The movie will be shown on Tuesday, January 28.

The rising tide of fascism on the global stage led to the making of Meet John Doe, which will be screened on February 11. Released in 1941, the film’s plot revolves around the printing of a prank letter to the editor and the snowball effect it initiates. In the letter, the nonexis-tent “John Doe” despairs that the only response to the world’s social ills is to end his own life. After the public’s outraged and concerned response, unscrupulous newspaper editors hire a man to assume John Doe’s identity in order to spur the newspaper’s circulation.

State of the Union, which rounds out the festival on February 25, is the story of a wealthy industrialist with aspirations to the presidency of the United States. As Grant Matthews’s Republican campaign proceeds, complications arise in his personal life, as do doubts about the integrity of his fellow politicians. The movie was released in 1948.

In many of his works, Capra exhibited an unmistakable affection for the underdog, most notably in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This theme, in which an innocent or naïve man prevails despite the odds, became something of a Capra signature.

Capra may have been drawn to these stories because of his own life experiences in the role of the little guy. As described in his 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title, his impossibly rigorous schedule at Caltech consisted of an early morning 15-mile motorbike ride to a job at Pasadena’s power plant, followed by on-campus dishwashing and waiting jobs, several hours of class, then an hour with the glee club. He writes that each day he devoted just two hours and thirty minutes to his studies and five hours to sleep.

“What did this schedule do to my studies? Nothing,” he recounts. “I won the Freshman Scholarship prize: $250 and a trip around the country, and sincere congratulations of my proud teachers: Dr. Bates (Chemistry), Dr. Van Buskirk (Mathematics), Dr. Beckman (German), Professor Sorensen (Electrical Engineering), Professor Clapp (Geology), and proudest of all, Professor Judy (English).”
If that weren’t enough, Capra served as an ASCIT officer, was a member of the chemistry club, served as the editor of the California Tech, and managed to graduate in three years.

Capra didn’t learn about directing and the magic of film at Caltech; fortune provided him with that opportunity elsewhere. His time at Caltech coincided with World War I, and there were clear signs of it on campus. Temporary barracks and storage facilities were built, training in digging trenches was conducted on the site where the Athenaeum sits today, and students were in uniform. Shortly before the November 11, 1918, armistice, Capra enlisted in the Coast Artillery. After the war, jobs were difficult to come by, so for three years he became an “itinerant opportunist,” as he put it. It was at a small movie studio in San Francisco that he learned to operate a camera, write gags, direct black-and-white silent films, and even serve as handler to a cranky, swaybacked horse (and actor) named Eight-ball.

Capra eventually moved to Hollywood, working at the Hal Roach Studios as a writer and, later, as a director. After moving to relatively small Columbia Studios, Capra began directing highly regarded movies such as the romantic comedy Lady for a Day (1933) and It Happened One Night (1934), which won all five top Oscars. That was only the beginning of an illustrious directing and producing career that included such films as Arsenic and Old Lace and It’s a Wonderful Life, which has become a Christmastime classic.

Capra’s association with his alma mater didn’t end in 1918. He joined the Associates, and, in 1972, he donated his extensive estate in Fallbrook, located about 100 miles south of Pasadena in northern San Diego County, to the Institute for use as a faculty retreat.

All movies will be screened at 7:30 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium, and are free and open to the public. A panel discussion of scholars, writers, and industry professionals will follow each screening.
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