Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behind several major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Freer to consider him the "American Dream personified".

Capra became one of America's most influential directors during the 1930s, winning three Academy Awards for Best Director from six nominations. Among his leading films were It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). During World War II, Capra served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and produced propaganda films, such as the Why We Fight series. Beginning in 1950, his cinematic output slowed, and he retired from filmmaking in the mid-1960s. In the ensuing decades, however, It's a Wonderful Life and other Capra films were reevaluated favorably by critics. Outside of directing, Capra was active in the film industry, engaging in various political and social activities. He served as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, worked alongside the Writers Guild of America, and was head of the Directors Guild of America.

Early life Capra was born Francesco Rosario Capra on May 18, 1897, in Bisacquino, a village near Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was the youngest of seven children of Salvatore Capra, a fruit grower, and the former Rosaria "Sara" Nicolosi. Capra's family was Roman Catholic. The name "Capra", notes Capra's biographer, Joseph McBride, represents his family's closeness to the land, and means "goat". He notes that the English word "capricious" derives from it, "evoking the animal's skittish temperament", adding that "the name neatly expresses two aspects of Frank Capra's personality: emotionalism and obstinacy."

Capra remembers the ship's arrival in New York Harbor, where he saw "a statue of a great lady, taller than a church steeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter". He recalls his father's exclamation at the sight:

The family settled in Los Angeles's East Side (today Lincoln Heights) on Avenue 18, which Capra described in his autobiography as an Italian "ghetto". Capra's father worked as a fruit picker and young Capra attended Castelar Elementary School and sold newspapers after school for ten years until he graduated from high school. He attended the Manual Arts High School, with Jimmy Doolittle and Lawrence Tibbett as classmates. Instead of working after graduating, as his parents wanted, he enrolled in college.

He worked through college at the California Institute of Technology, playing banjo at nightclubs and taking odd jobs like working at the campus laundry, waiting tables, and cleaning engines at a local power plant. He studied chemical engineering and graduated in the spring of 1918. Capra later wrote that his college education had "changed his whole viewpoint on life from the viewpoint of an alley rat to the viewpoint of a cultured person". Living at home with his siblings and mother, Capra was the only family member with a college education, yet he was the only one who remained chronically unemployed. After a year without work, seeing how his siblings had steady jobs, he felt he was a failure, which led to bouts of depression.

Career Silent film comedies During his book sales efforts—and nearly broke—Capra read a newspaper article about a new movie studio opening in an abandoned gymnasium, at San Francisco.

critics noted that it was free from stunts, mannerisms, camera angles and Hollywood tricks. It had to be free from them as Capra never had time to learn anything of them. Capra's father-in-law, William A. Howell, was a principal investor in Paul Gerson Pictures Corporation.

(When?) Capra subsequently received an offer to work with producer Harry Cohn at his new studio in Los Angeles. During this time, he worked as a property man, film cutter, title writer, and assistant director.

Capra later became a gag writer for Hal Roach's Our Gang series. He was twice hired as a writer for a slapstick comedy director, Mack Sennett, in 1918 and 1924. Under him, Capra wrote scripts for comedian Harry Langdon and produced by Mack Sennett, the first being Plain Clothes in 1925. According to Capra, it was he who invented Langdon's character, the innocent fool living in a "naughty world"; however, Langdon was well into this character by 1925.

Few of the studio heads or crew were aware of Capra's engineering background until he began directing The Younger Generation in 1929. The chief cinematographer who worked with Capra on a number of films was likewise unaware. He describes this early period in sound for film:

During his first year with Columbia, Capra directed nine films, some of which were successful. After the first few, Harry Cohn said: "it was the beginning of Columbia making a better quality of pictures." According to Barson, "Capra became ensconced as Harry Cohn's most trusted director." Capra wrote of this period and recalled the confidence that Cohn placed in Capra's vision and directing:

Capra directed his first "real" sound picture, The Younger Generation, in 1929. It was a rags-to-riches romantic comedy about a Jewish family's upward mobility in New York City, with their son later trying to deny his Jewish roots to keep his rich, gentile girlfriend. According to Capra biographer Joseph McBride, Capra "obviously felt a strong identification with the story of a Jewish immigrant who grows up in the ghetto of New York ... and feels he has to deny his ethnic origins to rise to success in America." Capra, however, denied any connection of the story with his own life.

Nonetheless, McBride insists that The Younger Generation abounds with parallels to Capra's own life. McBride notes the "devastatingly painful climactic scene", where the young social-climbing son, embarrassed when his wealthy new friends first meet his parents, passes his mother and father off as house servants. That scene, notes McBride, "echoes the shame Capra admitted feeling toward his own family as he rose in social status".

During his years at Columbia, Capra worked often with screenwriter Robert Riskin (husband of Fay Wray), and cameraman Joseph Walker. In many of Capra's films, the wise-cracking and sharp dialogue was often written by Riskin, and he and Capra went on to become Hollywood's "most admired writer-director team".

Film career (1934–1941)

It Happened One Night (1934)

Capra's films in the 1930s enjoyed immense success at the Academy Awards. It Happened One Night (1934) became the first film to win all five top Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay). Written by Robert Riskin, it is one of the first screwball comedies, and with its release in the Great Depression, critics considered it an escapist story and a celebration of the American Dream. The film established the names of Capra, Columbia Pictures, and stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in the movie industry. The film has been called "picaresque". It was one of the earliest road movies and inspired variations on that theme by other filmmakers.

He followed the film with Broadway Bill (1934), a screwball comedy about horse racing. The film was a turning point for Capra, however, as he began to conceive an additional dimension to his movies. Capra explains his new thinking:

When the filming was completed, the studio sent preview copies to Washington. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., U.S. ambassador to the UK, wrote to Columbia head Harry Cohn, "Please do not play this picture in Europe."

Nonetheless, Capra's vision of the film's significance was clear:

Capra pleaded with Cohn to allow the film to go into distribution and remembers the intensity of their decision making:

Cohn and Capra chose to ignore the negative publicity and demands and released the film as planned. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards, only winning one (for Best Original Story) partly because the number of major pictures that were nominated that year was 10, including The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons called it a "smash patriotic hit" and most critics agreed, seeing that audiences left the theaters with "an enthusiasm for democracy" and "in a glow of patriotism."

The significance of the film's message was established further in France, shortly after World War II began. When the French public was asked to select which film they wanted to see most, having been told by the Vichy government that soon no more American films would be allowed in France, the overwhelming majority chose it over all others. To a France soon to be completely occupied by Nazi forces, the film most expressed the "perseverance of democracy and the American way." The enraged Capra quit Columbia. Harry Cohn tried to lure him back with an unprecedented profit-sharing split of 50/50, but Capra accepted a million-dollar cash offer from Warner Bros. Columbia ultimately went ahead with the Chopin biography, in Technicolor, under the direction of Charles Vidor: A Song to Remember (1945).

Meet John Doe (1941)

Capra's first Warner project was Meet John Doe (1941). So important was the Capra name that Warner Bros. took its own name off the main title. Instead of the usual "Warner Bros. Pictures presents", Meet John Doe begins with "Presenting".

Some consider Meet John Doe to be Capra's most controversial movie. The film's hero, played by Gary Cooper, is a former baseball player now bumming around, lacking goals. He is selected by a news reporter to represent the "common man," to capture the imagination of ordinary Americans. The film was released shortly before America became involved in World War II, and citizens were still in an isolationist mood. According to some historians, the film was made to convey a "deliberate reaffirmation of American values," though ones that seemed uncertain with respect to the future.

Film author Richard Glazer speculates that the film may have been autobiographical, "reflecting Capra's own uncertainties". Glazer describes how, "John's accidental transformation from drifter to national figure parallels Capra's own early drifting experience and subsequent involvement in movie making ... Meet John Doe, then, was an attempt to work out his own fears and questions."

World War II years (1941–1945) Joining the Army after Pearl Harbor

Within four days of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Capra quit his successful directing career in Hollywood and received a commission as a major in the United States Army. He also gave up his presidency of the Screen Directors Guild. Being 44 years of age, he was not asked to enlist, but, notes Friedman, "Capra had an intense desire to prove his patriotism to his adopted land."

Why We Fight series

During the next four years of World War II, Capra's job was to head a special section on morale to explain to soldiers "why the hell they're in uniform", writes Capra, and were not "propaganda" films like those created by the Nazis and Japan. Capra directed or co-directed seven documentary war information films.

Capra was assigned to work directly under Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, the most senior officer in command of the Army, who later created the Marshall Plan and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Marshall chose to bypass the usual documentary film-making department, Signal Corps, because he felt they were not capable of producing "sensitive and objective troop information films". One colonel explained the importance of these future films to Capra:

Capra receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from General George C. Marshall, 1945 During his first meeting with General Marshall, Capra was told his mission:

Capra ended up directing a seven-episode Why We Fight series: Prelude to War (1942), The Nazis Strike (1942), Divide and Conquer (1943), The Battle of Britain (1943), The Battle of Russia (1943), The Battle of China (1944), and War Comes to America (1945). Additionally, Capra directed or co-directed the propaganda films Tunisian Victory (1945) Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), Here Is Germany (1945), and Two Down and One to Go (1945), which do not bear the Why We Fight banner. Capra also produced the critically acclaimed The Negro Soldier (1944), which was directed by Stuart Heisler. Capra also directed, uncredited, the 13-minute film Your Job in Germany (1945), which was meant for US troops headed to Allied-occupied Germany.

After he completed the first few documentaries, government officials and U.S. Army staff felt they were powerful messages and excellent presentations of why it was necessary for the United States to fight in the war. All footage came from military and government sources, whereas during earlier years, many newsreels secretly used footage from enemy sources. Animated charts were created by Walt Disney and his animators. A number of Hollywood composers wrote the background music, including Alfred Newman and Russian-born composer Dimitri Tiomkin. After the first complete film was viewed by General Marshall along with U.S. Army staff—and Franklin Roosevelt—Marshall approached Capra: "Colonel Capra, how did you do it? That is a most wonderful thing."

FDR was effusive: "I want every American to see this motion picture. General—please make all necessary arrangements". Prelude To War was distributed by 20th Century-Fox, and was nationally acclaimed. Fox also released Capra's Why We Fight opus, The Battle Of Russia. Released to service audiences in two-parts to accommodate hour-long periods during induction training, the nine-reel (nearly 90 minutes) epic detailed Russian history using excerpts of the films of Sergei Eisenstein, then proceeded to recent history through captured Nazi newsreels and those supplied reluctantly by Stalin. When he was shown the film in Moscow, Stalin was effusive and ordered one thousand 35mm prints. He was so anxious that his people should see the film that he did not bother creating a Russian soundtrack. Capra laughed in amazement years later when re-counting the tale: "Stalin had interpreters at the side of the stage in all the theatres. They simply translated the film on the fly, yelling like hell to be heard over the music and sound effects". The series was seen in theaters throughout the U.S. They were also translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese for screening in other countries, under the aegis of Robert Riskin. Winston Churchill ordered that all of them be shown to the British public in theaters.

Following a shifting of alliances at the end of World War II, some of the Why We Fight films were effectively banned. The Battle Of Russia, due to its positivity toward the Soviet Union, was essentially banned until the 1980s. Conversely, some of the other films, which spoke negatively of the Germans and Japanese, were taken out of print, as these countries were now allies. Know Your Enemy: Japan, which barely saw a release because its release date came just days before the Japanese surrender, was kept under wraps afterwards as well: Capra noted that the U.S. "suddenly needed friendly relations with the Japs and the film, along with several others, was locked up".

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) named it one of the best films ever made, putting it at 11th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list of the top American films of all time. In 2006, the AFI put the film at the top of its AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers list, ranking what AFI considers the most inspirational American movies of all time.

It would become Capra's last film to win major acclaim—his successful years were now behind him, although he directed five more films over the next 14 years.

After two weeks in India, Capra discovered that Bowles' fears were warranted, as many film sessions were used by Russian and Chinese representatives to give long political speeches. At a lunch with 15 Indian directors and producers, he stressed that "they must preserve freedom as artists, and that any government control would hinder that freedom. A totalitarian system—and they would become nothing but publicity men for the party in power." Capra had a difficult time communicating this, however, as he noted in his diary:

When he returned to Washington to give his report, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave Capra his commendation for "virtually single-handedly forestalling a possible Communist take-over of Indian films". Ambassador Bowles also conveyed gratitude to Capra for "one helluva job".

Disillusionment period and later years Following It's a Wonderful Life and State of the Union, which were done soon after the war ended, Capra's themes were becoming out of step with changes in the film industry and the public mood. Friedman finds that while Capra's ideas were popular with depression-era and prewar audiences, they became less relevant to a prospering postwar America. Capra didn't help his own cause when he consulted old 1930s scripts for his latest productions. Capra had become "disconnected from an American culture that had changed" during the previous decade. In his autobiography, written in 1971, Capra expressed his feelings about the shifting film industry:

The winds of change blew through the dream factories of make-believe, tore at its crinoline tatters ... The hedonists, the homosexuals, the hemophiliac bleeding hearts, the God-haters, the quick-buck artists who substituted shock for talent, all cried: "Shake 'em! Rattle 'em! God is dead. Long live pleasure! Nudity? Yea! Wife-swapping? Yea! Liberate the world from prudery. Emancipate our films from morality!" ... Kill for thrill—shock! Shock! To hell with the good in man, Dredge up his evil—shock! Shock! #tag:ref Medved points out the irony in Capra's expression of disillusionment: Capra's film It Happened One Night (1934) was the first film to win all five top Oscars, and in 1991, a few months after Capra's death, The Silence of the Lambs also won all five top Oscars. He was later invited to join the Defense Department's newly formed Think Tank project, VISTA, but was denied the necessary clearance. According to Friedman, "these two rejections were devastating to the man who had made a career of demonstrating American ideals in film", along with his directing award-winning documentary films for the Army.

Later films (1950–1961) Capra directed two films at Paramount Pictures starring Bing Crosby, Riding High (1950, a remake of 1934's Broadway Bill) and Here Comes the Groom (1951). By 1952, at the age of 55, Capra effectively retired from Hollywood filmmaking; he shifted to working with the California Institute of Technology, his alma mater, to produce educational films on science topics. It was eight years before he directed another theatrical film, A Hole in the Head (1959) with Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson, his first feature film in color.

His final theatrical film was with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, named Pocketful of Miracles (1961), a remake of his 1933 film Lady for a Day. In the mid-1960s he worked on pre-production for an adaptation of Martin Caidin's novel Marooned, but he felt he could not make the movie on the $3 million budget he was given, and abandoned the project. (A film adaptation was finally made in 1969, directed by John Sturges with an $8 million budget.)

Capra's final film, Rendezvous in Space (1964), was an industrial film made for the Martin Marietta Company and shown at the 1964 New York World's Fair. It was exhibited at the New York Hall of Science after the Fair ended.

Directing style Capra's directing style relied on improvisation to a great extent. He was noted for going on the set with no more than the master scenes written. He explained his reasoning:

Capra's personality when directing gave him a reputation for "fierce independence" when dealing with studio bosses. On the set he was said to be gentle and considerate, "a director who displays absolutely no exhibitionism." As Capra's films often carry a message about basic goodness in human nature, and show the value of unselfishness and hard work, his wholesome, feel-good themes have led some cynics to term his style "Capra-corn". However, those who hold his vision in higher regard prefer the term "Capraesque".

Capra's basic themes of championing the common man, as well as his use of spontaneous, fast-paced dialogue and goofy, memorable lead and supporting characters, made him one of the most popular and respected filmmakers of the 20th century. His influence can be traced in the works of many directors, including Robert Altman, Ron Howard, Akira Kurosawa, John Lasseter, David Lynch, John Milius, Oliver Stone

Personal life

Family Capra married actress Helen Howell in 1923. The two divorced in 1928. He married Lucille Warner in 1932, with whom he had a daughter and three sons, one of whom, Johnny, died at age 3 following a tonsillectomy.

Capra was four times president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and three times president of the Directors Guild of America, which he helped found. Under his presidency, he worked to give directors more artistic control of their films. During his career as a director, he retained an early ambition to teach science, and after his career declined in the 1950s, he made educational television films related to science subjects.

His son, Frank Capra Jr., was the president of EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, until his death on December 19, 2007. His grandsons, brothers Frank Capra III and Jonathan Capra, have both worked as assistant directors; Frank III worked on the 1995 film The American President, which referred to Frank Capra in the film's dialogue. Another son, Tom, was producer of the Today Show.

Political views

Capra's political views coalesced in some of his movies, which promoted and celebrated the spirit of American individualism. A conservative Republican, Capra strongly criticized Franklin D. Roosevelt during his tenure as governor of New York and opposed his presidency during the years of the Depression. Capra stood against government intervention during the national economic crisis. Despite Capra personally being a conservative Republican, Robert Riskin, who was Capra's frequent screenplay writer and vital to the plots of many of his films, was a New Deal Democrat.

In his later years, Capra became a self-described pacifist and was very critical of the Vietnam War.

Death In 1985, aged 88, Capra suffered the first of a series of strokes. On September 3, 1991, he died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in La Quinta, California, at the age of 94. He was interred at Coachella Valley Public Cemetery in Coachella, California.

Capra left part of his 1,100 acre ranch in Fallbrook, California, to the California Institute of Technology, to be used as a retreat center. Capra's personal papers and some film-related materials are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, which allows scholars and media experts full access.

Legacy During the golden age of Hollywood, Capra's "fantasies of goodwill" made him one of the two or three most famous and successful directors in the world. Capra's films were his love letters to an idealized America—a cinematic landscape of his own invention. The performances his actors gave were invariable portrayals of personalities developed into recognizable images of popular culture, "their acting has the bold simplicity of an icon ..."

Like his contemporary, director John Ford, Capra defined and aggrandized the tropes of mythic America where individual courage invariably triumphs over collective evil. Film historian Richard Griffith speaks of Capra's "... reliance on sentimental conversation and the ultimate benevolence of ordinary America to resolve all deep conflicts." "Average America" is visualized as "... a tree-lined street, undistinguished frame houses surrounded by modest areas of grass, a few automobiles. For certain purposes, it assumed that all real Americans live in towns like this, and so great is the power of myth, even the born city-dweller is likely to believe vaguely that he too lives on this shady street, or comes from it, or is going to."

NYU professor Leonard Quart writes:

Awards and honors

The Why We Fight series earned Capra the Legion of Merit in 1943 and the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.

In 1957, Capra was awarded the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.

Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, by a vote of the city council, declared May 12, 1962 as "Frank Capra Day". George Sidney, President of the Directors Guild stated that "This is the first time in the history of Hollywood, that the city of Los Angeles has officially recognized a creative talent." At the event ceremony, director John Ford announced that Capra had also received an honorary Order of the British Empire (OBE) on the recommendation of Winston Churchill. Ford suggested publicly to Capra:

Make those human comedy-dramas, the kind only you can make—the kind of films America is proud to show here, behind the Iron Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain—and behind the lace curtain. (see section "Early Life", supra)

In 1972, Capra received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 1974, Capra was awarded the Inkpot Award.

In 1975, Capra was awarded the Golden Anchor Award by the U.S. Naval Reserve's Combat Camera Group for his contribution to World War II Naval photography and production of the "Why We Fight" series. The award ceremony included a video salute by President Ford. Attending were many of Capra's favorite actors including Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Pat O'Brien, Jean Arthur, and others.

An annual It's a Wonderful Life celebration that Capra attended in 1981, during which he said, "This is one of the proudest moments of my life," was recounted in The New Yorker.

In the Academy Awards he was nominated six times for Best Director and seven times for Outstanding Production/Best Picture. Out of six nominations for Best Director, Capra received the award three times. He briefly held the record for winning the most Best Director Oscars when he won for the third time in 1938, until this record was matched by John Ford in 1941, and then later surpassed by Ford in 1952. William Wyler also matched this record upon winning his third Oscar in 1959.

The Academy Film Archive has preserved two of Capra's films, The Matinee Idol (1928) and Two Down and One to Go (1945).

Academy Awards

YearFilmCategoryResult 1934 Lady for a DayBest Director 1935 It Happened One Night 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town 1938 You Can't Take It with You 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1943 Prelude to War Best Documentary 1944 The Battle of Russia Best Documentary Feature 1946 It's a Wonderful LifeBest Director

Other awards

American Film Institute Life Achievement Award (1982)

Directors Guild of America Best Director Nomination for A Hole in the Head (1959) Life Achievement Award (1959) Best Director Nomination for Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

Golden Globe Award Best Director Award for It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Venice Film Festival Mussolini Cups for best foreign film Nomination for It Happened One Night (1934) Mussolini Cups for best foreign film Nomination for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (1982)

American Film Institute recognition AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) It's a Wonderful Life ... #20 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ... #26 It Happened One Night ... #46 AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers It's a Wonderful Life ... #1 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ... #5 Meet John Doe ... #49 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ... #83 AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs It Happened One Night ... #8 Arsenic and Old Lace ... #30 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ... #70 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions It's a Wonderful Life ... #8 It Happened One Night ... #38 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains 50 greatest movie heroes It's a Wonderful Life ... George Bailey ... #9 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ... Jefferson Smith ... #11 50 greatest movie villains It's a Wonderful Life ... Mr. Potter ... #6 AFI's 10 Top 10 Fantasy It's a Wonderful Life ... #3 Romantic Comedies It Happened One Night ... #3

United States National Film Registry The Strong Man (1926) The Power of the Press (1928) It Happened One Night (1934) Lost Horizon (1937) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Why We Fight series of seven films (1942–1945) It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Filmography