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Speaker 1: What's up, Hollywood Land listeners, Listen, I've got something a

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Speaker 1: little different for you in the feed this week that

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Speaker 1: I know you're going to love. Today, we're featuring an

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Speaker 1: episode of the critically acclaimed podcast You Must Remember This.

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Speaker 1: You Must Remember This is the podcast hosted by Kaarina Longworth. Now,

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Speaker 1: Karina is a pioneer in this space. She's one of

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Speaker 1: my biggest influences. She influenced my she influenced the creation

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Speaker 1: of Disgraceland, She absolutely influenced Hollywood Land. She's just fantastic

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Speaker 1: at what she does. And I know you guys are

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Speaker 1: going to love this show. If you haven't heard it already,

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Speaker 1: you must remember this is dedicated to the secret and

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Speaker 1: forgotten histories of twentieth century Hollywood. Stories of sex, murder,

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Speaker 1: institutional racism, bad men, sad women, fascist gossip, calumnists, and

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Speaker 1: so much more. If you love the stories that I

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Speaker 1: tell here in Hollywood Land, then I know you're just

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Speaker 1: gonna love the latest season. If you must remember this,

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Speaker 1: it's called The Old Man Is Still Alive and it's

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Speaker 1: about directors like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford who gets

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Speaker 1: started in the Silent era. But we're still making movies

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Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies, and how they navigated a

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Speaker 1: changing industry in a changing world. Keep listening for a

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Speaker 1: full episode of You Must Remember This all about Frank Capra,

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Speaker 1: the director of It's a Wonderful Life Fantastic Movie. Capra

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Speaker 1: won five Oscars in the nineteen thirties, and this episode

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Speaker 1: is going to take you through the fascinating journey of

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Speaker 1: his career over the next several decades, as he was

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Speaker 1: pushed into semi retirement, brought back to directing in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties by our guy Frank Sinatra, and later published

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Speaker 1: an autobiography airing his grievances of the direction of the industry.

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Speaker 1: Stay right here for the full episode right now, you most.

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Speaker 2: Love JUSTO.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to a new season of You Must Remember This,

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Speaker 3: the podcast dedicated to exploring the secret and or forgotten

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Speaker 3: histories of Hollywood's first century. I'm your host Corarina Longworth

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Speaker 3: and this is the first full episode of our new season.

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Speaker 3: The old Man is still alive.

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Speaker 2: As Hollywood did. No, I don't think so many years ago.

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Speaker 4: When I first started making pictures, being in a film

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Speaker 4: business was a little bit disreputable.

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Speaker 5: I hate rhymes and pictures just as much as I

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Speaker 5: do section and.

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Speaker 4: Old stories I've forgotten elusively. I've had such a good

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Speaker 4: time in my life it wouldn't bother me a bit

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Speaker 4: if I die.

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Speaker 5: I think it's up to you, the younger fellas right

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Speaker 5: now that there's one thing that I hate more than

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Speaker 5: not being taken seriously, is to be taken too seriously.

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Speaker 4: We're being showed by Woman's Lip, and I'm still alive

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Speaker 4: to tell the tale.

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Speaker 3: In case you missed it, we previously released a long

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Speaker 3: trailer slash short intro episode for this season, explaining what

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Speaker 3: it's all about and why it's called The Old Man

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Speaker 3: Is Still Alive. In short, The Old Man Is Still

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Speaker 3: Alive is about fourteen directors who got their start near

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Speaker 3: the beginning of the studio system, who were still alive

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Speaker 3: and working in the sixties, seventies, and eighties as the

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Speaker 3: studio system was falling apart amidst massive cultural changes and

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Speaker 3: generation gaps, only to reform itself along more corporate lines

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Speaker 3: than ever. Our first director is Frank Capra, who began

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Speaker 3: his career in the Silent Era's run of socially conscious

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Speaker 3: dramedies in the nineteen thirties was unprecedented, as was his

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Speaker 3: success as an Italian American director in Hollywood. Capra moved

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Speaker 3: with his family from Sicily to Los Angeles when he

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Speaker 3: was three. Over the course of the nineteen thirties, Hollywood

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Speaker 3: would receive an influx of talented filmmakers fleeing fascists and Nazis,

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Speaker 3: several of whom from Fritz Lange to Billy Wilder, we

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Speaker 3: will discuss this season. But when Capra was getting his

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Speaker 3: start directing features in the late nineteen twenties, his status

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Speaker 3: as an immigrant marked him as Other press about Capra's

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Speaker 3: triumphs in the nineteen thirties would generally take the tone

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Speaker 3: of one nineteen thirty five Colliers magazine profile, which claimed

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Speaker 3: that the quote unquote little.

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Speaker 2: Wop was quote somewhat odd.

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Speaker 3: Now in the midst of his success, given his Sicilian background,

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Speaker 3: which was more likely to set him up for becoming

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Speaker 3: a gangster and racketeer. Just as many of the Jewish

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Speaker 3: studio heads sought to downplay their ethnic and religious origins

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Speaker 3: in the name of easing their assimilation into a largely

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Speaker 3: anti Semitic American elite, Capra had a chip on his

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Speaker 3: shoulder about being perceived as a little wop, and he

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Speaker 3: sought to prove that he could defy stereotypes. He did

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Speaker 3: so in a big way in nineteen thirty three, when

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Speaker 3: Capra became the first Italian born filmmaker to be nominated

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Speaker 3: for the Best Director Oscar and only the third nominated

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Speaker 3: director born outside of the US. The film for which

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Speaker 3: Capra got that nomination, Lady for a Day, also became

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Speaker 3: Columbia's first film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

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Speaker 3: Capra followed it up with It Happened One Night, which

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Speaker 3: would prove to be the hit that would elevate him

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Speaker 3: to the highest echelon of nineteen thirties directors by winning

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Speaker 3: all five of the top Oscars Picture, Director, Actor, Actress,

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Speaker 3: and Screenplay. It was the only film to do that

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Speaker 3: for forty years until One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

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Speaker 3: In the nineteen thirties, Capra was nominated for the Best

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Speaker 3: Director Oscar five times, and he won three times for

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Speaker 3: It Happened One Night, Mister Deeds Goes to Town, and

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Speaker 3: You Can't Take It with You, all of which were

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Speaker 3: written by Capra's frequent collaborator Robert Riskin That film also

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Speaker 3: won the Best Picture Oscar, becoming Capra's second film to

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Speaker 3: be declared by his peers as the best of the year.

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Speaker 3: The film industry was still young, but still this had

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Speaker 3: never been done before. Another reason Lady for a Day

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Speaker 3: was crucial to Capra's career is because he'd end that

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Speaker 3: career by making a disappointing remake of his own film.

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Speaker 3: By then, Capra had been put through a ringer of

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Speaker 3: his own making, as his personal politics and those seemingly

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Speaker 3: put forth in his movies collided in a storm of

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Speaker 3: insecurity and betrayal during the Blacklist era. Today, we will

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Speaker 3: talk about how the most famous director of the nineteen

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Speaker 3: thirties ended up struggling to work by the late nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 3: how Capra carried the early Hollywood spirit of self reinvention

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Speaker 3: into the nineteen seventies with the publication of his highly

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Speaker 3: dramatized autobiography, And we'll explore his often ugly but sometimes

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Speaker 3: very funny life as an elder statesman who never stopped

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Speaker 3: feeling like he had something to prove. Join us, won't you,

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Speaker 3: for the first episode of The Old Man Is Still Alive.

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Speaker 3: When Capra signed with Columbia in nineteen twenty eight, after

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Speaker 3: almost a decade of having one foot in and one

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Speaker 3: foot out of the film industry. He described it as

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Speaker 3: quote the climax of my life. I was at a

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Speaker 3: point where I had to shit or get off the pot.

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Speaker 3: So I said, if I'm going to be in this,

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Speaker 3: I want to be mister boss. What he meant by

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Speaker 3: that was that he wanted total control over the movies

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Speaker 3: he directed, and initially he made a deal with Columbia's

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Speaker 3: Harry Cohne that would give Capra more power than a

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Speaker 3: director in his position would usually enjoy in exchange for

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Speaker 3: less money. Fifty years later, Capra would suggest he was

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Speaker 3: somehow conned into making this arrangement, describing the quote unquote

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Speaker 3: Jews like Cone as power hungry and cheap. Quote I've

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Speaker 3: had the fun of making pictures, but i haven't made

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Speaker 3: any money. You have to be Jewish or you're not

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Speaker 3: going to get a goddamn thing. He went on to

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Speaker 3: claim that it was impossible for a gentile to secure

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Speaker 3: true creative control from the Jews quote because they want

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Speaker 3: to be the ones that make the picture.

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Speaker 2: All Jews are smart, All Jews are crooks.

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Speaker 3: Capra's claim that the quote unquote Jews had prevented him

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Speaker 3: from making any money was not just anti semitic, but

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Speaker 3: also false. By nineteen eighty one, twenty years after he

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Speaker 3: had made his last feature, Capra had a net worth

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Speaker 3: of approximately five million dollars. In his autobiography, Capra also

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Speaker 3: described his decision to sign with Columbia as marrying the harlot,

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Speaker 3: which allows me to segue into a sidebar about how

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Speaker 3: Capra's anti Semitism dovetailed with some pretty dark feelings about women, sex,

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Speaker 3: and his own masculinity. In the early nineteen twenties, when

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Speaker 3: Capra was a single twenty something, he lived in San Francisco.

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Speaker 3: More than once he contracted gonorrhea and went to a

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Speaker 3: local doctor for treatments. At one point, this doctor told

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Speaker 3: Capra that the reason he kept getting infected was that

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Speaker 3: he was not circumcised. This guy wants to make a

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Speaker 3: jew out of me, Capra exclaimed to a friend, but

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Speaker 3: ultimately went through with the procedure. What follows is a long, unbroken,

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Speaker 3: and fairly graphic quote from Capra about this experience and

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Speaker 3: its long term repercussions, As quoted in Joseph McBride's biography

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Speaker 3: Frank Capra, The Catastrophe of success. He gave me a

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Speaker 3: little shot of something, and then he opened my legs

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Speaker 3: and operated on me. He never knew when to stop.

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Speaker 3: He took too much. The son of a bitch cut

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Speaker 3: everything off. He left me with no skin at all.

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Speaker 3: He put a rag around it, a bandage, and I

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Speaker 3: went home walking all hunched over. It hurt like hell.

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Speaker 3: It finally healed up, but it's never been that well.

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Speaker 3: It's still irritable and awfully tender. I've had a hell

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Speaker 3: of a time with it all my life. Well that

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Speaker 3: finished women for me, because every time I came close

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Speaker 3: to a woman, I got a heart on and then,

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Speaker 3: oh god, all the pain because.

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Speaker 2: It was tied tightly. I'd go out with.

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Speaker 3: A girl and start dancing with her, and I'd start

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Speaker 3: getting an erection with absolutely horrible pain. The girl wouldn't

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Speaker 3: know what the hell's the matter. I had to stay

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Speaker 3: away from dames and practically wrecked my life. I've been

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Speaker 3: scared of women since then. I became a lousy lay.

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you I've had very few women. I've been

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Speaker 3: afraid of that. I've been ashamed of it, more than

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Speaker 3: afraid of it. I've had a hell of a time

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Speaker 3: holding back with women. I just go in and bang, bang, bang,

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Speaker 3: there it goes. I can't hold it back. No woman

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Speaker 3: likes to be fondled and then have somebody score it

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Speaker 3: all over her. Capra would go on to Mary twice.

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Speaker 3: He claimed that of his first wife, an actress named Helen,

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Speaker 3: he never slept with her but once or twice. Capra's

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Speaker 3: second marriage lasted over fifty years and produced four children.

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Speaker 3: In his autobiography and in interviews given during the last

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Speaker 3: couple of decades of his life, Capra aired many grievances

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Speaker 3: and pointed many fingers at other people to explain and

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Speaker 3: absolve himself of the blame for the long, slow decline

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Speaker 3: of his career after his glorious nineteen thirties. His anti

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Speaker 3: semitism is ugly and not justifiable, even within the context

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Speaker 3: of his times. He often comes off, as to put it,

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Speaker 3: bluntly and with absolutely no pun intended, a sour prick

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Speaker 3: that said, it's hard to not have some empathy for

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Speaker 3: a man who could speak so frankly about his own

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Speaker 3: sexual dysfunction. The fact that Capra clearly didn't feel like

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Speaker 3: he was enough of a man dating to about the

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Speaker 3: age of twenty three could help to explain some of

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Speaker 3: his attitudes and behaviors throughout his life. Even as he

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Speaker 3: made hit film after a hit film, and one Oscar

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Speaker 3: after Oscar, Capra's most successful films all dealt with the

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Speaker 3: idea that everyday people with no money or social standing

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Speaker 3: could prove themselves to be the equals or betters of

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Speaker 3: the wealthy and powerful. This was, in some sense Capra's

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Speaker 3: own story until the movies made him a very, very

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Speaker 3: rich man, and his success played tricks on his ego

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Speaker 3: off screen. As screenwriter Robert Riskin's daughter Victoria wrote, Capra

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Speaker 3: had worked hard and fought his way out of poverty

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Speaker 3: and had no use for the little people or their

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Speaker 3: new Deal advocates who wanted to take his money and

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Speaker 3: give it to those who had not pulled themselves up

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Speaker 3: as he had. But the more success he found, the

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Speaker 3: more Capra was crippled by his insecurities. In the midst

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Speaker 3: of the It Happened One Night Whirlwind, he suffered from

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Speaker 3: a sense of hopelessness, certain that he had peaked and

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Speaker 3: would never be able to make another film that did

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Speaker 3: this well. He was so depressed that it was a

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Speaker 3: struggle to get out of bed and go accept his Oscars.

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Speaker 2: He was right, sort of.

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Speaker 3: No one made a movie that would prove to be

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Speaker 3: as successful at the Oscars for another forty years, but

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Speaker 3: Capra still had hits in him. There was also tragedy

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Speaker 3: to come. In nineteen thirty eight, Capra's three year old

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Speaker 3: son died suddenly during a routine tonsilectomy on the same

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Speaker 3: day as the first press screening of You Can't Take

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Speaker 3: It with You, thus changing the success of that film

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Speaker 3: for Capra before it even happened. In his autobiography, Capra

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Speaker 3: mentions the importance of bambinos to an Italian man. People

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Speaker 3: said that after his son died, Frank Capra was never

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Speaker 3: the same. In nineteen thirty nine, Capra made his final

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Speaker 3: film for Columbia, Mister Smith Goes to Washington. This would

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Speaker 3: also mark the last film for which Capra was OSCAR

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Speaker 3: nominated for Best Director and Best Picture. Sidney Buckman wrote

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Speaker 3: the screenplay. Buckman later spoke evocatively about Capra and their

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Speaker 3: conflict on this movie. When Buckman tried to discuss the

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Speaker 3: themes about democracy that he felt the film needed to express,

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Speaker 3: Capra responded goal gat fucked with your theme? Are you

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Speaker 3: a Communist? To which Buckman, who was a member of

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Speaker 3: the Communist Party, responded, are you a fascist? There is

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Speaker 3: ideally a few stops on the road between communism and fascism,

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Speaker 3: but if those stops included the US government circa nineteen forty,

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Speaker 3: Capra wasn't going to find many supporters there when it

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Speaker 3: came to mister Smith. Columbia hosted a splashy premiere for

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Speaker 3: the film in Washington, d c. And were apparently caught

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Speaker 3: by surprise when the politicians in attendance reacted badly to

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Speaker 3: a film that presented the Senate. As Senate Majority Leader

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Speaker 3: Albin Barkley put it as the biggest aggregation of an

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Speaker 3: income boops on record, Capra was unapologetic with all those

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Speaker 3: things they've got to do down there, He marveled, with

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Speaker 3: war breaking loose in Europe. The whole majesty of the

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Speaker 3: United States Senate has to move against one moving picture.

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Speaker 3: It's amazing. Before the war, he was pugnacious, unafraid or

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Speaker 3: at least able to posture as such that would change.

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Speaker 3: But he recalled how he felt in the moment. In

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Speaker 3: an appearance on David Letterman show in nineteen eighty two.

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Speaker 5: This really Florida's so I made a great pitch to

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Speaker 5: the people at Columbia. Don't don't listen to politicians. Don't

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Speaker 5: do to what politicians. If you give the politicians the

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Speaker 5: power to say to you, don't run this picture, it'll

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Speaker 5: never end all that. They can always make you quit. Now,

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Speaker 5: all right, it's made. It made in Germany, and I

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Speaker 5: made where it's lousy. But do not suppress it because

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Speaker 5: of politicians said anyhow, we didn't And.

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Speaker 2: How did that make you feel personally?

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Speaker 5: After putting you're scared?

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Speaker 2: I was scared.

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Speaker 3: After mister Smith. Capra was, according to a nineteen forty

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Speaker 3: New Yorker profile, considered the surest director in Hollywood.

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Speaker 2: Capra would move.

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Speaker 3: Over to Warner Brothers to make his next two films,

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Speaker 3: Meet John Doe and Arsenic and Old Lace. Capra would

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Speaker 3: later say that after World War Two he felt burned out,

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Speaker 3: but he arguably reached a level of burnout before the

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Speaker 3: war began. His biographer writes of a quote unquote flight

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Speaker 3: from ideas that Capra embarked upon in the early nineteen forties.

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Speaker 3: Meet John Doe seems to have been the tipping point

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Speaker 3: like previous camera films, Meet John Doe was a mixed

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Speaker 3: bag of scenes and speeches that strained for both momentary

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Speaker 3: relevance and the timelessness of myths or fairy tales. Anchored

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Speaker 3: by a cast of extremely likable performers, It weirdly may

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Speaker 3: be Capra's most ideologically consistent movie of the era, although

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00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:09,000
Speaker 3: that ideology is borderline toxic. The media is shown to

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Speaker 3: be as self interested and as prone to producing fiction

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Speaker 3: as an average Trump rant would suggest, and the quote

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Speaker 3: unquote positive change, inspired by Gary Cooper's Figurehead, consists of

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Speaker 3: communities coming together and deliberately shutting out politicians to solve

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Speaker 3: the kinds of problems like unemployment that FDR's large government

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Speaker 3: had targeted. Capra and Riskin felt that the problem with

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Speaker 3: the movie was the ending, or rather the fact that

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00:19:41,359 --> 00:19:45,360
Speaker 3: they couldn't agree on what it should be. Riskin thought

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Speaker 3: John Doe should follow through with the threat written for

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Speaker 3: him by Barbara Stanwick's journalist character to kill himself on

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Speaker 3: Christmas Eve. This might have given the movie a gravity

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Speaker 3: that it strains for but doesn't quite achieve, but it

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Speaker 3: also would have gone against Capra's every instinct. As he

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00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:11,119
Speaker 3: put it, you just don't kill Gary Cooper. Cabra ultimately

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Speaker 3: had the film pulled from theaters nine days into its

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Speaker 3: release so he could add a newly shot ending in

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Speaker 3: which Doe's acolytes apologized for turning on him and acting

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Speaker 3: like to paraphrase another character modern day ponscious Pilots. Another

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Speaker 3: thing that happens in the film's muddled ending scenes is

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Speaker 3: that Stanwick literally talks Cooper off a ledge by comparing

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Speaker 3: him to.

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Speaker 2: The original John Doe I E. Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 3: The whole package hues to Capra's love your Neighbor brand

305
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:53,639
Speaker 3: of Christianity, but also his persecution complex. Around the time

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00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:57,399
Speaker 3: that Meet John Doe returned to theaters, there was a

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Speaker 3: New York Times story about the box office failing year

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00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:04,119
Speaker 3: of a number of films about Nazis, leading the paper

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Speaker 3: to declare that there seemed to be quote no money

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Speaker 3: in preaching. Capra wanted to give the people what they wanted,

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Speaker 3: but he was foiled by history. He shot Arsenic and

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Speaker 3: Old Lace, based on a hit play in nineteen forty one,

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Speaker 3: but it remained.

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Speaker 2: Unreleased for years.

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Speaker 3: While Capra was editing the film, Pearl Harbor happened, and

316
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 3: Capra enlisted in the Signal Core, Capra spent the war

317
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Speaker 3: making propaganda films, although unlike his colleague john Ford, Capra

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Speaker 3: was not on the front lines. Capra would later claim

319
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Speaker 3: he had to throw out many of the original scripts

320
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Speaker 3: for his documentary series Why We Fight, because he claimed

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00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:02,360
Speaker 3: the largely Jewish writing team he had assembled had inserted

322
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:07,479
Speaker 3: so much Communist propaganda. He claimed he had had to

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Speaker 3: fire the writing team of Julius and Philip Epstein over this.

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00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 3: Julius Epstein later said that he and his brother were

325
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Speaker 3: not fired by Cabra, but rather quote, we had to

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Speaker 3: go back to writing Casablanca. Capra remained in the Signal

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Speaker 3: Corps until the summer of nineteen forty five, when he

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Speaker 3: returned to Hollywood and tried to figure.

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Speaker 2: Out how to get back to work.

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Speaker 3: Capra later said, I left a lot of myself in

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Speaker 3: the war. Capra was hardly the only filmmaker to come

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Speaker 3: back to Hollywood feeling changed, as we will discuss throughout

333
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Speaker 3: this season. But unlike John Houston or George Stevens, who

334
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,640
Speaker 3: had spent the previous few years actively directing in war zones,

335
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:56,040
Speaker 3: Capra was rusty behind the camera. I keep telling myself

336
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 3: how wonderful it would be just to sneak out somewhere

337
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:01,439
Speaker 3: and make a couple of Quickie West turns first, Cabra

338
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 3: said in nineteen forty five, just to get the feel

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Speaker 3: of things again.

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Speaker 2: He couldn't.

341
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 3: His last two films, including Arsenic and Old Lace, which

342
00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 3: had been released in nineteen forty four when the Broadway

343
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:17,040
Speaker 3: show it was based on finally closed, had been financial disappointments,

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00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:21,199
Speaker 3: and when Capra returned from his service, no studio was

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Speaker 3: offering him a job. If Capra was going to get

346
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 3: back to his status of the nineteen thirties, he needed

347
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 3: and it happened one night, like Triumph, but without studio backing,

348
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:38,400
Speaker 3: he would have to finance it himself. As his autobiography

349
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:42,400
Speaker 3: would later reveal, Capra was adept at nothing if not

350
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Speaker 3: spinning a narrative, and after the war he did this

351
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Speaker 3: in a big way by launching a splashy independent studio

352
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Speaker 3: ostentatiously named Liberty, spinning his inability to land a studio

353
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Speaker 3: contract as an act of Maverick ingenuity. To fund his

354
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Speaker 3: first and only Liberty film, Kapper would get a loan

355
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 3: from the Bank of America, putting up the negative of

356
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 3: that film as collateral That film was It's a Wonderful Life.

357
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Speaker 3: In an interesting piece of irony, this new movie would

358
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 3: devote an important sequence to a run on a building

359
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 3: and loan, recalling the nineteen thirty two Capra riskin collaboration

360
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 3: American Madness, a pre code shorty structured around a run

361
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Speaker 3: on a bank, modeled after the Bank of America and

362
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 3: its founder Doc Janini, who pioneered lending money to middle

363
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 3: class workers and others who were considered by traditional banks

364
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:46,719
Speaker 3: to be undesirable borrowers, including independent film producers. Of course,

365
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 3: It's a Wonderful Life became a classic, but only later

366
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 3: when it fell into the public domain and started showing

367
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 3: on TV every Christmas in nineteen forty six. It was

368
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 3: not just a box office flop and loser at the Oscars,

369
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,120
Speaker 3: but was also perceived as a symbol of how much

370
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Speaker 3: Capra had apparently changed since his heyday of the nineteen thirties.

371
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Speaker 3: I think It's a Wonderful Life is Capra's greatest movie

372
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 3: and certainly his most beautiful movie, and it also may

373
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 3: be the most Capra movie. The film in which he

374
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 3: tells us who he was most nakedly made just a

375
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 3: few years after Capra's three year old son died. The

376
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:35,880
Speaker 3: film is full of sick or deceased children. Jimmy Stewart's

377
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 3: George Bailey is permanently disabled by having heroically saved his

378
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 3: brother from drowning, forcing him to sit out World War Two,

379
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 3: while said brother becomes a combat hero, a parallel of

380
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 3: Capra's experience working a desk job while his brothers in

381
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 3: directing saw combat. An Italian immigrant family plays a crucial

382
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 3: role in the story, and when George helps them move

383
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 3: into the house he helped them build, we see a

384
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 3: goat in the back of George's truck, Capra being Italian

385
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 3: for goat, and like George, Capra had suffered crippling depressions

386
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 3: and had and would continue to contemplate suicide. I think

387
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 3: George is the most ideologically new monstin fully realized of

388
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 3: all of Capra's male protagonists since Clark Gable and it

389
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 3: happened one night and yet it's undeniable that It's a

390
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 3: wonderful life. Feels like a right wing film compared to

391
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 3: the stories Capra was telling a decade before. Instead of

392
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 3: the strong working women embodied by Jean Arthur and Barbara Stanwick.

393
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 3: Mary is a personality less helpmate who is constantly sacrificing

394
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 3: to support her chaotic husband. When the angel Clarence shows

395
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 3: George what life would be like if he had never

396
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 3: been born. The peak of the nightmare scenario comes in

397
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 3: the discovery that Mary has become a drab, childless woman

398
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 3: with a job George Bailey's worst case scenario, and also JD.

399
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 3: Vance's It sounds like I'm trolling.

400
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 2: But those who knew.

401
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 3: Capra in the thirties and forties, who were confused by

402
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 3: the disconnect between the seeming populism of his movies and

403
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:31,640
Speaker 3: his off screen conservatism, didn't have the model of today's

404
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 3: shape shifting opportunist, populist fraud Republicans to help them understand

405
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 3: Capra's apparent cognitive dissonance. On the same score, Meet John

406
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 3: Doe may have failed to connect with audiences or co

407
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 3: nineteen forty one, but where other Capra films can feel

408
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 3: dated today, that film feels more timely than ever in

409
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, thanks to the unredeemable rich guy turned

410
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 3: would be politician Edward Arnold, Some who knew him felt

411
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 3: that Capra's already pliable personality had been altered by his

412
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 3: war years spent trying to please the US government. He

413
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 3: was working with the people who were the heavies in

414
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 3: his own pictures, and it turned him completely around, said

415
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 3: Ian McClellan hunter, a screenwriter who knew Capra after the war.

416
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 3: Others pointed to Riskin as the missing element to Capra's

417
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 3: more recent films. The experience of making Meet John Doe

418
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 3: had been arduous enough and the results disappointing enough in

419
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 3: terms of the film's reception that Riskin and Capra dissolved

420
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 3: their production company at the end of nineteen forty one.

421
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 3: After the war, Riskin went out on his own, but

422
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 3: according to his daughter Victoria, the writer and director remained

423
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 3: close friends even after that four years, even though Capra

424
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 3: was not always the most pleasant guy, as she at

425
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 3: times it seemed a dark cloud followed him. Victoria Riskin

426
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 3: attributes her father's eventual falling out with Capra to two

427
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 3: specific events. In nineteen fifty, Capra decided to remake Broadway Bill,

428
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 3: a film he had directed from a Riskin script. In

429
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty four. The new film, called Writing High, had

430
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 3: a different ending, and Capra appealed to the Screenwriter's Guild

431
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 3: to obtain credit for himself for the rewrite. He hadn't

432
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 3: actually written the new ending, but the person who did,

433
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 3: Sydney Buckman, was now blacklisted, so there was no chance

434
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 3: of putting his name on the picture, and Capra apparently

435
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 3: saw this as an opportunity to get the writing credit

436
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 3: that he felt he had always deserved. Long before the

437
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 3: auteur theory was popular or even named as such, Capra

438
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 3: had believed he had created it by promoting the idea

439
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 3: that the director was the defining creative power behind the

440
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 3: best Hollywood movies instead of calling himself an auteur or

441
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 3: an author. Capra dubbed this philosophy one Man, One Film,

442
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 3: but the guild rejected his claim, giving primary credit on

443
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 3: writing high to Riskin. Capra called Riskin and asked him

444
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 3: to voluntarily share credit with Capra, and Riskin refused. Shortly

445
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 3: after this, Riskin suffered a stroke, ending his writing career.

446
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 3: He lived for another five years, during which Capra never

447
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:46,479
Speaker 3: visited him. The director also skipped Riskin's memorial. Victoria Riskin

448
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 3: describes Capra's absence as mystifying, especially since her dad had

449
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 3: still referred to Capra as his good friend. Then there

450
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 3: was the fact that the Riskins had some evidence that

451
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 3: Capra had called the FBI to report that Peter Swirling,

452
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 3: the college aged son of screenwriter Joe Swirling, who wrote

453
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 3: several early Capra features and whose family were the Capra's

454
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: neighbors in Malibu, was a Communist. He wasn't, but one

455
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 3: day some of his college friends had shown up at

456
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 3: his house with a banner reading Communist youth outing as

457
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 3: a prank, and Capra had apparently taken this at face value.

458
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 3: There were some people who participated in the naming names

459
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 3: aspect of the Blacklist because they truly believed that communism

460
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 3: was a global threat and that the way to combat

461
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 3: it was to rid the film industry of anyone capable

462
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 3: of putting subversive messages into the movies. But a lot

463
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 3: of people named names because they were trying to save themselves,

464
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 3: because they understood that no one was safe unless they

465
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 3: voluntarily pointed away from themselves and towards someone else. Frank

466
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 3: Capra fell somewhere in between. He wasn't subpoenaed by HUAC,

467
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 3: and he didn't volunteer to testify publicly. Arguably, what he

468
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 3: did do was worse, he named names in secret. Why

469
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 3: did he feel the need to do this? Capra enjoyed

470
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 3: a high security clearance during World War Two, which wouldn't

471
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 3: have been granted if films like Mister Smith or Capra's

472
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 3: associations with suspected Communist writers had been taken seriously then as.

473
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 2: A subversive threat.

474
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 3: But in the post war blacklist climate, people who had

475
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 3: been safe suddenly or not. Plus, in the years since

476
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 3: Why We Fight, Capra had been involved in a Michigoth

477
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 3: within the Director's Guild that he worried could put a

478
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 3: target on his back. It began in the fall of

479
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 3: nineteen forty seven when HUAC issued subpoenas in Hollywood before

480
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 3: the hearings at which ten of those subpoenid would take

481
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 3: the fifth and become known as the Hollywood Ten. The

482
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 3: Directors Guild intended to support their members under suspicion and

483
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 3: created a subcommittee to that end, chaired by John Ford,

484
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 3: But then the Committee for the First Amendment made their

485
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 3: trip to Washington. If you don't know or don't remember

486
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 3: what that was, I would advise listening to episode seventy

487
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 3: four of this podcast, which is part four of our

488
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen season, the Blacklist. Suffice it to say that

489
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 3: trip went badly. The vibe shifted rapidly, and by the

490
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 3: time the guilds December meeting rolled around, a faction of

491
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 3: conservatives led by Cecil B. De Mill, had risen to power,

492
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,479
Speaker 3: and those who were still standing up for unfriendly hughac

493
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 3: witnesses were roundly booed. De Mill pushed through emotion to

494
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 3: require all Guild board members to sign an oath of

495
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:06,959
Speaker 3: loyalty to the USA. The motion passed by a landslide.

496
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,240
Speaker 3: At the September meeting, Capra seconded a motion by Demil

497
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 3: to create and send to the studios a list of

498
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 3: any member who refused to sign the oath, in other words,

499
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 3: a blacklist. That was what it was, but no one

500
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 3: wanted to call it that until the October meeting, when

501
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 3: Joseph Mankowitz, now the Guild's new president, attempted to scare

502
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 3: the members off from all of this by using the

503
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 3: B word and also refusing to sign the oath himself.

504
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 3: Mankowitz later recalled, I looked right at Jack Ford when

505
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 3: I said it, and Ford jumped a foot. He didn't

506
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 3: want any part of a blacklist. Which I'd hoped would

507
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 3: be the case. But Demil and his faction were not

508
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 3: scared of that word, and they put forth motions to

509
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 3: sanctify the blacklist within the guild's bylaws. Capra joined the

510
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 3: dissenter and voted against this, but his was one of

511
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 3: only four votes. Fords was another, and the motion passed.

512
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 3: Two days later, Variety published an expose about the contentious

513
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 3: debate that had taken place at the guild meeting, as

514
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 3: well as the results of the vote. Frank Capra was

515
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 3: named in that story as one of the four men

516
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 3: who voted to oppose a blacklist. As a naturalized immigrant,

517
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 3: Capra was afraid he could be deported and sent back

518
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 3: to Sicily. He saw his name in print, and he

519
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 3: went into damage control mode. At an emergency guild meeting,

520
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 3: he hopped over to Demill's side, joining a subcommittee to

521
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 3: recall Minkowitz as guild president. The recall didn't happen, but

522
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 3: probably only because after a week, Minkowitz bowed to pressure

523
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 3: and agreed to sign the oath. Capra then resigned from

524
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 3: the guild's board, and Variety he reported that he did

525
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 3: so in protest of the failed recall. Thus, putting Capra

526
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 3: on the right wing pro blacklist side of the divide.

527
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: Because of his resignation, Cabra wasn't at the next guild meeting,

528
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 3: where a haughty Demill mocked the members of the guild

529
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 3: with foreign last names by pronouncing them in exaggerated accents.

530
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:24,879
Speaker 2: This proved to be a step too far.

531
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 3: Demil's act was roundly booed, and much of the guild

532
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 3: turned against him. For Cabra, publicity about his participation in

533
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 3: the squabble came at a terrible time. At that moment,

534
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 3: he was trying to re enlist to make propaganda during

535
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 3: the Korean War, and he was waiting for word on

536
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 3: his security clearance. But after the Guild brew Haha, military

537
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 3: intelligence opened an investigation into him, and in December nineteen

538
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 3: fifty one, he learned his application for security clearance had

539
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 3: been denied on the grounds that came was disloyal to

540
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 3: the USA due to having supported anti fascist organizations during

541
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 3: the war and having spent years working quote with motion

542
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 3: picture writers and other individuals reported to be or to

543
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 3: have been, members of the Communist Party. Cabra mounted an

544
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 3: effort to clear his name. Letters in his own files

545
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 3: show that he acted as a secret informant to the FBI,

546
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 3: not just pointing out innocent teenagers like Jose Whirling's son,

547
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 3: but also naming the names of writers he had worked with,

548
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 3: including Sidney Buckman, Michael Wilson, who had been under contract

549
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 3: to Capra and had worked on Its A Wonderful Life,

550
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 3: and Ian McClellan.

551
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 2: Hunter.

552
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 3: Informing on his colleagues, worked to the extent that Capra

553
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 3: obtained his security clearance, and yet eight years would pass

554
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 3: before he made another feature film. In the waning years

555
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 3: of the Blacklist, as the Cold War raged on, Capra

556
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 3: traveled to film festivals and the like, held in emerging

557
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 3: nations and places behind the Iron Curtain, and then reported

558
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 3: back to what his biographer described as his government patrons.

559
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 3: Years later, Capra began to lie awake at nights suffering

560
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 3: from cluster headaches, an affliction that would continue to be

561
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 3: a constant torture for over a decade. Insomnia and self

562
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 3: hatred go hand in hand. I know I have lain

563
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 3: in bed, unable to sleep, and thought what is wrong

564
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 3: with me?

565
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 2: On this night?

566
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,280
Speaker 3: With his head throbbing and slumber and impossibility, Frank Capra

567
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 3: asked himself this question and came up with the following answer,

568
00:38:48,120 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 3: it's the Judas pain you welshed, compromised, sold out spent

569
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 3: much of the nineteen fifties in exile from Hollywood, living

570
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 3: on his ranch south of Orange County. During this time,

571
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,839
Speaker 3: AT and T hired him to direct a series of

572
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 3: science documentaries for television. This felt like and was a

573
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 3: huge fall off from Capra's peak. A decade and a

574
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 3: half earlier, Capra went back to directing studio films thanks

575
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 3: to Frank Sinatra. Sinatra's agent, Bert Allenberg, had acquired the

576
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 3: rights to A Hole in the Head, a recent Tony

577
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 3: winning Broadway hit, and his client thought Capra was the

578
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 3: only director for the job. A major change made for

579
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 3: the film was to transform characters who had been written

580
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 3: as Jews into Italians, ostensibly to legitimize the casting of

581
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 3: the world's biggest Italian American star. Five years after his

582
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 3: comeback Oscar Win for From Here to Eternity, Sinatra was

583
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 3: near the peak of his film stardom. He went to

584
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 3: work for Capra shortly after the release of Some Came Running,

585
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 3: in which he gives what I think is his greatest

586
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 3: dramatic performance, but all the charisma in the world, which

587
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 3: Sinatra had in nineteen fifty eight, could not fully save

588
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 3: a hole in the head. Frank plays Tony Manetta, a

589
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 3: down on his luck widower, father of a precocious, prepubescant son,

590
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 3: and proprietor of a low rant Miami beach motel. Tony

591
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 3: has two options for the infusion of cash that he

592
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 3: needs to avoid being evicted from his business and home.

593
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,799
Speaker 3: He can borrow it from old friend Jerry, who has

594
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 3: become a blingy local gangster, or he can borrow it

595
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 3: from his brother Mario, a successful New York City schmata

596
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 3: impresario clearly a vestige of when these characters were Jewish,

597
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 3: played by Edward G.

598
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 2: Robinson.

599
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 3: Mario says he'll bail his ne'er do well brother out

600
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 3: on the condition that Tony dump his beatnik girlfriend played

601
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 3: by Carolyn Jones, who is not yet known as TV's

602
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:07,839
Speaker 3: Mortitia Adams, and develop a serious relationship with a conservative

603
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 3: widow played by Eleanor Parker. If he doesn't do this,

604
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 3: Mario and his wife will take Tony's son away from

605
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 3: him and bring the kid to live with them in

606
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 3: New York. Tony agrees to meet the widow and in

607
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 3: her sad tiny apartment. He lays bare his disillusionment.

608
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 6: And what put your hope for? A car, little house,

609
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 6: a couple of kids, nothing, nothing? What else is there?

610
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 6: You're a very fine person, missus Rogers. Thank you. You're

611
00:41:46,400 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 6: kind of nice yourself. There's a something I should tell you.

612
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 6: I mean, it's one thing that kids some jerk along,

613
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 6: but well with you, it's different. I couldn't do it

614
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:10,040
Speaker 6: to you. You see, I have a piece of paper

615
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 6: in my coat pocket that's called an eviction notice, which

616
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 6: simply means are they gonna kick me out of business

617
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 6: unless I can come up with five thousand dollars. So

618
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 6: that's the reason why I said, okay to my brother Mario,

619
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 6: he should bring you over to meet me so I

620
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,919
Speaker 6: could burow the money off of him.

621
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 4: I uh, I don't quite follow you.

622
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 6: Well, I can't blame you, but I'll try to make

623
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 6: it clearer. He wanted me to meet you, and I

624
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 6: said okay. And now we've met, I'll go back and

625
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 6: tell him that we got along pretty well, and we

626
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 6: like each other and we're probably gonna get married, and that, uh,

627
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 6: he should get the five and ten ready. In the meantime,

628
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 6: I have to have a couple of thousand dollars to

629
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 6: get along on, and after he gives it to me,

630
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 6: I'll take it and give it to my landlord, so

631
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 6: he shouldn't kick me out of the hotel. That way,

632
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 6: I'm back in action again. See what I mean. That's

633
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 6: the kind of guy I am. I. Oh, I don't

634
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:14,839
Speaker 6: want to get married, missus Rogers. I never had any

635
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 6: intention to getting married. I had to tell you that

636
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 6: because I didn't want to hurt you or kids you along.

637
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 3: In his capsule on Capra in The American Cinema, the

638
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 3: book most responsible for popularizing the autur theory, State Side,

639
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:41,839
Speaker 3: Andrew Sarahs snarked that with Head Capra had quote returned

640
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 3: almost triumphantly with the new look and conformity. Sarah's wasn't wrong. Certainly,

641
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 3: at this stage of his life and career, Capra was

642
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 3: so happy to be invited back to work by a

643
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 3: major star that he was not too picky about the material.

644
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 3: But A Hole in the Head also reflected much about

645
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 3: who Capra was, especially in this moment. Like Tony, he

646
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 3: was a disillusioned hustler, but like the widow love interest,

647
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 3: he also had unshakable faith in the American dream of

648
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 3: owning property and supporting a family. Maybe this is why

649
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 3: this first date ends up being the best scene in

650
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 3: the movie, in fact, the only one that comes close

651
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 3: to working dramatically. Sinatra's great gift as an actor was

652
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 3: in being sincere about his characters insincerities, and it feels

653
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 3: like there's something genuine in these two people confiding in

654
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:41,879
Speaker 3: one another about their tremendous losses. The movie's happy ending

655
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 3: feels tacked on and unearned, with most of the fundamental

656
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:50,720
Speaker 3: issues unresolved, except that, in coupling with the widow, Tony

657
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 3: no longer has to worry about childcare. This movie goes

658
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 3: even further than It's a Wonderful Life in suggesting that

659
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 3: a woman's primary purpose is to take care of children.

660
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 3: Parker's character is so pathetic, though, that she's happy to

661
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,879
Speaker 3: be used. As she puts it at one point, I'm

662
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 3: glad somebody finally needed me for something. Sinatra allegedly told Capra,

663
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 3: you do all the dirty work while I smile and

664
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,239
Speaker 3: knock off all the broads. But this would be more

665
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 3: of a Sinatra movie than a Capra movie. By design,

666
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 3: and due to the then current state of the industry.

667
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 3: Power in the industry had shifted from studio locals and

668
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 3: producers two stars and their representatives, as powerful agencies like

669
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,759
Speaker 3: MCA began striking rich deals to create production companies for

670
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 3: their performer clients. In order to get this job, Capra

671
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 3: had to agree to create a temporary joint venture with

672
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 3: Sinatra called Sincap, through which the star would own two

673
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 3: thirds of the movie and the director the remaining third.

674
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 3: Possibly out of nerves where I moved so quickly through

675
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 3: the scenes that the production wrapped eight days early, almost

676
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 3: unheard of for a Hollywood film built around a major star.

677
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 3: Production may have been accelerated thanks to the cinema scope cinematography.

678
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:18,280
Speaker 3: A Hole in the Head reminded me of a story

679
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 3: about CinemaScope related by director Robert Wise, who attended a

680
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:26,399
Speaker 3: demo of the technology hosted by one of its champions,

681
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 3: Fox exec Darryl Zanik. Wise said, quote, Xenic had in

682
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 3: mind to simply shoot everything right out front. You had

683
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 3: a three page scene with five actors, and you'd stage

684
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 3: it and your camera would be there and that would

685
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 3: be all. No coverage, no alternate angles, nothing. You'd just

686
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:47,439
Speaker 3: shoot the sequence and go on to the next one.

687
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 3: He thought you could then make pictures in ten or

688
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 3: twelve days. This demonstration was at a time when the

689
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 3: impact of television on the box office began to be

690
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 3: noticeably felt. Everybody was getting desperate to find something to

691
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,879
Speaker 3: combat TV with. Not only what would drop people in,

692
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:06,280
Speaker 3: but how are we going to get our costs down?

693
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 3: CinemaScope at first was a tool primarily intended to get

694
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 3: the cost down, but it didn't work.

695
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 2: Out that way.

696
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 3: Capra had actually developed a shooting method in the nineteen

697
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 3: thirties that was also intended to accelerate production and save money,

698
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,320
Speaker 3: which involved shooting all of the scene's close ups before

699
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 3: moving the camera and then going on to shoot all

700
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 3: of the wides and mediums and shots from different angles

701
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 3: in this same fashion. But by the time he was

702
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 3: making A Hole in the Head in nineteen fifty eight

703
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 3: and nineteen fifty nine, Capra was trying very hard to

704
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 3: fit into a change Hollywood and didn't want to rock

705
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 3: the boat. Wise's description of Xenix's ideal method for working

706
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,959
Speaker 3: with CinemaScope perfectly sums up the look of A Hole

707
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 3: in the Head. The widescreen compositions are so boring as

708
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:00,760
Speaker 3: to feel rote, and the camera rarely moves a shock

709
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,320
Speaker 3: if you're familiar with It's a Wonderful Life, or virtually

710
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 3: any previous Capra film, which were usually incredibly dynamic in

711
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 3: terms of framing, camera movement, zooms, and editing. Capra also

712
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 3: seems flummixed as to what to do with color, although

713
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 3: maybe that could be chalked up to the garishness of

714
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 3: the low rant Miami setting. Still, a Hole in the

715
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:28,359
Speaker 3: Head was perceived by many in nineteen fifty nine as

716
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 3: a promising.

717
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:30,320
Speaker 2: Comeback for Capra.

718
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 3: It's a double guarantee to sure fire entertainment, the Hollywood

719
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 3: Reporter raved. First, there is Frank Sinatra, whom youthful audiences

720
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 3: will find as modern as high fi and as pungent

721
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 3: as a cup of espresso. Then there is Frank Capra,

722
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 3: the first director whose name, following the advent of talkies,

723
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 3: attained a marquee value equal or greater than that of

724
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 3: any star. Now he is back, with all his past

725
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 3: techniques in full blossom, and with a wonderfully new ability

726
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:01,720
Speaker 3: to capture the flavor.

727
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 2: Of our times.

728
00:49:04,160 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 3: This is a very sweaty review, not to mention an

729
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 3: objectively inaccurate one. Sinatra was very famous, but he was

730
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 3: not appealing to youthful audiences. By nineteen fifty nine, he

731
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 3: was middle aged, and so were his fans. Talking to

732
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 3: the La Times while the movie was in production, Capra

733
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 3: defended A Hole in the Head as an attempt at

734
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:31,800
Speaker 3: resurrecting a Hollywood that was slipping away nowadays. He said,

735
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 3: you get somber, black and white screen fair about doughbatics, criminals, crazy,

736
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 3: mixed up kids and frustrated adults. What seems to be

737
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 3: missing is the technicolor musical, the Sexy Glamour Queen and

738
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 3: the Belly Laugh. In his New York Times review, Bosley

739
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 3: Crowther suggested that Capra was personally derelict for allowing Hollywood

740
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 3: to get to this state, but the critic also felt

741
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,240
Speaker 3: the new film managed to be both old and new,

742
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 3: calling it a thoroughly fresh, aggressive, and sardonic comedy of

743
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 3: the sort that sets one to thinking about the comedies

744
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 3: of the good old days. In fact, he declared it

745
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:18,839
Speaker 3: the best American comedy so far this year. Prior to

746
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 3: A Hole in the Heads July release, not many American

747
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 3: comedies had actually been released, but one that had been

748
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 3: was Some Like It Hot that the film was just

749
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 3: a comedy, struck Philip K. Schuer, writing in the La Times,

750
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 3: as quote something of a departure for the director. It

751
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,320
Speaker 3: was Capra's habit to mixed messages with his comedy, you'll recall,

752
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 3: and there was a lengthy period in which their invariably

753
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 3: liberal tone lost favor around the country. Sinatra's biographer, James Kaplan,

754
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:58,360
Speaker 3: writing decades later, suggested that Capra's worldview was inimical in

755
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,320
Speaker 3: a world that had been transformed by television and the bomb.

756
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,799
Speaker 3: Times had changed and Capra was trying to keep up.

757
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 3: But some who had associated Capra with a certain kind

758
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 3: of moral insight were shocked by how little A Hole

759
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 3: in the Head had to say about anything. A twenty

760
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 3: year old Peter Bogdanovich, at the beginning of his career

761
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 3: as a film commentator and almost a decade away from

762
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:33,319
Speaker 3: his first director's credit, wrote about the film for Frontier Magazine.

763
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 3: At his peak, Capra's films featured, according to Bogdanovic, an

764
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 3: uncompromising personal outlook, expressing ideas in Widge and Crusades, about

765
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 3: which he felt strongly that he should direct Frank Sinatra

766
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 3: in A Hole in the Head. After eight years absence

767
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 3: from pictures seems to me a depressingly significant manifestation not

768
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 3: only of the change in mister Capra, but also of

769
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 3: the entire change in American life, its people, values, and moreris.

770
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 3: After accusing Capra of treating the assignment as a mere paycheck,

771
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 3: young Bogdanovich brands this great director's comeback as mildly entertaining,

772
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 3: while lamenting there's an appalling lack of imagination here. A

773
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 3: Hole in the Head was a hit, landing just outside

774
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 3: the box office top ten for the year. Its success

775
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 3: can probably be attributed to the popularity of Sinatra in

776
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 3: that moment, who was a few months away from creating the.

777
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 2: Rat Pack on stage in Vegas.

778
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 3: But nobody talks about A Hole in the Head when

779
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 3: they talk about how famous Sinatra was in this period.

780
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 2: The film had one lasting legacy, sort of.

781
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 3: It featured the debut of the Sinatra song High Hopes,

782
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 3: which JFK used in campaign ads for a while until

783
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 3: he became spooked by Sinatra's ties to the Mob and

784
00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 3: distanced himself from the crooning star Head's success gave Capra

785
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 3: enough momentum to get another film going, this time a

786
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 3: remake of his own Lady for a Day, now called

787
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 3: pocket Full of Miracles. United Artists told Capra that they

788
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 3: would greenlight it if he found a major star. After

789
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:21,920
Speaker 3: Sinatra and Dean Martin both passed on the Gangster with

790
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 3: a Heart of Gold male lead, Capra learned that Glenn

791
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,840
Speaker 3: Ford would do it if Capra agreed to co produce

792
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 3: the film with the actor. Forget it, Capra told his agent, Frank,

793
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 3: it's a new ballgame. The agent replied, no way, you

794
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:44,360
Speaker 3: can make a picture today without a star as your partner. Later,

795
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 3: Capra would land a much bigger star than Ford, Betty

796
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 3: Davis for the role of the aging alcoholic street vendor

797
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:55,320
Speaker 3: who has to transform into a respectable lady to fool

798
00:53:55,400 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 3: her daughter's aristocratic fiance. But it was the deal with

799
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 3: Ford that got the movie made and also, in Capper's eyes,

800
00:54:04,840 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 3: doomed it to mediocrity. All spread the blame around. Capra

801
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 3: and Ford are both responsible for the fact that Pocketful

802
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 3: of Miracles is an unconvincing, unfunny comedy which drags on

803
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 3: forever thanks to the expansion of the gangster portion of

804
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 3: the film to offer more of a showcase for Ford

805
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 3: and Hope Lang his off screen love, who he required

806
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 3: Capper to cast as his showgirl Mole. Though otherwise a

807
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 3: slavish remake, including much of the same dialogue and shot

808
00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 3: for shot recreations of certain scenes, the added minutes to

809
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 3: the remake's running time are almost entirely devoted to a

810
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 3: new subplot about Lang's character trying to get Ford's to

811
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 3: settle down with her because she can't wait to give

812
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 3: up her lucrative career to be subservient to this man, who,

813
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 3: in one scene that strains for and doesn't achieve comedy,

814
00:54:57,280 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 3: aggressively chases her around a hotel room, ripping her clothes off.

815
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 3: In the original, Warren william felt suave Ford casually pushing

816
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:13,800
Speaker 3: around his girl feels like a creep. The original gives

817
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 3: the sense that the street hustlers and gangsters are part

818
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 3: of the same cooperative community, and critiques the idea that

819
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 3: success and respectability in America is a matter of changing clothes,

820
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 3: still a potent idea today, when celebrity and success is

821
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:36,239
Speaker 3: often communicated through staged and airbrushed photoshoots. What works thematically

822
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:39,280
Speaker 3: in the Capra films that do work is the sense

823
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:43,839
Speaker 3: that American society is deeply stratified, but that it's our

824
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 3: responsibility to take actions that cause those stratifications to blur

825
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:52,400
Speaker 3: and create points of empathy between people who maybe wouldn't

826
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:56,880
Speaker 3: even come into contact with one another under ordinary circumstances.

827
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 3: This is absolutely a feature of Late for a Day

828
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 3: in which a community comes together to produce a class

829
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 3: passing spectacle, which, if it doesn't completely change the power structure,

830
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 3: certainly reveals its absurdity. These same events happen in Pocketfull

831
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 3: of Miracles, but they don't have the same impact because

832
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 3: the remake, which is a period piece set during the

833
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 3: depression era in which the original film was made, seems

834
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 3: to be trying to engender nostalgia for an era that

835
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:31,839
Speaker 3: few were nostalgic for. Less than a year after the

836
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 3: inauguration of JFK. During pre production on this movie, Capra

837
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 3: started suffering from his debilitating cluster headaches. His biographer McBride

838
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:47,320
Speaker 3: writes that these headaches quote were associated in his mind

839
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 3: with guilt over how he had changed from a social

840
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:55,279
Speaker 3: critic into an establishment icon, and with the trauma of

841
00:56:55,320 --> 00:57:00,839
Speaker 3: going back to work in Hollywood, But paradoxically, they made

842
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 3: it impossible for him to give his all. Now that

843
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:07,720
Speaker 3: he was back to work. Capra himself would later say,

844
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:12,360
Speaker 3: I believe the headaches were an unexplained phenomenon that helped

845
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:16,959
Speaker 3: me quit directing gracefully. It would be charitable to point

846
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 3: to these truly awful sounding headaches as an excuse for

847
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 3: why Capra was apparently extremely rude on set to Davis,

848
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 3: it does not account for why. In his nineteen seventy

849
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 3: one autobiography, Capra laid most of the blame for this

850
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:36,920
Speaker 3: misbegotten project on producer star Ford, and particularly Ford's insistence

851
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 3: on casting Lang. But Capra was also, in his book

852
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:45,400
Speaker 3: forced to admit that on his two comeback pictures, the

853
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 3: bucks stopped with him. I had lost my courage, he wrote,

854
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 3: and the people said, Capra, we've had it from you.

855
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 3: The people who had had it with Capra, who mattered,

856
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 3: who were in a position to side his fate, were

857
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 3: the studio executives. The marketing department didn't do the film

858
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 3: many favors. It was promoted through newspaper ads featuring a

859
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 3: photo of a smiling Richard Nixon and the text when

860
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:15,480
Speaker 3: Richard Nixon laughs, everybody in.

861
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 2: Los Angeles laughs.

862
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 3: Lucky him, He's just seen Frank Capra's newest picture and

863
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 3: the screens biggest laugh getter, Pocket Full of Miracles. This

864
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 3: movie was released at Christmas nineteen sixty one, over a

865
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 3: year after Nixon lost the presidential election and during a

866
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:38,960
Speaker 3: time when he was unemployed. Predictably, the negative reviews of

867
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 3: Pocket Full of Miracles focused on how dated the whole

868
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:47,959
Speaker 3: enterprise felt. Even then, right wing Time magazine couldn't help

869
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 3: but roll its eyes quote the very idea of a

870
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 3: senile Cinderella promises a painful cuteness. But in Camera's first

871
00:58:57,240 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 3: version of the film, that sort of cuteness was oh krone.

872
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 3: Now it seems about as necessary as near beer. And

873
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 3: what's more, the concoction takes entirely too long to work

874
00:59:07,520 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 3: up ahead of fizz. That said, it shocked me to

875
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 3: find that most of the reviews were positive, and I

876
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 3: chalk that up to a backlash against changes in Hollywood.

877
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 3: The quote unquote new Hollywood of Bonnie and Clyde and

878
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:28,480
Speaker 3: Easy Rider was still many years off, but already older

879
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 3: generations were appalled. In his autobiography, right before the section

880
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 3: on Pocketful of Miracles, Capra complains that, according to quote

881
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 3: contemporary Hollywood films, the United States was made up of

882
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:48,919
Speaker 3: sex pots, homosexuals, lesbian Marquis de Sade's junkies, two two

883
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 3: beautiful people, country club liberals, draft guard burners. His list

884
00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 3: literally goes on and on, So maybe it's no wonder

885
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 3: that heada Hopper was the tank for a Pocketful of Miracles.

886
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 3: Like many once zeitgeist savvy people in their late seventies,

887
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:10,680
Speaker 3: when Hada lost her ability to push forward the news cycle,

888
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 3: she started calling for a return to the good old

889
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:18,960
Speaker 3: days of Pocketful of Miracles. She wrote, this is an

890
01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:23,040
Speaker 3: upbeat picture for a change, and we'll make a mint.

891
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 3: It's an old story dressed up and new faces and gimmicks,

892
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 3: and there's plenty of that old fashioned corn too. She

893
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:34,800
Speaker 3: then goes on to make the ludicrous claim that Davis.

894
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:35,040
Speaker 2: Never looked more.

895
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:38,160
Speaker 3: Beautiful than when emerging from her makeover in this movie,

896
01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 3: and concludes with a call to action, Let's have more

897
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 3: like this. The film's other positive reviews concurred this was

898
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:50,280
Speaker 3: a film that would remind all the cynics of nineteen

899
01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 3: sixty one what it was like to go to the

900
01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 3: movies and leave happy, gushed the Hollywood Citizen News.

901
01:00:57,560 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 2: Above all, it's.

902
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 3: Fun, fun, fun, in the slambang slap haavyway they used

903
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:08,160
Speaker 3: to make non sophisticated movie comedy. That word sophisticated seems

904
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 3: to be key here for what it's worth, This was

905
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:14,440
Speaker 3: the year when the biggest box office grocer was West

906
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:18,800
Speaker 3: Side Story and La Dulce Vita made the North American

907
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 3: end of year box office top ten to two, And

908
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 3: if these were the only kinds of movies getting made,

909
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:30,040
Speaker 3: the backlash against sophistication would make more sense. But there

910
01:01:30,080 --> 01:01:33,440
Speaker 3: were also plenty of upbeat family films getting made and

911
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:36,640
Speaker 3: getting seen. The original, The Parent Trap and one hundred

912
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 3: and one Dalmatians were major hits two, as were two

913
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:45,520
Speaker 3: Frothy Rock Hudson romantic comedies. The sixties hadn't really started

914
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 3: happening yet, but there was enough change in the air

915
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 3: thanks to recent hits like Psycho and The Apartment. For

916
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 3: a certain audience, a throwback felt like home, and make

917
01:01:57,720 --> 01:02:01,520
Speaker 3: no mistake, Pocketful of Miracles was a throwback to a

918
01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 3: movie so old that even critics barely remembered the original.

919
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 3: In the La Mirror, entertainment editor Dick Williams complained that

920
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:15,760
Speaker 3: Ford and laying Quote are not the potent pairing that

921
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:19,920
Speaker 3: James Stewart and Jean Arthur were in the original, apparently

922
01:02:19,960 --> 01:02:22,840
Speaker 3: confusing Lady for a Day a movie. Stewart and Arthur

923
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 3: were not in with one of the other Capra films

924
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,160
Speaker 3: in which they did star Either You Can't Take It

925
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:32,200
Speaker 3: with You or Mister Smith Goes to Washington. Williams went

926
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 3: to The La Times to publish a more overtly positive

927
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 3: take on the film, which he admitted was both labored

928
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 3: and lethargic, while praising the veteran filmmaker for having quote

929
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 3: produced a frankly old fashioned comedy of sweetness and sentiment.

930
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:52,800
Speaker 3: In the midst of a current film vogue for stories

931
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 3: of sex aberrations, explorations of the tortured psyche, criminal assault,

932
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 3: and heroines who are one or pitiful examples of frustration,

933
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 3: the screen has become so preoccupied with blunt, candid accounts

934
01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 3: of explicit carnal sin in recent years that a family

935
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:14,840
Speaker 3: story such as Pocketful of Miracles has become virtually as

936
01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 3: extinct as Andy Hardy. The Hollywood Reporter columnist Don Carl Gillette,

937
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:25,200
Speaker 3: writing over a month before its national release, predicted that

938
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 3: the film would prove to be one of the best

939
01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 3: Christmas presents ever dropped into an exhibitor's stockings. A couple

940
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:37,160
Speaker 3: of weeks earlier, Variety suggested, shouldn't manage to do better

941
01:03:37,160 --> 01:03:40,480
Speaker 3: than satisfactory, It could kick off a renaissance of thirties

942
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 3: type screen comedy. It did not. After a Pocketful of Miracles,

943
01:03:47,600 --> 01:03:51,440
Speaker 3: Capra actively tried to develop projects for a few years.

944
01:03:51,960 --> 01:03:54,920
Speaker 3: He wrote an adaptation of Gore Vidal's The Best Man,

945
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 3: which Vidal himself encouraged until he saw a Pocketful of

946
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:03,400
Speaker 3: Miracles end quote realized that this was one of the

947
01:04:03,440 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 3: all time bad pictures. So I was already highly suspicious.

948
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 3: We chatted for a week and I came to the

949
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:12,240
Speaker 3: conclusion that he was absolutely the worst director in the

950
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 3: world for this project. Capra was also interested in directing TV,

951
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 3: or at least he was willing to debase himself in

952
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 3: an environment in which other peers were cashing in on

953
01:04:23,200 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 3: the boob tube. He tried to sell his own version

954
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:30,800
Speaker 3: of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, called Frank Capra Comedy Theater, but

955
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:35,320
Speaker 3: it didn't happen. He even put himself up unsuccessfully to

956
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:39,200
Speaker 3: direct an episode of The Adams Family. He signed a

957
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:42,200
Speaker 3: deal with Columbia in March nineteen sixty four to adapt

958
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:45,880
Speaker 3: a novel called Maroon about an astronaut stuck in orbit,

959
01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 3: which Capra had come across after being contracted by Martin Marietta, which,

960
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 3: in addition to supplying crafts for NASA, was also engaged

961
01:04:55,240 --> 01:04:58,080
Speaker 3: in the sixties with building a floating nuclear power plant

962
01:04:58,120 --> 01:05:03,000
Speaker 3: as well as Disneyland's Monoail to make a speculatively optimistic

963
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:06,760
Speaker 3: documentary about space exploration for the New York World's Fair.

964
01:05:07,760 --> 01:05:10,600
Speaker 3: A year into the process on Marooned, after fighting with

965
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:15,200
Speaker 3: Columbia over script and budget issues, Capra finally quit when

966
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:19,400
Speaker 3: Jimmy Stewart decided not to make the movie. That left

967
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 3: the documentary Rendezvous in Space as Frank Capra's final credit

968
01:05:24,600 --> 01:05:28,360
Speaker 3: as a director. The nineteen minute movie opened in September

969
01:05:28,440 --> 01:05:31,760
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four at New York's Hall of Science, and

970
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:35,320
Speaker 3: it played there for eleven years. A spokesman for the

971
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:39,440
Speaker 3: defense contractor who funded it suggested this was a problem

972
01:05:39,680 --> 01:05:42,560
Speaker 3: because the state of the space race depicted in Capra's

973
01:05:42,560 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 3: film quote became obsolete in about six months.

974
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 2: The sixties was.

975
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 3: A tough decade for Capra, and he acknowledged that he

976
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:58,800
Speaker 3: again contemplated suicide. It all turned around when his autobiography

977
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:01,400
Speaker 3: The Name Above the Time title was published in nineteen

978
01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:05,040
Speaker 3: seventy one, which turned Caepra into a star of the

979
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:10,760
Speaker 3: paid speaking engagement slash lifetime achievement circuit. Ten years earlier,

980
01:06:11,200 --> 01:06:14,400
Speaker 3: Capra had produced a set of seventy six pages largely

981
01:06:14,440 --> 01:06:17,960
Speaker 3: about his journey to making his first silent film, which

982
01:06:18,080 --> 01:06:22,720
Speaker 3: publishers showed no interest in. Then, in nineteen sixty five,

983
01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 3: after Maroon fell apart, he went to his lake cabin

984
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:31,680
Speaker 3: and started again to write his life story. Six weeks later,

985
01:06:32,040 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 3: Capra had a ninety two page manuscript titled Night Voices,

986
01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:41,520
Speaker 3: consisting in large part of angry grievances directed at an industry.

987
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:43,040
Speaker 2: He felt had wronged him.

988
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 3: It was a masochistic outpouring of all the humiliations he

989
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 3: had suffered in those last years, said Eugene Veil, a

990
01:06:51,600 --> 01:06:54,440
Speaker 3: screenwriter who later claimed to have ghost written much of

991
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:57,960
Speaker 3: the autobiography that Capra did publish to widespread acclaim in

992
01:06:58,040 --> 01:07:02,479
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one. Six years earlier, when Vail finished reading

993
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:06,360
Speaker 3: the ninety two pages of Night Voices, he dropped everything

994
01:07:06,480 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 3: and drove six plus hours out to Capra's cabin to

995
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 3: give him some tough love rather than publish a book

996
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:15,800
Speaker 3: full of anger about what he hadn't been.

997
01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 2: Able to do over the last couple of decades.

998
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:22,600
Speaker 3: Veil recommended that Capra quote emphasize the positive.

999
01:07:23,080 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 2: You're entitled to it, You're a hero.

1000
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:29,520
Speaker 3: The Frank's wife, Lou wanted him to publish Night Voices.

1001
01:07:30,040 --> 01:07:34,040
Speaker 3: Most of his friends tried to stop him from doing so. One,

1002
01:07:34,200 --> 01:07:39,800
Speaker 3: the writer Paul Horgan, described the draft as amateurish, beyond words,

1003
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:44,720
Speaker 3: and suspected that it was highly fictionalized. He urged the

1004
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 3: filmmaker to scrap these ninety two pages and start again

1005
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:51,440
Speaker 3: with a grounding in reality, to think of his career

1006
01:07:51,560 --> 01:07:54,440
Speaker 3: as the portrait of Hollywood history in miniature.

1007
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:55,160
Speaker 2: That it was.

1008
01:07:57,800 --> 01:08:01,320
Speaker 3: Capra did start again, but his imput else to fictionalize

1009
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:05,760
Speaker 3: was not entirely set to the side. His nineteen seventy

1010
01:08:05,760 --> 01:08:09,120
Speaker 3: one book became an exercise in myth making in which

1011
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:13,480
Speaker 3: Capra became a Capra hero, a little man frustrated by

1012
01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:16,360
Speaker 3: the system. But it was John Ford who read a

1013
01:08:16,439 --> 01:08:19,920
Speaker 3: draft of the manuscript and suggested the ending. As he

1014
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:24,160
Speaker 3: wrote to Capra, Ford saw the book as quote the

1015
01:08:24,200 --> 01:08:28,000
Speaker 3: story of a little dago from Sicily who scrapped, bit

1016
01:08:28,320 --> 01:08:32,360
Speaker 3: chewed without compromise, from the ghetto to become the world's

1017
01:08:32,400 --> 01:08:35,519
Speaker 3: greatest director. I would like to see you end your

1018
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:40,200
Speaker 3: book by going back to the ghetto. Capra once said

1019
01:08:40,240 --> 01:08:42,200
Speaker 3: that the house he grew up in was not a

1020
01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:47,280
Speaker 3: place of happy memories. Instead it was quote nothing but

1021
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:51,320
Speaker 3: a house of pain. So maybe it's a testament to

1022
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:54,759
Speaker 3: his respect for Ford that on page four ninety five

1023
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:58,200
Speaker 3: of the name above the title, Capra writes of being

1024
01:08:58,320 --> 01:09:01,000
Speaker 3: drawn out of his self pity during which he was

1025
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:05,120
Speaker 3: belly aching because he was not needed by having driven

1026
01:09:05,320 --> 01:09:08,599
Speaker 3: a loan to the Sicilian ghetto I had left fifty

1027
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:12,120
Speaker 3: years ago. He seems to be referring to the neighborhood

1028
01:09:12,160 --> 01:09:15,360
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles where his family lived after immigrating to

1029
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 3: the US, which was never holy Sicilian but whatever. And

1030
01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:22,800
Speaker 3: there on the porch of the house where he grew up,

1031
01:09:23,080 --> 01:09:27,760
Speaker 3: Capeper reports he came across a scruffy shirtslaved man and

1032
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:31,160
Speaker 3: a stout, piano legged woman, and the side of them

1033
01:09:31,200 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 3: helps Capper articulate. But he really meant to say in

1034
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:38,960
Speaker 3: the previous four hundred and ninety four pages, quote friend,

1035
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:42,800
Speaker 3: you are a divine mingle, mangle of guts and stardust.

1036
01:09:43,280 --> 01:09:46,479
Speaker 3: So hang in there. If doors open for me, they

1037
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:51,600
Speaker 3: can open for anyone. This is in sharp contrast to

1038
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:55,400
Speaker 3: a trip back to Sicily, which Capra made in nineteen

1039
01:09:55,439 --> 01:10:00,640
Speaker 3: seventy seven, with which McBride opens his book, describing it

1040
01:10:00,720 --> 01:10:01,719
Speaker 3: as an.

1041
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,160
Speaker 2: Ordeal of the purest agony.

1042
01:10:05,240 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 3: Even with a TV crew following him, Capra was bored

1043
01:10:09,400 --> 01:10:14,120
Speaker 3: and unsentimental about where he was from. He also later

1044
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:18,440
Speaker 3: admitted he had been suffering from a painful attack of diarrhea.

1045
01:10:19,520 --> 01:10:22,320
Speaker 3: Rather than stay for an elaborate dinner planned in his

1046
01:10:22,400 --> 01:10:26,920
Speaker 3: honor by his extended family, Capra ordered his driver to

1047
01:10:27,040 --> 01:10:31,519
Speaker 3: get him out of town as quickly as possible. As

1048
01:10:31,560 --> 01:10:34,479
Speaker 3: soon as the car was past the city limits, Capra

1049
01:10:34,560 --> 01:10:38,479
Speaker 3: later recalled, I jumped out, and I pulled my pants down,

1050
01:10:38,880 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 3: and I just let go. The TV producers wanted him

1051
01:10:42,800 --> 01:10:45,799
Speaker 3: to go back to the dinner, but Kapra told them,

1052
01:10:46,240 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 3: I don't want.

1053
01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:47,439
Speaker 5: To go back.

1054
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:53,240
Speaker 3: I can't tell them what happened. Later, he allowed, maybe

1055
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:55,600
Speaker 3: I could have told them, but I was afraid I

1056
01:10:55,600 --> 01:11:02,960
Speaker 3: would happen again, and I was so ashamed. Caepra's decision

1057
01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:07,680
Speaker 3: to end his autobiography, which still contained much grumbling and

1058
01:11:07,800 --> 01:11:12,080
Speaker 3: finger pointing on a note of inspirational optimism fed to

1059
01:11:12,160 --> 01:11:15,680
Speaker 3: him by john Ford, was probably.

1060
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:19,200
Speaker 2: The right call. The book was a huge success.

1061
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:23,360
Speaker 3: Capra learned via cable Graham that his book had been

1062
01:11:23,400 --> 01:11:26,000
Speaker 3: selected to join the Book of the Month club while

1063
01:11:26,080 --> 01:11:28,439
Speaker 3: he and his wife lou were on a cruise through

1064
01:11:28,479 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 3: the Panama Canal. He took the cablegram straight to the

1065
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:36,840
Speaker 3: boat's bar, celebrated by getting shitfaced, and then never had

1066
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:41,439
Speaker 3: another cluster headache again. The anxiety and self doubt that

1067
01:11:41,479 --> 01:11:44,080
Speaker 3: had plagued him since his career had begun to decline

1068
01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:48,640
Speaker 3: was cured by the praise and adulation incured by the

1069
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:53,479
Speaker 3: release of the book. To quote Eugene Vail, he couldn't

1070
01:11:53,479 --> 01:11:56,400
Speaker 3: make pictures anymore, but this way he could retire and

1071
01:11:56,439 --> 01:12:01,280
Speaker 3: still be the center of attention. Would never direct another

1072
01:12:01,320 --> 01:12:05,519
Speaker 3: film after a pocketfull of miracles. After his autobiography was published,

1073
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:09,439
Speaker 3: he did get some incoming calls. In nineteen seventy nine,

1074
01:12:09,600 --> 01:12:13,120
Speaker 3: Francis Ward Copola flew Capra up to San Francisco to

1075
01:12:13,200 --> 01:12:15,599
Speaker 3: talk to him about producing the film that would become

1076
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:19,760
Speaker 3: Tucker A Man in his Dream. Capra seems to have

1077
01:12:19,800 --> 01:12:23,559
Speaker 3: gone into this meeting with a bad attitude because he

1078
01:12:23,640 --> 01:12:28,040
Speaker 3: had seen Cobola's most recent film, Apocalypse Now and thought

1079
01:12:28,080 --> 01:12:34,040
Speaker 3: it was anti American and a pace of junk. Capra

1080
01:12:34,120 --> 01:12:37,479
Speaker 3: felt the same about Copola's pitch because the film was

1081
01:12:37,520 --> 01:12:41,040
Speaker 3: intended to show how Detroit automakers were a monopoly that

1082
01:12:41,120 --> 01:12:45,920
Speaker 3: squeezed out independent innovation, an idea that went against Capra's

1083
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 3: idea of the American dream. After ten acrimonious minutes, Capra

1084
01:12:52,400 --> 01:12:55,400
Speaker 3: walked out on Cobola. At least he took the meeting.

1085
01:12:56,000 --> 01:12:58,479
Speaker 3: A couple of years later, when Donna Reed was trying

1086
01:12:58,520 --> 01:13:01,240
Speaker 3: to launch a TV sequel to It's a Wonderful Life

1087
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:06,280
Speaker 3: called It's Still a Wonderful Life and Universal, Capra was

1088
01:13:06,439 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 3: approached by Universal about it, and his reaction was, quote,

1089
01:13:11,040 --> 01:13:14,000
Speaker 3: that's the kind of goddamn thing a producer would suggest.

1090
01:13:14,800 --> 01:13:20,559
Speaker 3: They can go fuck themselves. During this period, Caepra claimed

1091
01:13:20,560 --> 01:13:23,360
Speaker 3: that he still wanted to work, but then he needed

1092
01:13:23,400 --> 01:13:26,439
Speaker 3: to take care of his wife, Lou, who was in

1093
01:13:26,479 --> 01:13:30,519
Speaker 3: the midst of a long battle with emphysema. When Lou

1094
01:13:30,680 --> 01:13:34,639
Speaker 3: passed away in nineteen eighty four, Capra was asked how

1095
01:13:34,680 --> 01:13:38,440
Speaker 3: he would now spend his time, and he angrily responded,

1096
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:42,320
Speaker 3: fuck time. I want to work. What do you think

1097
01:13:42,360 --> 01:13:45,160
Speaker 3: I'm dying for. I'm in great shape, except that nobody

1098
01:13:45,200 --> 01:13:48,280
Speaker 3: wants me for a job. I want to direct, if

1099
01:13:48,320 --> 01:13:50,639
Speaker 3: people would let me alone to do my own picture.

1100
01:13:51,880 --> 01:13:55,280
Speaker 3: This pugnaciousness was quite different from how he presented himself

1101
01:13:55,320 --> 01:13:58,320
Speaker 3: publicly in the years after his book was published, when

1102
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:02,120
Speaker 3: he became a talk show regular, or this clip from

1103
01:14:02,160 --> 01:14:05,400
Speaker 3: a nineteen seventy seven interview is typical. When the cameras

1104
01:14:05,439 --> 01:14:10,600
Speaker 3: were on, Capra was suddenly comfortable in retirement and magnanimous

1105
01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:12,000
Speaker 3: towards the younger generation.

1106
01:14:13,000 --> 01:14:15,880
Speaker 6: Frank, somebody asked you once why you had stopped making film,

1107
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:18,439
Speaker 6: and you were quoted as saying, I did it all.

1108
01:14:18,840 --> 01:14:19,759
Speaker 1: Let the young.

1109
01:14:19,600 --> 01:14:20,599
Speaker 3: Ones do it now.

1110
01:14:21,040 --> 01:14:21,479
Speaker 5: I mean that.

1111
01:14:21,840 --> 01:14:25,439
Speaker 4: I mean it's a young man's game. It takes so

1112
01:14:25,640 --> 01:14:32,880
Speaker 4: much drive, it takes so much nervous energy, and it

1113
01:14:32,920 --> 01:14:37,320
Speaker 4: takes and it takes guts. It takes guts, It takes courage.

1114
01:14:38,320 --> 01:14:40,200
Speaker 4: Courage is the one thing you must have.

1115
01:14:41,080 --> 01:14:44,760
Speaker 5: You may have all the others.

1116
01:14:43,600 --> 01:14:44,400
Speaker 2: But in private.

1117
01:14:44,600 --> 01:14:48,120
Speaker 3: When his wife of over fifty years died, Capra was

1118
01:14:48,120 --> 01:14:51,320
Speaker 3: in a darker place than ever I want to get

1119
01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:55,160
Speaker 3: out of here because I'm going nuts, he told biographer McBride.

1120
01:14:55,680 --> 01:14:58,679
Speaker 3: When your wife has gone, the place really goes to hell.

1121
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:03,240
Speaker 3: I've never in my life been so low. You just

1122
01:15:03,280 --> 01:15:07,240
Speaker 3: don't know what it's like. Sometimes I cry myself to sleep.

1123
01:15:08,320 --> 01:15:12,320
Speaker 3: I could die. I could die and nobody would know it.

1124
01:15:13,120 --> 01:15:15,439
Speaker 3: Since I can't do any work, I've just got to

1125
01:15:15,439 --> 01:15:20,799
Speaker 3: stay here and vegetate. Everything is different. Life doesn't mean anything.

1126
01:15:22,479 --> 01:15:25,160
Speaker 3: His own health would begin to decline a year later,

1127
01:15:25,320 --> 01:15:29,479
Speaker 3: when he had his first stroke. Frank Capra died in

1128
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:33,120
Speaker 3: September nineteen ninety one, ninety four years after he was

1129
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:37,080
Speaker 3: born in Sicily. Next week we will talk about the

1130
01:15:37,160 --> 01:15:39,800
Speaker 3: last films of another immigrant who made a mark on

1131
01:15:39,880 --> 01:15:45,160
Speaker 3: nineteen thirties and forties Hollywood, Fritz Lang. Join us, then,

1132
01:15:45,560 --> 01:15:53,559
Speaker 3: won't you? Thanks for listening to You must remember this.

1133
01:15:54,320 --> 01:15:59,880
Speaker 3: The show is written, produced, and narrated by Karna Longworth.

1134
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:06,519
Speaker 2: That's Me. This season is edited and mixed by Evan Viola.

1135
01:16:07,600 --> 01:16:11,639
Speaker 3: Our social media research and production assistant is Brendan Whalen,

1136
01:16:12,720 --> 01:16:15,800
Speaker 3: and our logo was designed by Teddy Blanks.

1137
01:16:16,800 --> 01:16:19,880
Speaker 2: If you like the show, please tell.

1138
01:16:19,640 --> 01:16:23,080
Speaker 3: Anyone you can, any way that you can You can

1139
01:16:23,120 --> 01:16:26,800
Speaker 3: follow us on Twitter at Remember This Pod, and we're

1140
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:30,960
Speaker 3: on Facebook and Instagram too, And if you go to

1141
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:36,600
Speaker 3: our website you must Remember This Podcast dot com, you

1142
01:16:36,680 --> 01:16:40,120
Speaker 3: can find show notes for this and every other episode,

1143
01:16:40,600 --> 01:16:44,599
Speaker 3: which include lists of our sources and much more.

1144
01:16:45,560 --> 01:16:47,400
Speaker 2: At the website, you can also find.

1145
01:16:47,240 --> 01:16:52,120
Speaker 3: Merch like hats, t shirts, and our special limited edition

1146
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:59,959
Speaker 3: Dead Blonde coloring book. At patreon dot com slash curna

1147
01:17:00,120 --> 01:17:04,000
Speaker 3: long Worth, you can support the podcast get lots of

1148
01:17:04,040 --> 01:17:08,320
Speaker 3: bonus you must Remember This content, including scripts or transcripts

1149
01:17:08,360 --> 01:17:12,280
Speaker 3: of our full archive and some glimpses into.

1150
01:17:12,040 --> 01:17:13,760
Speaker 2: Other aspects of my life.

1151
01:17:14,439 --> 01:17:17,519
Speaker 3: Proceeds from Patreon go to help pay all the people

1152
01:17:17,600 --> 01:17:22,679
Speaker 3: who work on the show named above. Finally, subscribing or

1153
01:17:22,800 --> 01:17:26,880
Speaker 3: rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts can really

1154
01:17:26,960 --> 01:17:29,640
Speaker 3: help other people find it, so if you want to

1155
01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:32,280
Speaker 3: spread the word, that's a great way to do it.

1156
01:17:33,320 --> 01:17:34,200
Speaker 2: We'll be back.

1157
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:37,479
Speaker 3: Next week with an all new tale from the secret

1158
01:17:37,840 --> 01:17:43,920
Speaker 3: and or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century. Join us, then,

1159
01:17:44,320 --> 01:17:46,519
Speaker 3: won't you? Good Night