A classic

Since this movie had a really solid reputation, I was quite eager to check it out. Apparently, this movie was first developed as a sequel to ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ but since Gary Cooper was not available, they changed the name of the main character and they gave this part to James Stewart who gave here a star-making performance.  Indeed, I thought that Stewart was actually more convincing than Cooper to play the pure and innocent Jefferson Smith and you have to give some credit to Stewart who gave a really strong performance here. I also liked the fact that Capra didn’t take any gloves to show how corrupted the politicians were in Washington at the time and, in fact, you could say that the situation didn’t change much 80 years later. I was also impressed by Jean Arthur who was not only lovely but she managed to give a character who was a strong and smart woman . Still, this movie gave a strange mix between the realism and cynicism displayed by the political world and the idealism and sentimatility displayed by Jefferson Smith and this mix was rather difficult to swallow. It’s like the ending during which, Smith basically highjacks  the Senate until they would listen to him and the worst thing is that it actually worked as Capra still managed to squeeze a happy-ending which was rushed within the last minutes. That’s when the movie felt the most cheesy and outdated in my opinion. Still,  even though I wasn’t really a huge fan, it was a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look.