Populist primer

I LOST A BELOVED AUNT RECENTLY, and it got me to thinking about the movies of her youth (the 1930s and 1940s), a subject she dearly loved to discuss with me. This was the heyday of director Frank Capra's populism--the feel-good movies of second chances and underdogs winning. The Capra filmography is a populist primer for the genre: "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936), "You Can't Take It With You" (1938), "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), "Meet John Doe" (1941), and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946).

With my aunt, it clearly was a case of life imitating art. Indeed, the title "You Can't Take It With You" might have served as her motto. At its best, a populist story attempts to be an honest tale, something my aunt greatly appreciated. For example, "Mr. Smith" not only is a touching comedy showcase of the values upon which the U.S. is based, with James Stewart's career-making turn as a young patriot, the movie is most rewarding when it freely illustrates flaws in the system. Throughout the years, a hallmark of American populism has been a willingness to show the weaknesses as well as the positives of a democratic state.

Other characteristics associated with populism include embracing rural and small town life, mythic-like leaders who have risen from the people, an adherence to traditional values and customs, a faithfulness to honest labor, a general optimism concerning humanity's potential for good, the importance of family, and underlining the importance of the individual. Put more succinctly, populism defines people as inherently good.

The Capra country philosopher constantly acts as a Jeffersonian brake on the dangers of Hamiltonian big government (or comparable powerful organizations bent on dictating orders to the common man). While Stewart's Jefferson Smith stops corruption in the Senate, John Doe (another everyman, this time played by Gary Cooper) stops a fascist-like organization from assuming power in "Meet John Doe." Poet Longfellow Deeds (named after the patriotic poet of the people and also played by Cooper) offers a self-help, small-farm solution to the Great Depression while foiling a corrupt but influential banker in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." In "It's a Wonderful Life," Stewart's George Bailey runs a savings and loan that provides an affordable option to blue collar citizens--versus the evil Mr. Potter's (Lionel Barrymore) misuse of his banking power.

In adapting the Moss Hart-George Kaufman play, "You Can't Take It With You," to the screen, Capra had screenwriter Robert Riskin politicize the central role of the grandfather (Barrymore). He was transformed, in the words of historian Andrew Bergma, "from a whimsical old madcap to a serious denouncer of those who prefer gold to friends. [Moreover, this changed the harmless Mr. Kirby], who had been simply a rich boy's father, to a sinister munitions man." With this switch, the theme of the original story changes from a conflict about urban renewal (the displacement of a house to accommodate a munitions factory) to an ideological battle (concerning democracy and the consolidation of power).

Ultimately, populism's ties to politics continue because the great American experiment was based on the belief that safeguarding universal equality necessitated ongoing political awareness by all people. As early as Letters From an American Farmer (1782), grassroots politics have been included in a description of the obligations of the world's new "Freeman."

America's crackerbarrel writings underline this principle by celebrating not only such invented Yankees as Jack Downing, Hosea Biglow, and Sam Slick but also real flesh-and-blood types like Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone, and Abraham Lincoln. Moreover, the commonsense wisdom that they celebrate in their political awareness is the same quality that predates the nation, from the Pilgrim's "Mayflower Compact" to Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard. It is a national treasure that all citizens need to recognize as well as a model that all citizens can follow.

Capra reaffirms these values and traditions again and again, especially in his homage to American historical figures. Thus, Deeds visits Grant's Tomb, and Smith stops at Mount Vernon, and both the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. Special attention should be given to the last figure. Lincoln, the man and the legend, is an important symbol in the cracker-barrel tradition. He is, of course, far from the beginning of this tradition but, because of the unique attributes of the man and the severe situation under which he served, he has become something of a Yankee Patron Saint of America.

The populist history lesson atmosphere of "Mr. Smith" serves another more ironic purpose. It was rather a last hurrah, at least for Capra, of a young populist idealist. In "Meet John Doe" and "It's a Wonderful Life," the central heroes have so lost their way that they consider suicide. While populism and the people ultimately triumph, it is a much darker world view.