Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success

by Joseph McBride

Overview

Moviegoers often assume Frank Capra's life resembled his beloved films (such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life). A man of the people faces tremendous odds and, by doing the right thing, triumphs! But as Joseph McBride reveals in this meticulously researched, definitive biography, the reality was far more complex, a true American tragedy. Using newly declassified U.S. government documents about Capra's response to being considered a possible "subversive" during the post-World War II Red Scare, McBride adds a final chapter to his unforgettable portrait of the man who gave us It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Meet John Doe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604738384
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	02/25/2011
Pages:	824
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.30(d)

About the Author

Joseph McBride, Berkeley, California, is a film historian and associate professor in the cinema department at San Francisco State University. His many books include Searching for John Ford, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success; Hawks on Hawks; and What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career.

Table of Contents

1.	"I felt nothing"	9
2.	"I hated America"	29
3.	"A terrible wop"	49
4.	"Cap"	69
5.	"I'm from Hollywood"	103
6.	The Gag Man	139
7.	"Marrying the harlot"	181
8.	"The Man in the Street"	219
9.	American Madness	247
10.	"The catastrophe of Success"	289
11.	"A sense of responsibility"	327
12.	"The doghouse"	351
13.	"Columbia's Gem"	375
14.	"My ancestors couldn't; I can"	401
15.	"We're the front office"	425
16.	"That fellow Capra"	453
17.	Liberty	503
18.	"I have no cause"	535
19.	"The Judas pain"	561
20.	A Reputation	611
	Appendix	657
	Acknowledgments	689
	Notes on Sources	699
	Filmography	749
	Index	763

Editorial Reviews

"Masterly, comprehensive, and frequently surprising." —Barry Gewen, the New York Times Book Review

"Easily the best—certainly the most realistic—biography of a film director in the age of the Auteur, to which this is a counterbalance." —Gore Vidal

"A major book . . . Superbly researched and almost continually surprising." —Gavin Lambert, Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

In this captivating biography, Capra -- Hollywood's champion of the "common man" -- emerges as a deeply contradictory figure, enamoured of right wing politics and anxious about his sexuality.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Capra is largely remembered today as a director whose films champion all-American optimism in a world where good ultimately triumphs. This exhaustively researched and densely -- perhaps overly -- detailed biography uncovers the man behind the camera and simultaneously debunks much of what Capra wrote in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title ( LJ 4/15/71). The director's flag waving concealed shame about his Sicilian heritage, writes McBride, and he was not adverse to being one of the greedy rich his films derided. The analysis of Capra's oeuvre, including his days as a gag writer, reveals much about his psyche. The author of well-regarded biographies of Howard Hawks ( Hawks on Hawks, LJ 12/15/81) and John Ford ( John Ford , Da Capo, 1975) has written the definitive work about another major American director. For general audiences.

Library Journal

Huge, richly researched, absorbing revisionist biography of the filmmaker renowned for standing up for "the little man"; by the author of studies of Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and others. In 1981, McBride was asked to help prepare an homage to Capra (1897-1991) for the National Film Institute's Life Achievement award. In researching Capra, McBride discovered that the director's well-received autobiography, The Name Above the Title (1971), was a self-aggrandizing fairy tale. Although such 30's and 40's films as It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's A Wonderful Life seemingly displayed Capra as a giant talent supporting the cause of "the little man," Capra was actually an insecure, anti-New Deal reactionary who always voted for the money and, as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for several years running, always stood up for the studios rather than the newly formed talent guilds and unions. In his autobiography, McBride says, Capra reinvented his career and papered over the help he had from his excellent cameraman, Joseph Walker, who gave sculptural depth and richness to all his major films, and from writers Jo Swerling, Sidney Buchman, and Robert Riskin, who wrote all "the little man's" speeches, devised Capra's stories, and gave edge and shape to his characters. Capra apparently also misrepresented his ties with Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn, who had (and exercised) right of final cut on all Capra pictures—although Capra trumpeted himself as a "one man, one picture" auteur. McBride thinks that Capra's need to appropriate credit belonging to others stemmedfrom insecurity about the nature of his own abilities and from a fear of success common to first-generation professionals, who often think themselves imposters. Looking at some of his pictures late in life, Capra mused, "...they don't seem to be mine. It's difficult for me to understand." Superb in every way. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)

Kirkus Reviews