Search - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1936 DVD Release: 02/01/2000 Format: DVD - Black and White Edition: Restored/Remastered Audio Tracks: English, Spanish Subtitles: English, Korean, Spanish, Thai SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 55 mins Studio: Columbia TriStar Members Wishing: 16 Genres: Comedy Drama, Americana, Comedy of Manners See Also: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in his life: he just wants enough time to practice his tuba and compose greeting-card doggerel. When Deeds is convinced to move to New York, hard-boiled newspaper reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur) is dispatched to get the inside scoop on "The Cinderella Man." Babe's stories of Deeds' eccentricities and no-nonsense dealings with phonies and poseurs provide excellent headline fodder; but she begins to regret her actions, having fallen in love with the big lug. Deeds ultimately sets up a foundation to dispense his fortune to the country's neediest souls, on the proviso that the recipients do their best to get back on their feet, a turn of events that leads his lawyer John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille) to try to have him declared insane. By the end of the sanity hearing, the judge (H. B. Walker) declares: "Not only are you sane, but you're the sanest man who ever walked in this courtroom!" A joyously unadulterated hunk of Frank Capra-corn, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was adapted by Robert Riskin from Clarence Buddington Kelland's short story "Opera Hat." In addition to the pleasure of watching the country bumpkin outwit city slickers, the movie is a film buff's dream, boasting one of the best character-actor casts ever assembled for a single film. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the film won Frank Capra his second Oscar (out of three) as Best Director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gary Cooper - Longfellow Deeds
Jean Arthur - Babe Bennett
George Bancroft - MacWade
Lionel Stander - Cornelius Cobb
Douglas Dumbrille - John Cedar
H.B. Warner - Judge Walker

Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town has been given respectful, if not ideal treatment by Columbia-TriStar. The movie has been restored and looks sharper and brighter than the television editions that this reviewer recalls up through the 1970s, and superior to the past videotape releases. It showed up late on laserdisc, but the DVD also looks better than the 12-inch release, and the sound is cleaner as well; even the tuba (which Gary Cooper's Deeds likes to play) has beautiful depth in the scenes where it is used.
The producers have taken the trouble to record Frank Capra Jr. on the alternate soundtrack, in an unrehearsed discussion of the picture and his father. This may have been well-intended, but it falls flat; Capra doesn't have a lot to say about this movie beyond some recollections of his father and observations about Gary Cooper, as well as some accounts of the plot that don't do too much more than restate what viewers are seeing on the screen in the first place. The long patches of silence are unfortunate, as they miss the opportunity to discuss the actors (other than Cooper) in the movie. Moreover, little of what Capra says is shot-specific to what viewers are seeing onscreen. The other parts of the supplement are enjoyable and provide some framing of the film's history, but the narration is anemic enough to be a waste of time. Not that this detracts in any way from the movie -- it just means that the producers of the disc should have had a second narrator in there, discussing the film around Capra's reminiscences and filling in the blanks. The menu, which opens automatically, is simple to navigate and the audio commentary, for what it's worth, is easy to activate or de-activate. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide