Capra, Frank

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Frank Capra

Born May 18, 1897
Bisaquino, Sicily
Died September 3, 1991
La Quinta, California
American film director

At the peak of his career as a Hollywood film director, Frank Capra was beloved by the moviegoing public and acclaimed by critics for his films portraying honest, hardworking "little guys" who triumph over seemingly unbeatable obstacles and more powerful and deceitful opponents. Capra's background as a film director made him an ideal choice to produce a series of inspirational documentary films that aimed to help American troops understand why the United States had entered the war.

A strong desire to succeed

Born in Bisaquino, Sicily (an island off the coast of Italy), Capra moved to the United States with his family when he was six years old. They settled in East Los Angeles, California, and his father worked picking oranges. One of seven children, Capra took a variety of jobs to help support his family (and eventually to pay for college), including selling newspapers and playing the banjo in local bars. He later wrote in his autobiography, "My goal was to leap across the tracks—to rise above the muck and meanness of peasant poverty. I wanted freedom from established caste systems, and … freedom could only be won by success."

Capra graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a degree in engineering—but the year was 1918 and the United States had entered World War I (1914-18). He immediately enlisted in the army. When the war was over, Capra couldn't find any work as an engineer, so he began to drift around the West, earning money by playing poker and selling books.

Capra was living in San Francisco in 1922. Down on his luck, he met some filmmakers who had formed a small film production company. Even though he didn't know anything about making movies, Capra convinced them to let him direct a film. Capra received $75 for his work on the film, which was an adaptation of a poem by English poet Rudyard Kipling, called Fultah Fisher's Boarding House.

A film industry apprentice

Enjoying his experience as a director, Capra became interested in the film industry. He was hired as an apprentice at a film laboratory, where he worked in exchange for food and lodging. Next he got a job with a Hollywood director, Bob Eddy, as a propman and editor. Then he was hired to write jokes for a studio run by Hal Roach, but his new employers didn't find him very funny and he was fired after six months. Nevertheless, Capra got another job writing jokes, this time for director Mack Sennett. He was assigned to work with Harry Langdon, a comic actor who was popular in silent movies. When Langdon moved over to the First National studio in 1926, he took Capra with him as his director. It was at First National that Capra co-wrote and co-directed Langdon's hit movie Tramp Tramp Tramp (1926) and directed two subsequent hits, The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927).

A successful career is launched

After being fired by Harry Langdon over a dispute about who deserved the most credit for the partners' success, Capra worked for Mack Sennett again. The turning point in Capra's career came in 1928, when he was hired as a director for Columbia Pictures. The executives at Columbia gave Capra complete freedom to make the kind of films he liked, and it also paired him with a talented screenwriter, Robert Riskin, who had formerly worked as a journalist and playwright. With Riskin's help, Capra put out a long series of highly successful films during the 1930s and early 1940s.

The typical Capra film is a comedic fable (a story intended to teach a lesson) featuring an idealistic central character. This unlikely hero overcomes tremendous odds and triumphs over the forces of cynicism and materialism. The film may touch on darker themes but invariably ends in a mood of rosy optimism. Praised for his skill in handling actors, staging complex scenes, and recreating authentically American dialogue onscreen, Capra received best director Oscars (the awards given each year by the Academy of Motion Pictures) for It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and You Can't Take It With You (1938). Another acclaimed film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), starred James Stewart as an idealistic freshman senator who finds himself immersed in political corruption.

Capra's outlook was essentially optimistic, and the world he created in his films was one in which the good and pure of heart won out over evil and corruption. Presented with a mixture of sentiment and screwball comedy (later known as "Capracorn"), these themes played very well with audiences beaten down by the Great Depression (a period of economic decline and hardship that lasted from 1929 to 1939), who flocked to Capra's films in great numbers.

The U.S. Army recruits Capra

One of Capra's highest-ranking fans was General George Marshall (1880-1959; see entry), the army's chief of staff (top officer). Soon after the United States entered World War II in December 1941, General Marshall decided it would be a good idea to make some films for the troops to educate them about why the United States was fighting. These films would be a form a propaganda, which is material put out by a government or other group that is intended to persuade people to adopt a certain viewpoint; propaganda may be based on either facts or opinion.

Marshall felt it was important that the producer be someone who knew how to make entertaining films, and that the best person for the job was Frank Capra. For his part, Capra was eager to contribute to his country's war effort, and he especially wanted to counter the mood of pessimism and despair he felt had overtaken many people. Capra was made a major in the Signal Corps, the branch of the military that handled training films. He arrived in Washington on February 15, 1942, and immediately faced a power struggle with other officers in the Signal Corps who felt Capra was ill equipped to educate soldiers.

This conflict was resolved by June through the creation of a special unit, the 834th Signal Services Photographic Detachment, which included eight officers and thirty-five enlisted men under Capra's command (by 1943 the staff had grown to 150). Because he did not have a very big budget to work with (the total cost of Capra's films came to only $400,000, which was less than 1 percent of the $50 million the War Department spent on films during the war), Capra realized he was going to have to rely on "found footage." This term referred to film that already had been shot and could be reused, whether it came from newsreels, Allied or enemy propaganda, combat films, or even entertainment films.

Thus Capra was not really the director of these films, because very little new footage was shot. It is more accurate to call him the "executive producer" (the title he used to describe his role), and to give him credit for shaping the films through his expert editing and his choice of content—which was based on guidance from the army and subject to approval by Marshall, the secretary of war, and other high-level officials.

Getting started on Why We Fight

Homesick for his family—wife Lucille, two sons, and a daughter—Capra moved them to the Washington, D.C., area, and he recruited a group of skilled screenwriters from Hollywood to work as "expert consultants" in putting together an effective script (which would be narrated by actor Walter Huston, who had appeared in one of Capra's hit movies). Some of these writers were later dismissed due to fears that they might slip a pro-Communist message into the films. During the Depression, some Americans had turned toward communism as an answer to the nation's problems, but now the tide was turning amid fears that communism threatened the American political system and way of life.

Looking for ideas to inspire him, Capra visited New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), along with Russianborn director Anatole Litvak who had directed films in Germany from 1927 to 1933 and who would work closely with Capra on his war films. They watched all of the Nazi propaganda films in MOMA's collection (the Nazis were Germany's ruling National Socialist Party, headed by Adolf Hitler). The most impressive of these propaganda films was director Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will). This film of the Nazis' 1934 Nuremberg Party Congress presented the event as a grandiose spectacle with music that powerfully underscored all the marching soldiers, speeches, and waving flags.

As quoted in Joseph McBride's biography of the director, Capra emerged with a feeling of dread: "It scared the hell out of me. My first reaction was that we were dead, we couldn't win the war… I sat there and I was a very unhappy man. How can I possibly top this? "

Capra's response was to use these Nazi films to beat them at their own game. In preparing the first film of the Why We Fight series, which would be titled Prelude to War, Capra explained the events leading up to the war in Europe by using parts of Triumph of the Will itself. He also included footage from several other German propaganda films and newsreels. The narration was simply but strongly worded, describing the war as "a common man's life-and-death struggle against those who would put him back into slavery. We lose it—and we lose everything. Our homes, the jobs we go back to, the books we read, the very food we eat, the hopes we have for our kids, the kids themselves—they won't be ours anymore. That's what's at stake. It's us or them. The chips are down."

Prelude to War is a success

Realizing that about 37 percent of the U.S. troops had less than a high school education, Capra felt that he needed to make complex issues simple.Thus the Why We Fight series does not provide much historical analysis of the causes of the war. It also features some stereotypical and insulting references and portrayals (such as saying that Germans were born with a love for harsh discipline and that the Japanese were "blood-crazed") that troubled some critics.

Asked about this issue while speaking to an Ohio film association in 1979, Capra is quoted in McBride's biography as saying that these were not meant to be "hate films," but that some hatred did creep into the dialogue. "At the time there was a need for these films," he said. "I'm glad and I'm proud that I was able to satisfy that need, but now I don't like to see these films because of the memories they bring back."

In July 1942 Capra moved his unit to Hollywood, both to be close to movie industry resources and to avoid the political scene in Washington. In August, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Prelude to War was shown to the troops in October. General Marshall and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945; see entry) wanted the public to see the film, so it was shown in commercial theaters. In March 1943, Prelude to War received an Oscar for best documentary (along with three other war films). The award was given to the army and accepted by Capra.

Despite the acclaim the Why We Fight films received when they were released, there is some question as to whether they really accomplished what they set out to do. A postwar study conducted by the military, based on surveys of soldiers taken during the war, showed that the films did increase the knowledge of events leading up to the war. But they seemed to have little or no effect on the troops' motivation to fight; in some cases they may have even hurt motivation by making the enemy look stronger than previously suspected.

Other war films made by the 834th

In addition to the Why We Fight series, the 834th made ten other propaganda films (including such titles as The Negro Soldier, Your Job In Germany, and Know Your Enemy—Japan). They also produced fifty issues of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine and forty-six installments of the weekly Staff Film Report, which collected classified battle film and other footage to be shown to the president, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-level commanders. In August 1943 Capra turned over the command of the 834th to Litvak and became commanding officer of the Signal Corps' Special Coverage Section. His duties included supervising combat photography. Capra received the Distinguished Service Medal on June 14, 1945.

A creative slowdown after the war

After the war, Capra joined with fellow directors George Stevens and William Wyler to form a new production company, Liberty Films. The company produced only one film, It's a Wonderful Life (1946), starring James Stewart as an extraordinary but profoundly discouraged man who around Christmas is allowed to see what the world would have been like if he had never been born. Although Capra felt that this was his best film yet—and it is probably the Capra film best known to contemporary audiences, due to its widespread Christmas-season appearances on television—it was not popular with the audiences of the period.

By 1950 Capra's most creative years were behind him. His last film was Pocketful of Miracles (1961), a remake of his 1931 film, Lady for a Day. Capra died in 1991, and was succeeded in the film industry by his son, Frank Capra Jr., a film producer, and grandson, Frank Capra III, a director.

Where to Learn More

Books

Bohn, Thomas. An Historical and Descriptive Analysis of the "Why We Fight" Series. New York: Ayer, 1977.

Capra, Frank. The Name above the Title: An Autobiography. New York:Macmillan, 1971.

Carney, Raymond. American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Glatzer, Richard and John Raeburn. Frank Capra: The Man and His Films.Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1974.

McBride, Joseph. Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.

Poague, Leland. The Cinema of Frank Capra: An Approach to Film Comedy.Cranbury, NJ: A. S. Barnes, 1974.

Scherle, Victor and William Levy. The Films of Frank Capra. Secaucus, NJ:Carol Publishing Group, 1977.

Periodicals

Arnold, Gary. "Though More than 60 Years Old, Films of Frank Capra Stay Fresh." Insight on the News (February 9, 1998): 38.

Hollywood Goes to War

Director Frank Capra was not the only member of Hollywood's entertainment community who contributed to the war effort. Most of them stayed at home, using their status as celebrities to help sell war bonds (a way to raise money needed for weapons and other war expenses) and appearing at fund-raising events. Some stars went overseas to entertain the troops, or served in the Hollywood Canteen, one of the entertainment clubs set up for soldiers on leave. Photographs—called "pin-ups"— of female actresses and singers like Betty Grable, Jane Russell, and Marlene Dietrich decorated the bunks of countless soldiers, reminding them of the world they'd left behind.

A few celebrities were among those who actually served in the military and saw action. Others created a soldierly, macho image on the screen but never actually fought (such as John Wayne, who appeared in many war movies but was exempted from military service because he was too old, married, and a father), while a few stayed out of the fighting altogether as conscientious objectors (those who object to war for moral or religious reasons).

Some Who Fought

James Stewart was a popular young actor who had appeared to critical acclaim in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, among other films, when the war started. He enlisted in the Air Corps and became a pilot. First assigned to do a radio show to amuse the forces, Stewart begged to be allowed to go into combat, and finally his wish was granted. Promoted to the rank of captain in July 1943, Stewart went to England to join the 445th Bombing Group, which was flying bombing raids all over Europe. He flew twenty missions and won a number of medals, including a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Movie idol Clark Gable had recently lost his beloved wife Carole Lombard in a plane crash when he joined the army, making some of his admirers wonder if he was so griefstricken that he hoped he'd be killed in the war. After attending officers' training school in Miami Beach, Florida, Gable was recruited by General Hap Arnold to make a film about aerial gunners. He joined the 351st Heavy Bombardment Group, planning to make a movie showing the unit's day-to-day operations. In April 1943, the group was assigned to an air base in England, and Gable began flying on combat missions, earning the respect of the men who flew with him. Gable returned to the United States in December, only to learn that the gunner film had been cancelled.

Audie Murphy's path to wartime fame was the reverse of Stewart's and Gable's. He was a Texas farm boy who enlisted in the army in 1942, when he was eighteen and went on to become the most decorated American soldier of the war. Among Murphy's thirty-seven medals and other decorations was the Medal of Honor, which he earned for fighting off a German infantry company by himself in January 1945. He was said to have killed 241 Germans. After the war, the good-looking Murphy was recruited to become an actor. He appeared in forty-five films, including The Red Badge of Courage (1951) and To Hell and Back (1955), which was based on his own life story. He died in a plane crash in 1971.