ABSTRACT
American film was deeply involved and reactive both to the Depression and to FDR and his “New Deal.” Warner Bros in particular produced a number of films that confronted the ordeal of the disenfranchised and beaten. Other studios and other filmmakers faced the Depression with different styles and different politics. The most famous was Frank Capra, whose populist films of the 1930s traced the Depression from the run on the banks in American Madness to the growth of a native fascism in Meet John Doe. As always in Capra’s films, it’s the “little guy” who wins out, but not without considerable suspense as to how this winning might occur. It sometimes appears, as in Meet John Doe, where the suicide of the main character appears all but inevitable until the last moment, and especially in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, that Capra and his writers are unsure about how to end their films.
