\n<\/p>\n
But still, the theatricality of a filibuster \u2014 amplified in an age when we can all watch it on whatever device is handy \u2014 gives the idiosyncratic maneuver some extra oomph. It\u2019s a demonstration of something remarkable about the American system of government. In the film, the CBS newsman notes that among the observers in the packed gallery are representatives from two \u201cdictator powers,\u201d as he puts it, though they remain unnamed. (It is 1939, after all, a time to be circumspect about your politics in Hollywood.) \u201cThey have come here to see what they can\u2019t see at home: democracy in action,\u201d he intones.<\/p>\n
That throwaway line indicates a bit of the film\u2019s history. During production, the Hays Code was in full effect. That censorship mechanism was designed to bar movies that might degrade the morals of the youths \u2014 by, for instance, casting aspersions on law enforcement or American government officials. Initially the screenplay was rejected by the code\u2019s enforcers, though eventually it was approved. When \u201cMr. Smith Goes to Washington\u201d finally reached theaters, critics and audiences tended to like it. The Times named it one of the best films of 1939, with the critic Frank Nugent noting<\/a> that Capra was \u201coperating, of course, under the protection of that unwritten clause in the Bill of Rights entitling every voting citizen to at least one free swing at the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n But not everyone agreed. Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley, a Democrat, said that it \u201cmade the Senate look like a bunch of crooks<\/a>.\u201d Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, father of John and Robert, wired Will B. Hays,<\/a> the keeper of the censorship code, that \u201cto permit this film to be shown in foreign countries and to give people the impression that anything like this could happen in the United States Senate is to me nothing short of criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s become a patriotic classic, for good reason. If \u201cMr. Smith\u201d takes a particularly romantic view of the filibuster, it\u2019s also sneakily realistic. Yes, it has a kind of Hollywood ending, but not an entirely optimistic one: Smith collapses on the floor, surrounded by 50,000 telegrams from constituents who\u2019ve been manipulated by Taylor into demanding an end to his starry-eyed quest. That\u2019s dark.<\/p>\n But filibustering is just good, the movie suggests, to do for its own sake. That\u2019s part of a refrain in much of Capra\u2019s most patriotic work: The point of a democratic system isn\u2019t to line one person\u2019s pockets, but to bolster the good of all. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if behind them they didn\u2019t have a little bit of plain ordinary everyday kindness, and a little looking out for the other fella, too,\u201d Smith says. Up in the gallery are a cadre of men in uniforms that indicate they\u2019re Union veterans of the Civil War as well as World War I \u2014 and they applaud thunderously.<\/p>\n Near the end, Smith once again invokes those \u201clost causes,\u201d which he learned from his father were the only causes worth fighting for because of the rule to love thy neighbor. \u201cIn this world today full of hatred,\u201d he croaks, glaring at Senator Paine, \u201cthe man who knows that one rule has a great trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n