Florida Chautauqua Film Festival

The Movie Magic of Frank Capra

Join us on the red carpet and be part of a new tradition as the first annual Florida Chautauqua Film Festival is launched with a special tribute to legendary director Frank Capra.

Frank Capra (b. 1887-d. 1991) arrived as an immigrant from Italy with his family in 1903. His love for the opportunities that America offered the world was to become an undergirding theme in his works. His motion pictures reflected the social conditions of the day. Capra was a populist and by using simple narrative structures, he created a mythical America of simple archetypes that appealed to the elemental emotions of the audience.

Actor and local culture critic Bruce Collier will share insights into Capra's life and work prior to the screening of "It Happened One Night" - the first movie to be shown at the Chautauqua Theatre in 40 years!

Florida Chautauqua Film Festival Featured Presentations

All showings are presented in the Florida Chautauqua Theatre.

It Happened One Night Thursday, 7:00 pm

(1934) Directed by Frank Capra. Written by Robert Riskin. Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly. (105 min.)

One of the most popular romances ever filmed, this movie brought accolades and Academy Awards to both of its stars as well as an Academy Award to Capra for direction and for Best Picture. Ellie Andrews has just tied the knot with society aviator King Westley when she is whisked away to her father's yacht and out of King's clutches. Ellie jumps ship and eventually winds up on a bus headed back to her husband. Reluctantly she must accept the help of out-of-work reporter Peter Warne. Actually, Warne doesn't give her any choice: either she sticks with him until he gets her back to her husband, or he'll blow the whistle on Ellie to her father. Either way, Peter gets what (he thinks!) he wants .... a really juicy newspaper story.

American Madness Friday, 1:00 pm

(1932) Directed by Frank Capra. Written by Robert Riskin. Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson (75 min.)

After the Crash and before the New Deal, Americans were leery of the imploding financial system. Walter Huston is folksy banker Tom Dickson, making loans on character rather than collateral. A run on the bank tests his character, as it would later test George Bailey's in It's a Wonderful Life. American Madness began as a screenplay called Faith, by Robert Riskin, the only original one (not adapted from another source) he did for director Frank Capra. He probably based his leading character on one or both of the Giannini Brothers whose Bank of America prided itself on loaning to the underdogs more conventional bankers disdained. In 1930 A.P Giannini told Congress, "The little fellow is the best customer that a bank can have, because he is with you. He starts in with you and stays to the end. Whereas the big fellow is only with you so long as he can get something out of you; and when he cannot, he is not for you anymore." The year before, his bank had fought off a hostile takeover, but not before triggering a run much like that in American Madness. The film is a tribute to an American spirit, all but forgotten, which recovers itself in times of real crisis.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Saturday, 1:00 pm

(1936) Directed by Frank Capra. Written by Robert Riskin. Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft (115 min.)

A small town Vermonter who writes cornball poetry and chases fire engines comes into a $20 million inheritance and ponders what a rich man ought to do in the Depression. Dreamy Longfellow Deeds seems to care more for his tuba than slightly corrupt newshound Babe Bennett, but sanity will prevail. "If Mr. Deeds seems Capra's best film, perhaps it is also because it is the only one with both Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur." (Gerald Mast). Riskin thought the inheritance the most interesting part of the plot, "which evolved into a symbol of economic disparity, while Deeds was fleshed out, made colorful and sympathetic--at once a rube and almost a saint--and his idiosyncratic behavior given logic and motivation…The screenwriter, who believed in Deeds, made him as true and vivid and unforgettable a figure as has ever been put on film." (McGilligan). Novelist Graham Greene, then a movie reviewer for The Spectator, thought Mr. Deeds Capra's best film. "I do not think anyone can watch Mr. Deeds for long without being aware of a technician as great as Frank Capra employed on a theme which profoundly moves him: the theme of goodness and simplicity manhandled in a deeply selfish and brutal world."