History Film / MrSmithGoesToWashington

* TheCoatsAreOff: When recieving crucial phone calls, Saunders became so agitated, that she promptly took her jacket off.

* CharacterActionTitle

* TheGovernment

* GovernmentProcedural

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Paine suggests that Smith compose a bill about that boys' camp he wanted to build to get him out of his hair momentarily. This bill proposal winds up [[ForWantOfANail inadvertently exposing Smith to Taylor and his political machine's plans to build a dam in the same area]], which backfires on Paine in a ''big'' way.

* StrawmanNewsMedia: Type 1!

* PaperTiger: The press corps call Jefferson Smith a "Christmas tiger" to his face, telling him that he was only appointed to fill a seat in the Senate and vote the way Senator Payne wants him to, which chafes the idealistic young senator. A Christmas tiger is a Japanese bobblehead toy, a ''hariko no tora''. It's usually made of papier-mache. They were called that likely because they were popular in the U.S. as Christmas presents or decorations.[[note]]Esso (Exxon) actually gave them out as premiums for Christmas a few years before this film was made.[[/note]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mr_smith_goes_to_washington_1595.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: When someone asks you to write a letter to your Senator, do it. It works. They get really agitated.]]

!! Tropes:

[-[[caption-width-right:350: When someone asks you to write a letter to your Senator, do it. It works. They get really agitated.]]-]

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/MrDeedsGoesToTown'', another Frank Capra movie in which a rube from the sticks gets taken advantage of by urban sophisticates, until he rises to the occasion. Also, both films feature Jean Arthur as the cynical girl who exploits the hero before falling for him. This wasn't a coincidence--the original idea was for this to be a sequel to ''Mr. Deeds Goes To Town''. After the filmmakers couldn't get Creator/GaryCooper, they revised the story and changed the main character's name.

* MaybeEverAfter: Saunders and Jeff, although given how much she obviously adores him one might presume that TheyDo.

Fun fact: Jean Arthur had an imbalanced profile. She believed that she was much prettier from her left side than her right, and a lot of Hollywood people agreed. Watch her scenes in this movie and note how she's almost always shot from the left.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Look, Claude Rains was fantastic in this movie (and he was basically unrecognizable under the hair and makeup), but really, did he even try to sound American?
** His speech is passable as the Mid-Atlantic accent used by old-time American actors (and politicians -- you can hear Lee Pace use it as Fernando Wood in ''Film/{{Lincoln}}''). This often sounds FakeBrit or even real Brit to modern listeners.

James Stewart was already a man on the rise in Hollywood after his turn in the previous year's ''Theatre/YouCantTakeItWithYou'', but this move made him one of the leading stars of his day.

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: By the end of the movie, Smith is barely standing, public opinion has been turned against him in his own state, his newspaper has been shut down by Taylor's goons, and he's about to face expulsion. But even then, he stands his ground.

* {{Adorkable}}: Jefferson Smith

* AffectionateParody: In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Creator/MelGibson attempts to do a remake of the film, which is revised by Homer to conclude with Mr. Smith doing an action-movie style CurbStompBattle wiping out the entire Senate.

A film from 1939, directed by Creator/FrankCapra, with an AllStarCast that included [[Creator/JimmyStewart James Stewart]], Creator/JeanArthur, Creator/ClaudeRains, Creator/EdwardArnold, and Creator/ThomasMitchell. One of Capra's greatest works, maybe the best movie Stewart ever made.

[[caption-width-right:350: When someone asks you to write a letter to your Senator, do it. It works. They get really agitated.]]

** The whole premise starts with the governor unsure of who to appoint, and when using a coin flip to choose between his two top choices, the coin rolls under a piece of furniture, so he forgets the whole thing and decides to choose Smith, an extremely inexperienced but reputable person who is (presumably) malleable to his corrupt needs. However, given the ambition for lower politicians to take opportunities to move up in the political world, the governor picking someone out of the blue with absolutely no political experience or ambition would be met with extreme uproar among the state's politicians, especially those who wanted the spot. While ambitious politicians can tolerate losing a spot to another politician, losing it to someone like Smith would not be tolerated, even among many voters.

** Smith is able to sustain his filibuster by reading the entire United States Constitution. In reality, the Constitution (particularly around 1939) is not long enough to sustain 24 hours worth of reading.

* {{Adorkable}}: Mr. Smith himself. Especially when he's around Susan Paine, who he has a crush on at first.

A film from 1939, directed by Creator/FrankCapra, with an AllStarCast that included [[Creator/JimmyStewart James Stewart]], Creator/JeanArthur, Creator/ClaudeRains, Edward Arnold, and Creator/ThomasMitchell. One of Capra's greatest works, maybe the best movie Stewart ever made.

* BigBadDuumvirate: Senator Joseph Paine and James Taylor.

Mr. Smith gets to meet his idol, the other senator for his state, Senator Paine. Sen. Paine did great things for the state many years ago and he was a personal friend of Smith's father. He's controlled by the machine now, unfortunately, but Mr. Smith isn't really aware of the machine yet.

* BanOnPolitics: Despite being a film ''about'' politics, it studiously avoids any potentially polarizing details such as party affiliations, hot-button issues, or even what state the senators are from -- they refer to "his state" or "that state". The words "Republican" or "Democrat" are never so much as alluded to; the most we get is a glimpse of "the majority leaders" and "the minority leaders." (As for {{applicability}}... let's [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment not go there.]])

* ArtisticLicenseLaw:
** The filibuster scene. The film makes it perfectly clear that no one in the Senate supports Smith--all of them walk out and he has to issue a quorum call to bring them back. Between 1919 and 1975, a filibuster could be stopped by a vote of two-thirds majority of all senators present (after 1975, it was changed to three-fifths of all total senators: 60).