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Film: Mr Smith Goes To Washington

Go ahead; write your Congressman. It really frustrates them.

"Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say, "I'm free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn't, I can, and my children will."

— Jefferson Smith, doing Eagleland proud

A film from 1939, directed by Frank Capra, starring Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, and Claude Rains. One of Capra's greatest works.

A senator dies in the middle of his term, and the state Governor has to pick a replacement. The crooked political machine would like one candidate, but this man is already known to take positions unpopular with the populace of that state; there are petitions to pick a radical for the office.

The Governor decides to Take a Third Option: He picks someone who is highly idealistic but inexperienced in politics, whom he thinks the political machine can keep under control. This person, this new senator, is Mr. Jefferson Smith, his son's Scout Master.

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

Once in Washington, he also meets his chief of staff/secretary—the very beautiful, intelligent Saunders. She does have a heart of gold, but she's an utter cynic.

Now, there is one problem the state machine has with Mr. Jefferson Smith. Mr. Smith has one issue he supports—building/improving a Boy Scout camp by a major river in the state. But one of the main goals of this machine is to dam the river (to produce profit for the machine boss, who owns some of the land), which would wipe out many of the natural attractions Mr. Smith hopes to preserve. So, the senior senator and his secretary have to prevent Mr. Smith from voting against the dam, decoying him away from a session where a crucial preliminary vote on the issue is held by sending him on a date with the senior senator's daughter.

Mr. Smith tries to protest the decision within the Senate, but when he yields the floor to the senior senator of his state, he is framed for ethics violations and it is moved that the Senate should consider expelling him. He almost resigns, but his secretary begs him to fight, asking, what would the Boy Scouts he led before becoming junior senator think of politics if he quit now?

So, he doesn't quit. Instead, he holds a very long filibuster, never yielding the floor, never stopping, reading the Bible and the Constitution and the rules handbook, all to buy time for his supporters to send signs of his support. His supporters—many of them too young to vote—do try to show their support, but the machine is actively fighting them...

Eventually, Bags of Letters do flood in, but the machine has successfully swayed public opinion through the media, and the most of the public is against Smith. He declares his intention to keep on fighting in an impassioned speech about how sometimes lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for, then collapses from exhaustion. Overcome by guilt, the senior senator has a Villainous Breakdown. Smith is vindicated.

Tropes:

Abraham Lincoln: The Lincoln Memorial is an important part of a few scenes.
Adorkable: Mr. Smith himself. Especially when he's around Susan Payne, who he has a crush on at first.
All-Star Cast: Good lord! Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Thomas Mitchell, Harry Carey, Eugene Pallette, Beaulah Bondi, and H.B. Warner.
Affably Evil: Taylor
The All American Boy: Mr. Smith is a perfect grown-up example, as well as all the Boy Rangers.
Artistic License - Law: The filibuster scene. 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). In the movie, the Senate majority and minority leaders can be seen collaborating with each other against Smith, implying that the entire Senate is against him, but somehow powerless to stop him. The movie also specifically shows that the entire Senate is ignoring Smith when he starts his filibuster.
Badass Nickname: Paine is known as "The Silver Knight"
Bags of Letters: Mr. Smith expects his filibuster to sway public opinion in his favor, but he is presented with bags of letters that reveal public opinion has turned against him. The mass of letters almost makes Smith lose hope.
Bastardly Speech:
- Paine's speech near the end is one of the best.
- Taylor criminalizing Mr. Smith using his media machine is basically this trope on a enormous level
Blood On The Debate Floor: Sort of, at the end, when Sen. Smith is dizzy with exhaustion and dehydration after having talked on the floor of the Senate for 24 hours.
Broken Pedestal: Senator Paine
Character Filibuster: Literally. Never before has a political filibuster been so dramatic.
Collapsed Mid Speech: Mr. Smith does this at the climax of the film.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Taylor is a newspaper magnate by trade.
Corrupt Politician: Paine
Country Mouse: Jeff Smith. Many Frank Capra protagonists are in this mold.
The Determinator: Mr. Smith. "You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked. And I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if the room gets filled with lies like these, and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place."
Eagleland: At first glance a Flavor 1, with the idealistic Jefferson Smith visiting the Lincoln Memorial and saying things like the page quote. However, the movie also shows bosses like Taylor owning senators like Paine and manipulating them for their corrupt ends. This pushes the movie closer to the Mixed type.
Embarrassing First Name: Clarissa Saunders.
Expy: The "Boy Rangers", due to the Boy Scouts of America's fierce defense of the use its copyrighted name.
Fainting: Smith collapses of exhaustion during his filibuster
Fallen Hero: Paine, who was once a crusading reformer like Smith's father but at some point in the past sold out to the Taylor machine.
Fanservice
Femme Fatale
The Government
Government Conspiracy
Government Procedural
Guile Hero: Smith
Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: Mr. Smith, thanks to Taylor's attempt at character assassination. However, when he sees that Sen. Payne is willing to perjure himself, he storms out of the room without saying anything.
Heads Tails Edge
Heel Face Turn: Sen. Paine; see Villainous Breakdown below.
Hero with Bad Publicity: Smith's approval ratings drop heavily in his home state during the filibuster
Heroic RROD: One of the most epic examples. In the climax he literally speaks his heart out, over the course of it his voice gets fainter, he grows stubble, and his gets paler than even Black and White movie standards. He never gives up, but his body does when he passes out.
Holding the Floor: Maybe the most iconic example in fiction. Articles about filibuster reform in the United States feature pictures of James Stewart a lot.
Hot And Cold: Saunders. She warms up to Mr. Smith over the course of the story.
I Did Not Say That Mr. Payne Was One Of The Men In That Room
- "I was in that room!"
Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Jefferson Smith.
Interrupted Suicide: Offscreen with Sen. Paine—we hear a gunshot and cut to Paine, who is having a gun wrested from his hands.
Intrepid Reporter: Diz
Just in Time
Meaningful Name: Jefferson Smith is named after a Founding Father, Paine is morally conflicted, and Taylor shapes politics to his own designs. The latter gets lampshaded:
Saunders: Public opinion made to order.
Diz: Yeah, Taylor-made.
The Mole: The secretary, sort of.
Nice Guy: Jeff Smith.
No Party Given: Though given that the President and all but two West Coast Senators were Democrats, Smith and Paine are most likely Democrats.
Noble Demon: Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine
Nobody Poops: Smith's filibuster lasts 26 consecutive hours, during which he cannot sit down or leave the room. There are certain bodily functions that cannot be delayed for 26 hours. In Real Life, Strom Thurmond had to purposefully dehydrate himself for a full day in a sauna before his record-breaking filibuster (24 hours, 18 minutes against the 1957 Civil Rights Act) so that he would not have to go to the bathroom, and, at one point, even forced a page to hold a bucket outside the Senate while he pissed in it... one foot still on the Senate floor.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: Congress itself is described like this.
Paparazzi: The D.C. press. Justified, because they are very cynical about politics.
The Plan
Platonic Life Partners: Diz and Saunders
Post Victory Collapse: happens a little earlier than Jeff would have liked.
Propaganda Machine: Taylor has a fearsome one. It is easy to forget, in this modern media age, how owning a couple of radio stations and a newspaper or two could at one time allow an individual to control the public discourse in a rural area, at least for a short time. Although since almost all of American media is now owned by five companies, it seems kind of quaint that it was only a small area he was controlling.
Reasonable Authority Figure: The Vice President
Scout Out: The "Boy Rangers" after the Boy Scouts of America refused to participate.
Sesquipedalian Smith: Jefferson Smith
Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Ultimately mostly idealistic, although Smith has to lose a lot of his naivet� along the way. Or, to put it another way, idealistic about American values and cynical about American politicians.
Strawman News Media: Type 1!
Throwing Out The Script: A Capra staple trope.
Take a Third Option: The Governor's selection of Mr Smith.
Unwitting Pawn: The idea is that Smith will be a placeholder until the Taylor machine can elect one of its own people.
Villainous Breakdown: Paine, after Jeff collapses. "Expel me! Not that boy! I'm not fit to be a Senator! I'm not fit to live!"
Washington DC
We Need a Distraction
Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The state represented by Senator Jefferson Smith is not named. (Though it's supposed to be Montana.)
Wingding Eyes: Mentioned by Saunders. "Look, when I came here, my eyes were big blue question marks. Now they're big green dollar marks."
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Dear Wide Eyed Jefferson Smith.
Would Hurt a Child: Taylor's thugs. They deliberately crash into a car full of Boy Rangers trying to deliver their own newspaper in support of Smith.