Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

utgard14 Frank Capra classic about a good-natured small town man named Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) who inherits a fortune and finds himself surrounded by opportunists in the big city. Iconic role for Gary Cooper, who's in his element playing an upright, unassuming guy who gets a crash course in the cynical ways of the world. Jean Arthur, charming and lovely as ever, is splendid as the reporter covering Deeds, at first intent on making fun of him like he's a country bumpkin, only to find herself gradually falling in love with him. As usual with Frank Capra's movies, the supporting cast is made up of excellent character actors like George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Ruth Donnelly, Douglas Dumbrille, and H.B. Warner. A delightful jewel in the crown of Capra, one of my favorite directors and one who is sadly all-too-often dismissed by film snobs. This is a great one that definitely belongs in the "they don't make 'em like this anymore" category. See the crappy Adam Sandler remake for proof of that.

spooky-mulder1013 *** This review may contain spoilers ***Capra just knew how to do it. The 30s were his decade, and by the end of it, he had 3 Academy Awards to call his own (and may even have won one more for Mr Smith, if it wasn't for Gone with the Wind). Everything about this movie is perfect. The pacing, the dialogue, the acting, the plot.Gary Cooper is wonderful as the idealistic small town tuba player who inherits a small fortune and has to move to the big city, where he'll soon become ''the victim of every conniving crook in town''. Like most of Capra's heroes, he's a playful man-child who slides down bannisters, chases fire engines and grins on hearing echoes. And although he's not as naive as the lawyer Mr Cedar initially hopes, he's genuinely confused by the cynic attitudes of the people around him. Cooper plays beautifully, is convincingly bashful, funny and heartbroken over the course of the film, and really deserved his Academy Award (the close-up of Longfellow's reaction on hearing of Babe's betrayal is especially praiseworthy).But having said that, Jean Arthur's performance is equally brilliant as the cynic reporter who worms her way into Deeds's confidence and writes insulting articles about the ''Cinderella Man'' behind his back, only to fall in love with him herself. Babe's transformation is utterly credible, and beautifully done, so you can't help but root for her in the end.The rest of the cast is superb too, of course, particularly Lionel Stander, George Bancroft and Ruth Donnelly.Mr Deeds is Capra's first film where he consciously tries to bring across his ideas to the public, ideas which champion the little man, the insignificant man, the individualist.I first saw this at the age of 14, and it just blew me away, because it's just so much more sophisticated than the majority of the comedies produced today (although Mr Deeds can't really be classified as just a comedy – that's another wonderful thing about it.) Anyway, it was this film that got me into all the classics of the 30s and 40s, and then eventually, into all kinds of films in general.

Sergeant_Tibbs Well, I'll go ahead and admit it, I used to have a soft spot for Adam Sandler's remake in 2002. It was amusing at the time and an introduction to a few good things like Steve Buscemi and John Turturro. I didn't realize how close it was to Frank Capra's original, nearly 70 years earlier, in all the near trivial detail. It's A Wonderful Life is enough for me to call myself a Capra fan, and his sense of feel-good storytelling is ideal for this timeless small town boy in the big city story. While Mr. Deeds Goes To Town does still have its dated parts, particularly in the camera choices, stage like sets and strange reactions (either under reactions or over reactions), the great script ties it all together. Gary Cooper can be more stoic than his role requires but his chemistry with Jean Arthur makes it all worth it. But what makes the film truly interesting is the final points on mental illness and the reaction to carelessly throwing the labels around. Now it appears to be the fashion, it's interesting to see this debated nearly 80 years ago. And its final points on what people do when they think makes the film all the more human and all the more timeless.8/10

bigverybadtom Longfellow Deeds is a single man living in a small town during the Great Depression, though he is doing all right thanks to his careers in a local tallow factory, as well as a commercial verse writer for advertisements and greeting cards, and he also plays tuba for the town band. A group of lawyers comes to visit him to tell him that he had inherited a $20 million fortune from a rich uncle, while his other nephew inherits nothing. Deeds is indifferent to inheriting the fortune, but follows the lawyers to New York City.Once there, he is overwhelmed by the trappings of wealth his late uncle had had, but he proves a quick study. He gets suspicious of people who demand money from him and fails to fall into traps that treacherous people set for him. All except for one set by a female newspaper reporter whom he falls in love with...The movie provides laughs without losing sight of its subject matter, and all performances are topnotch, especially by the actor who plays Cobb, a genuinely loyal employee of Deeds. The story may be fiction, but there are plenty of real life stories of people who have received fortunes only to come to grief by them.