Frank Capra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Categories: Pages needing expert attention | Uncategorized pages needing expert attention | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | American film directors | Best Director Academy Award winners | Republicans (United States) | Best Director Golden Globe winners | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Propaganda film directors | California Institute of Technology alumni | Recipients of Distinguished Service Medal | American Roman Catholics | Italian immigrants to the United States | Naturalized citizens of the United States | Sicilian-Americans | Italian-American film directors | People from the Province of Palermo | 1897 births | 1991 deaths | American military personnel of World War II | United States Army officers
This article is about the film director. For Frank Capra's son, the film studio executive, see Frank Capra, Jr. For Frank Capra, Jr.'s son, the associate director, see Frank Capra III.
Frank Capra (18 May 1897 – 3 September 1991) was an Academy Award winning Italian-American film director and a major creative force behind a number of highly popular films of the 1930s and 1940s, including It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, among others.
Early lifeBorn Francesco Rosario Capra in Italy, Sicily, Capra moved to the United States in 1903 with his father Salvatore, his mother Rosaria Nicolosi and his siblings Giuseppa, Giuseppe, and Antonia. In California they met up with Benedetto Capra, (the oldest sibling) and settled in Los Angeles, California, where, in 1918, Frank Capra graduated from Throop Institute (later renamed the California Institute of Technology) with a B.S. degree in chemical engineering. On October 18, 1918, he joined the United States Army. While at the Presidio, he got Spanish influenza and was discharged on December 13. In 1920, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States, registering his name as Frank Russell Capra. Film careerLike other prominent directors of the 1930s and '40s, Capra began his career in silent films, initially as a "prop man" and worked his way up to the director's chair.[1] notably by directing and writing silent film comedies starring Harry Langdon and the Our Gang kids. In 1930 Capra went to work for Mack Sennett and then moved to Columbia Pictures where he formed a close association with screenwriter Robert Riskin (husband of Fay Wray) and cameraman Joseph Walker. In 1940, however, Sidney Buchman replaced Riskin as writer. For the 1934 film It Happened One Night, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were originally offered the roles, but each felt that the script was poor, and Loy described it is one of the worst she had ever read, later noting that the final version bore little resemblance to the script she and Montgomery were offered.[2]After Loy, Miriam Hopkins and Margaret Sullavan also each rejected the part.[3] Constance Bennett wanted to, but only if she could produce it herself. Then Bette Davis wanted the role,[4] but she was under contract with Warner Brothers and Jack Warner refused to loan her to Columbia Studios.[5] Capra was unable to get any of the actresses he wanted for the part of Ellie Andrews, partly because no self-respecting star would make a film with only two costumes.[6] Harry Cohn suggested Claudette Colbert to play the lead role. Both Capra and Clark Gable enjoyed making the movie, Colbert did not. After the 1934 film It Happened One Night, Capra directed a steady stream of films for Columbia intended to be inspirational and humanitarian. The best known are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the original Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life. His ten-year break from screwball comedy ended with the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace. Among the actors who owed much of their early success to Capra were Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant and Donna Reed. Capra credited Jean Arthur as "my favorite actress". Capra's films in the 1930s enjoyed success at the Academy Awards. It Happened One Night was the first film to win all five top Oscars, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. In 1936, Capra won his second Best Director Oscar for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and in 1938 he won his third Best Director Oscar in just five years for You Can't Take It with You which also won Best Picture. In addition to his three directing wins, Capra received directing nominations for three other films (Lady for a Day, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life). He was also host of the 8th Academy Awards ceremony on March 5, 1936. World War IIBetween 1942 and 1948, when he produced State of the Union, Capra also directed or co-directed eight war documentaries including Prelude to War (1942), The Nazis Strike (1942), The Battle of Britain (1943), Divide and Conquer (1943), Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), Tunisian Victory (1945) and Two Down and One to Go (1945), as well as produced the African-American targeted The Negro Soldier (1944). His Academy Award-winning documentary series, Why We Fight, is widely considered a masterpiece of propaganda. Capra was faced with the task of convincing an isolationist nation to enter the war, desegregate the troops, and ally with the Russians, among other things. Capra would regard these films as his most important work, see them as his way to counter German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's films, in particular Triumph of the Will. Prelude to War won the 1942 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. 
PostwarAlthough It's a Wonderful Life (1946) was initially considered a box office disappointment, it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Sound Recording and Best Editing. The film gained a second life on television, where for a number of years it was shown multiple times during the Christmas season. A lapse in its copyright protection caused the film to appear to fall into the public domain, and TV stations believed they were allowed to show it without paying royalties. With the new exposure, It's a Wonderful Life became a Christmas classic. Even though the copyright on the film itself lapsed, it was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of all the other copyrighted material used to produce the film such as the script, music, etc. whose copyrights were renewed. In 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend (which involved the movie Rear Window) to enforce its claim of copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, it was a derivative work of various works that were still copyrighted. As a result, the film is no longer shown as much on television (NBC is currently the only network licensed to show the film on U.S. network television). The American Film Institute named it one of the best films ever made, putting it at the top of the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers, a list of what AFI considers to be the most inspirational American movies of all time. The film also appeared in another AFI Top 100 list: it placed at 11th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list of the top American films. Capra's final theatrical film was 1961's Pocketful of Miracles, with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis. He had planned to do a science fiction film later in the decade but never even got around to pre-production. Capra did end up producing several science-related television specials for the Bell Telephone System, such as "The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays." Capra films usually carry a definite message about the basic goodness of human nature and show the value of unselfishness and hard work. His wholesome, feel-good themes have led his works to be called, by some, "Capra-corn." However, many others who see the positive aspects of Capra's works prefer the term, "Capraesque." It may be argued that much of the 'feel-good' type of cinema that has somewhat become a genre of its own, for better or for worse, is largely Frank Capra's legacy.[citation needed] Capra in the mediaIn 1971, Capra published his autobiography, The Name Above the Title. Uncompromising in its details, it offers a compelling self-portrait. It is, however, not considered to be entirely reliable as regards dates and facts; one commentator asserts that it "appears to have been a lie practically from beginning to end".[7] Capra was also the subject of a 1991 biography by Joseph McBride entitled Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success. McBride challenges many of the impressions left by Capra's autobiography. Death and legacyFrank Capra died in La Quinta, California of a heart attack in his sleep in 1991 at the age of 94. He was interred in the Coachella Valley Cemetery in Coachella, California. He left part of his 1,100-acre (4 km²) ranch in Fallbrook, California to Caltech.[8] His son Frank Capra, Jr. — one of the three children born to Capra's second wife, Lou Capra — was the president of EUE Screen Gems Studios, in Wilmington, North Carolina until his death on 19 December 2007. Frank Capra's grandson is Frank Capra III. AFI 100 Years... series
United States National Film Registry
Filmography
Quotes
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
