Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

1936 Directed by Frank Capra

Rocking America with laughter!

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

Gary Cooper Jean Arthur George Bancroft Lionel Stander Douglass Dumbrille Raymond Walburn H.B. Warner Ruth Donnelly Walter Catlett John Wray Stanley Andrews Irving Bacon Hank Bell Billy Bevan Spencer Charters Dora Clement Gino Corrado George Cooper Cecil Cunningham Emma Dunn Mary Lou Dix Ann Doran Muriel Evans Bess Flowers Charles K. French Edward Gargan George 'Gabby' Hayes Arthur Hoyt Paul Hurst Show All…

Alternative Titles

O Galante Mr. Deeds, El secreto de vivir, Mister Deeds geht in die Stadt, De wonderlijke Mr. Deeds, Г-н Дийдс отива в града, Úzasná událost, En gentleman kommer til byen, Mr. Deeds tulee kaupunkiin, L'extravagant Mr Deeds, O prigips ton dollarion, 디즈 씨 도시로 가다, 천금을 마다한 사나이, Во власти доллара, En gentleman kommer till stan

drama comedy romance

115 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by brat pitt ★★★★ 5

many world problems would be solved if we simply transferred Bezos’s extreme wealth to fictional 1936 himbo Mr. Deeds. it’s really that easy
Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★ 2

Mr. Deeds is a good guy who just wants to play his tuba and these rich jerks keep railroading him!
Review by Sam Van Hallgren ★★★★★

I totally dig the sincerity of the movie; but what really gets me with these Capra pictures are the moments. The shot of Cooper playing with his shoe when he makes a late night phone call to Arthur cause he can't stop thinking of her. The looooooong silence that follows the revelation that Arthur has betrayed him. The way Arthur's editor musses up her hair when she gives her notice. Cooper not only sliding down the railing of his fancy new house - but tickling the foot of the statue at the bottom of the staircase. Just heaven.
The hypocrisy and cynicism of the rich and (over)-educated wasn't really resonating with my six year old; but he stuck with it and was really moved by the ending. Me, too.
Review by matt lynch ★★★½ 1

Gary Cooper as socialist Batman.
Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 4

“Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” is a portrait of Americana rendered in a thin watercolour of a narrative. But the soul of the creation itself — is powerfully divine.
In a somewhat reductive narrative to the superior “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” director Frank Capra riffs on the concept of a displaced country boy in “Deeds.” A moral man in the midst of immorality - Mr. Deeds, like Mr. Smith, seems lost in the modern world.
But — he isn’t actually lost at all. And this is why Capra’s messaging evades preachiness and remains transcendent all these years later. While Deeds and Smith almost appear to be singular saints, they are revealed not as outliers to society, but emblematic of…
Review by eely ★★★★ 1

gary cooper writing jean arthur a poem about how she’s an angel on earth and then running away as fast as he can after she reads it and knocking over garbage cans and tripping over the sidewalk in the process is the most wholesome thing I have ever seen.
also he just straight SOCKS anyone who’s mean to him in the face and takes zero shit from anybody in this movie and i live for it. he’s beauty, he’s grace, he’s going to punch you in the face.
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½

Crowded with the conventional trademarks of a Frank Capra movie, Mr Deeds Goes to Town is a romantic comedy on how the decent and upstanding manner of one person can influence others in constructive ways. Based on author Clarence Budington Kelland’s 1935 short story Opera Hat, and with the layout of bringing a countryside resident and placing them in a big city environment is an aged storyline, this being one of them, watching the confrontation of society sophistication somehow remains timeless.
Gary Cooper brings about an excellent portrayal of Mr Longfellow Deeds, providing a natural intelligence and the sense of honesty which the character’s delivery requires. It all comes alive on the screen with the direction of Capra and the…
Review by Cormac 👑 ★★★★ 5

Do what you know to be the right thing. So what if you’ll look a little silly in the process. And fuck lawyers.
Capra is my kind of filmmaker. And what’s more, seemingly my kind of human. I’m a sucker for his screwy idealism and golden age sensibilities. I look to him as a name that embodies most everything I love about classic cinema, and this so-obviously-of-the-thirties work of genuine goodness is a marker for that time machine slash comfort watch I so adore. And Gary Cooper. Oh my God, Gary Cooper. So wonderful here as this tuba-playing country bumpkin, a character initially arriving with the vibe of a Jimmy-Stewart-type-beat but fast evolving into his own quirkily deadpan turn, funnier…
Review by russman ★★★½

When something is pixelated, I found that blowing into the cartridge usually works
Review by ChrisCarr1 ★★★★

I'm far from the first person to say it, but it is really remarkable that someone with such a confused political ideology like Frank Capra could create some of the most moving social commentaries of his generation, just by being better than everyone else. Capra can condense the kind of exposition that would take most other directors ten minutes into a thirty second montage, as he does with the film's brilliant opening sequence. He creates moments like the Deed's hangover conversation or the echo scene and manages to ingratiate a viewer with his characters to the point that overt sentimentality becomes a net positive.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a better version of this story. Capra's ire just feels…
Review by Channing Pomeroy ★★★★

I look at Mr Deeds as a twist on the doppelgänger, evil twin, Jekyll & Hyde trope. Mr Deeds represents the best part of us, the part we wish was larger. The part that rides banisters, jumps firetrucks. The part that thinks the best about others, gives without hoping for anything in return, what Jesus meant when he said you must become like little children enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Mr Hyde side of the character is me the viewer: self-centered and cynical, quick to judge others unfavorably or think they’re crazy, to keep donuts for myself rather than feed them to a horse, and the part that’s too afraid or selfish to give until it hurts to others who…
Review by phoebe 💫 ★★★½

I would like to thank all the cynical wise-cracking lady journalists of the 30s and 40s for raising me. It wasn’t your fault I turned out to be an idealistic paranoid!

Recent reviews

Review by Taylor Jones ★★★½

Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper doing "Swanee River" will at least get me through my week.
It's as manipulative as one might expect from a Capra film, but I find I can easily get behind "common man" messaging if it's effective enough. For all the probably unprecedented marketing Columbia gave Capra, it's easy to miss that screenwriter Robert Riskin is as much an auteur on his successes---arguably moreso, given that he was the only one of the duo who actually supported the New Deal.
The ending courtroom scene bogs the production down considerably---the film had already well-established Cooper's wholesome bonafides at this point that literally putting him on trial for his decency is just an unnecessary gesture for the cheap seats. The denouement did not have to go in that direction; indeed, it was pointing toward reconciliation between Cooper and Arthur. Yet, it gave me goosebumps on a dreary January day, so I'm plenty fine recommending this one.
Review by Kaitlyn

still find the final courtroom scene so boring but ❤️✨jean arthur✨❤️
Review by Gabriel Guarin ★★★★

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is typical Capra through and through, but it's so sincere in its emotions that it's hard to dislike it. It taps into the inner populist in everyone. Jean Arthur is queen!
Review by Blake ★★★★

Enjoyed this quite immensely. Need to now watch Sandler's "re-make" again. Co-worker says it holds up, but I feel like this is the one that holds up better, though maybe I'm just pixilated.
Review by Bill Baker ★★★

Capra is perhaps the greatest of the American mythmakers, that is, makers of the American myth, as much for his idealized heroes as for his institutional villains. Jimmy Stewart (George Bailey, Mr. Smith) and Gary Cooper (Mr. Deeds, John Doe) embody so well the American innocent, the true believer in the principles set forth in the founding documents of the nation, that we want to love and respect them, along with Donna Reed, Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Arthur. But it is the villainous capitalists, the bankers, politicians, media tycoons and lawyers played by Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold and Douglas Dumbrille, that give these films their complexity and longevity. These are the characters that still resonate today, nearly 75 years later. In these cynical times, it is hard to believe in the Stewart and Cooper characters (although we want to), but the corrupt characters are as familiar as today's headlines.
Review by Havac ★

A rural simpleton inherits a fortune and proves surprisingly decisive and commonsensical, foiling the crooked businessmen who want to keep control of his money, but also being roundly mocked by the newspapers, including the pretty reporter who goes undercover by seducing him. Of course, she falls for his upstanding ways, he gets sidetracked by the money but returns to his plan to give it away, and it ends up in a court battle. It’s a rather superficial Depression fantasy, truth be told. Deeds is too rough-edged and nebulous a character to really work — he’s just a big ball of common-man tropes, a nice guy who enjoys punching people — and would need a Jimmy Stewart to pull off his saintliness; Gary Cooper just seems uncomfortable. It’s just too clumsy a fantasy.
Review by MovieMstermindd ★★★★★ 2

The world isn’t cut out for people like Mr Deeds, we are quick to call anybody who’s devoid of selfishness abnormal or insane when they’re truly the most sane of us all. This felt like a far more developed 'Miracle on 34th Street' without the Christmas themes of course, I’m just referring to the story similarities such as the final act being a light courtroom drama where the protagonist’s sanity is put to test simply because they were kind to people. Gary Cooper was incredible, he was really convincing, Jean Arthur was also lovely, any film that can make me dislike her character for even the smallest period of time has to be a powerful one. Beautiful film, not a…
Review by Pelin ★★★★★

mr. deeds the og simp
Review by Noah

"Last night, after I left you, I was walking 'long and looking at the tall buildings and I got to thinking about what Thoreau said: they created a lot of grand palaces here but they forgot to create the noblemen to put in them." - Longfellow Deeds
"While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings." - Henry David Thoreau
"'Every man a king.' Every man to eat when there is something to eat; all to wear something when there is something to wear. That makes us all a sovereign." - Huey Long
Review by hkramer ★★★★

Great performance by Gary Cooper; his soulful eyes really sell the depth to the character beyond being a naïve loser. There's something to be said about the undercurrent of anger that runs through him as well; he's quick to violence in a way that never seems menacing. I loved the supporting turn by Lionel Stander. Capra is able to walk the line between genuinely moving material and schmaltz better than any other director I could name. Oh and Jean Arthur rules.
Review by kevin041 ★★★½

Capra can almost bring you to tears watching a homeless man eat a hearty meal. Cooper is one of the most effective of Capra's protagonists. The film does wander into “Capra-Corn” territory near the end, but not enough to ruin the film’s impact.
Review by mika ★★★★

that drawn-out, silent shot of deeds after he puts the phone down—the way we see every emotion play out on his face before he dissolves into complete heartbreak—is why i love the movies.