Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) on Netflix
After a senator dies, Governor Hubert Hopper appoints Jefferson Smith, head of the Boy Rangers, to the vacant seat. Smith's plan for a national boys' camp runs into a political machine.
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- IMDb8.1/10130,497 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Senator Sam Foley dies, and Governor Hubert Hopper of a western state must fill the vacant seat. Political boss Jim Taylor wants a man of his own chosen, but Hopper names Jefferson Smith, head of the Boy Rangers, expecting a newcomer with no experience in politics to be easy to manage. In Washington, Smith is taken under the wing of Senator Joseph Paine, a friend of his late father and a childhood hero, while the press treats the earnest appointee as a yokel. His secretary, Clarissa Saunders, has spent years in the city's politics and has little patience for him. To keep Smith occupied, Paine suggests he propose a bill, and Smith settles on a government loan that would let boys across the country buy land for a national camp.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was banned in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Franco's Spain, while in the Soviet Union it was released in cinemas under the title The Senator.
- U.S. Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy wrote to Frank Capra and Columbia chief Harry Cohn urging that the film be pulled from European release, fearing it would damage "America's prestige in Europe."
- Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley publicly called the film "silly and stupid" and a "grotesque distortion" of the Senate; he would ironically go on to serve as U.S. Vice President himself between 1949 and 1953.
- When a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France in 1942, some theaters showed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as the last film before the ban went into effect; one Paris theater owner reportedly screened it nonstop for 30 days after the ban was announced.
- The Boy Scouts of America refused to let their name be used in the film, so the screenwriters invented the fictional youth group "Boy Rangers" instead.
- Joseph Breen, head of the Hays Office, warned the studios the story "might well be loaded with dynamite" and objected to its "generally unflattering portrayal of our system of Government", which he feared could be taken at home and abroad as "a covert attack on the Democratic form of government".
- In 2025, Senator Cory Booker's marathon Senate floor speech lasted 25 hours and 5 minutes, roughly matching the length of Jefferson Smith's fictional filibuster in the film.
