Frank Capra

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Capra
Born: May 18, 1897
Italy Bisacquino, Sicily, Italy
Died: September 3, 1991
La Quinta, California, USA
Occupation: Film director
Spouse: Helen Howell (1923-1927)
Lou Capra (1932-1984)
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 (May 18, 1897 – September 3, 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 the classics It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, among others.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Born Francesco Rosario Capra in Bisacquino, 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 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.

[edit] Career

Like other prominent directors of the thirties and forties, Capra began his career in silent films, 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.

After the 1934 Oscar winning romantic comedy It Happened One Night, which also won best acting awards for Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, 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 and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. His ten-year break from screwball comedy ended with the comedy classic Arsenic and Old Lace. Among the actors who owed much of their early success to Capra were Barbara Stanwyck, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur.

Capra`s films in the 1930`s enjoyed great 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.

Between 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). 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.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) is perhaps Capra's most widely known and long-lasting film to date. Although it was initially considered a box office disappointment, it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. 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 one 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.

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 'Capra-corn'. 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.

[edit] Capra in the media

In 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. As with many autobiographies it represents the writer's own version of his life and tells his story as he wanted it told.

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.

[edit] Death and legacy

Frank 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 ranch in Fallbrook, California [1] to Caltech.

His son Frank Capra, Jr. - one of the three children born to Capra's second wife, Lou Capra - is president of Screen Gems, in Wilmington, North Carolina. Frank Capra's grandson is Frank Capra III.

[edit] Quotes

  • "There are no rules in filmmaking, only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness."

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.caltechy.org/about/history/75years/
Preceded by
Irvin S. Cobb
7th Academy Awards		 "Oscars" host
8th Academy Awards		 Succeeded by
George Jessel
9th Academy Awards
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../f/r/a/Frank_Capra_af99.html"