Film Forum

Throughout Hollywood’s Golden Age, Frank Capra (1897-1991) dominated the box office and Oscar night, producing and directing films that have been bona fide classics ever since. Starting as a lowly gagman, Capra meteorically rose within ten years to “name above the title” director – an auteur before there was a name for it. Populating his own vision of America with a raffish parade of character players, in support of stars whose careers he helped mold (Stanwyck, Stewart, and Jean Arthur), and those he capped (Gable, Colbert, and Cooper), Capra combined the most populist of content with the most elaborate and sophisticated of technique. Despite the cynics, “Capraesque” is a quality today’s producers would kill for – but it took the master, Frank Capra himself, to produce the genuine article.

Special thanks to Grover Crisp, Chris Lane, Rita Belda, Michael Horne (Sony Pictures), Tim Lanza (Cohen Media Group), Lynanne Schweighofer (Library of Congress), Nicole Woods, Kristie Nakamura (Warner Bros.), Judy Nicaud (Paramount Pictures), Joseph McBride, and Tom and Kris Capra.

Reviews

“FILM FORUM IS PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS FOR THIS RETROSPECTIVE OF CAPRA, whose blend of only-in-American gumption and deceptively ironclad technique helped birth movie stars and movie genres.”
– Eric Grode, The New York Times

“Two weeks of Frank Capra is a blessed respite from our fractious world.”
– David Edelstein, New York magazine 

Films in this Series