Read complete books and articles on: Frank Capra

Capra, Frank - kăpˈrə, 1897–1991, American film director, b. Bisaquino, Sicily. One of the preeminent Hollywood directors of the 1930s and 40s, he produced idealistic populist movies that, sometimes amusingly and sometimes sentimentally but nearly always optimistically, celebrate the virtues of the common American. His family emigrated to the United States in 1903 and

13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Frank Capra

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Populism and the Capra Legacy » Read Now
by Wes D. Gehring. 129 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Traditionally identified with "screwball" comedies, Frank Capra has seldom been considered a conduit for populist concerns and issues. In this book, Gehring examines the influence of both Will Rogers and Frank Capra on modern populist movies, providing important background on Capra's links to the...
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Traditionally identified with "screwball" comedies, Frank Capra has seldom been considered a conduit for populist concerns and issues. In this book, Gehring examines the influence of both Will Rogers and Frank Capra on modern populist movies, providing important background on Capra's links to the crackerbarrel personality of Rogers. He follows this theme forward, examining the populist roots in such films as The Electric Horseman, Field of Dreams, Dave, Grand Canyon, and others. A final chapter is a close-up of the contemporary, Capra-like director, Ron Howard. The inclusion of a bibliography and selected filmography makes this book an important contribution to film studies, popular culture, and American humor.
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2.

Master Space: Film Images of Capra, Lubitsch, Sternberg, and Wyler » Read Now
by Barbara Bowman. 172 pgs.

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This is a unique study of the use of cinematic space by four important directors in American cinema from the 1930s to the 1960s: Frank Capra, Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg, and William Wyler. Bowman examines each of their distinctive styles and diverse backgrounds and shows how these unique...
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This is a unique study of the use of cinematic space by four important directors in American cinema from the 1930s to the 1960s: Frank Capra, Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg, and William Wyler. Bowman examines each of their distinctive styles and diverse backgrounds and shows how these unique visual styles complement each other--representing the best in classic American cinema, from Ninotchka and Shanghai Express to Best Years of Our Lives to It's a Wonderful Life.
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3.

Frank Capra's 1920s Immigrant Trilogy: Immigration, Assimilation, and the American Dream, in MELUS » Read Now
by Jonathan J. Cavallero. 27 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
4.

The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair, and Politics from the Depression to the Fifties (Chap. 13 "Frank Capra's Super-Shysters and Little People") » Read Now
by Peter Roffman, Jim Purdy. 366 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...picture and the relationship between production head and the individual producer or director or writer. As long as Frank Capra continued to turn out hits and fight for the...
5.

"The Moral Part of the Story Was Great": Frank Capra and Film Education in the 1930s, in Velvet Light Trap » Read Now
by Eric Smoodin. 16 pgs.

Collections: Education, Entire Library

...Part of the Story Was Great": Frank Capra and Film Education in the 1930s...Education By the early 1930s, Frank Capra had started to become a directorial...to Fred J...
6.

Though More Than 60 Years Old, Films of Frank Capra Stay Fresh, in Insight on the News » Read Now
by Gary Arnold. 2 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...more than 60 years old, films of Frank Capra stay fresh. by Gary Arnold...offered one of the first of the year: Frank Capra in the Thirties. Born in a Sicilian...village...
7.

Politics and Politicians in American Film ("Capra" begins on pg. 93) » Read Now
by Phillip L. Gianos. 216 pgs.

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Films have been a part of U.S. society for a century--a source of great enjoyment for the audience and of great profit to filmmakers. How does a mass entertainment medium deal with some of the great sources of dramatic real-life political and economic conflict--the Great Depression, the Cold War--in...
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Films have been a part of U.S. society for a century--a source of great enjoyment for the audience and of great profit to filmmakers. How does a mass entertainment medium deal with some of the great sources of dramatic real-life political and economic conflict--the Great Depression, the Cold War--in a way that attracts an audience without making it angry? How does an industry, which has from its beginnings been the subject of attacks from social, political and religious groups deal with political issues and conflicts? This book is an attempt to examine these questions; it is also an examination of some of the greatest and most interesting American films ever made--westerns, gangster films, comedies, war films, satires, and film biographies--to see what American films say about politics and politicians, and what these films, in turn, say about the audience for which they were produced.
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8.

"You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet": The American Talking Film: History & Memory, 1927-1949 ("Frank Capra (1897-1991)") begins on pg. 352) » Read Now
by Andrew Sarris. 573 pgs.

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Andrew Sarris has long been one of America's most celebrated writers on film, author of the seminal work The American Cinema, and for decades a highly regarded critic, first for The Village Voice and more recently for The New York Observer. Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a...
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Andrew Sarris has long been one of America's most celebrated writers on film, author of the seminal work The American Cinema, and for decades a highly regarded critic, first for The Village Voice and more recently for The New York Observer. Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a masterwork that has taken 25 years to complete. Here is a sweeping--and highly personal--history of American film, from the birth of the talkies (beginning with The Jazz Singer and Al Jolson's memorable line "You ain't heard nothin' yet") to the decline of the studio system. By far the largest section of the book celebrates the work of the great American film directors, with giants such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks examined film by film. Sarris also offers glowing portraits of major stars, from Garbo and Bogart to Ingrid Bergman, Margaret Sullavan, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. There is a tour of the studios--Metro, Paramount, RKO, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal--revealing how each left its own particular stamp on film. And in perhaps the most interesting and original section, we are treated to an informative look at film genres--the musical, the screwball comedy, the horror picture, the gangster film, and the western. A lifetime of watching and thinking about cinema has gone into this book. It is the history that film buffs have been waiting for.
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9.

Class, Language and American Film Comedy (Chap. 3 "'The Split-Pea Soup and the Succotash'-- Frank Capra's 1930s Comedies and the Subject of Class") » Read Now
by Christopher Beach. 240 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Examining the evolution of American film comedy since the beginning of the sound era (c. 1930), Christopher Beach focuses on how language, class, and social relationships in early sound comedies by the Marx Brothers, the screwball comedies of the 1930s by Capra, Sturges and others, and 1950s...
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Examining the evolution of American film comedy since the beginning of the sound era (c. 1930), Christopher Beach focuses on how language, class, and social relationships in early sound comedies by the Marx Brothers, the screwball comedies of the 1930s by Capra, Sturges and others, and 1950s comedies of Frank Tashlin and Vincente Minnelli, and contemporary films by Woody Allen, Whit Stillman, and the Coen brothers. Beach argues that sound and narrative expanded the semiotic and ideological potential of a film, providing moments of genuine social critique and also mass entertainment. Christopher Beach teaches at the University of California, Irvine, and has taught at the University of Montana and Claremont Graduate University. He is the author of three books on American poetry, including Poetic Culture (Northwestern, 1999). This is his first book on film.
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10.

Britain Can Take It: The British Cinema in the Second World War (Chap. 13 "'National Pride and Prejudices': Tunisian Victory") » Read Now
by Anthony Aldgate, Jeffrey Richards. 362 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book charts a momentous period through the eyes of thirteen key films. Examining scripts, reviews and box-office returns, not to mention a mass of official documentation from the Home Office and censorship archives, it places each film in its social and political context to explore the...
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This book charts a momentous period through the eyes of thirteen key films. Examining scripts, reviews and box-office returns, not to mention a mass of official documentation from the Home Office and censorship archives, it places each film in its social and political context to explore the relationship between the propagandists and the film-makers.
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11.

"Tunisian Victory" and Anglo-American Film Propaganda in World War II, in The Historian » Read Now
by Frederic Krome. 13 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...article. In the summer of 1943 Frank Capra, the noted American filmmaker...Britain, the British requested that Frank Capra produce the American section of...how difficult...
12.

'This Business of America': Fan Mail, Film Reception, and Meet John Doe, in Screen » Read Now
by Eric Smoodin. 18 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library

...day, we were seeing our first Frank Capra picture, Meet John Doe. My...who wrote the above letter to Frank Capra in June 1941, typically have...cited in this essay is from...
13.

'Our Mr. Sun': Religion and Science in 50s America, in History Today » Read Now
by James Gilbert. 7 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...religion was the film director, Frank Capra. Like Spielberg, Capra was the...the first film, Our Mr Sun, From Frank Capra to his agent in 1954: I suddenly...FURTHER...