Frank Capra Filmography

AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Jimmy Stewart

Synopsis: Hosted by the American Film Institute, this video is a tribute to career of James Stewart. Included are excerpts from: It's a Wonderful Life, Harvey, Vertigo and others. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Pocketful of Miracles

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Glenn Ford, Bette Davis, Hope Lange, Arthur O'Connell, Peter Falk

Synopsis: Director Frank Capra's last feature film, Pocketful of Miracles is a Technicolor remake of his 1933 film Lady for a Day. A barely recognizable Bette Davis plays Apple Annie, the besotted, unkempt, rag-clad street vendor who controls the activities of all the beggars on Broadway. Apple Annie is the Read More

A Hole in the Head

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Edward G. Robinson, Eleanor Parker, Carolyn Jones, Thelma Ritter

Synopsis: Although the main character, Tony Manetta (Frank Sinatra), in this light comedy tends to tip the scales towards being unbelievably unrealistic, the story is pulled off because everyone else is convincing. Tony is a widower in need of a financial bailout for himself and his son, so he asks for help Read More

Bell Science: The Unchained Goddess

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Dr. Frank Baxter, Richard Carlson, Lurene Tuttle, Mel Blanc, Hans Conried

Synopsis: Another delightful entry in the Bell Science Series, The Unchained Goddess represents a felicitious collaboration between legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra and animation geniuses Shamus Culhane and William T. Hurtz. Appearing in live action, Dr. Research (Frank Baxter) and The Fiction Read More

Bell Science: Hemo the Magnificent

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Dr. Frank Baxter, Richard Carlson, Sterling Holloway, Mel Blanc, Paul H. Frees

Synopsis: The second in a group of full-color Bell Science Specials produced, written and directed by the legendary Frank Capra, Hemo the Magnificent is an hour-long combination of animation and live action, explaining in the most entertaining manner possible the human circulatory system. Shakesepearean Read More

Bell Science: The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Bell Science: Our Mister Sun

Crew: Director, Producer, Teleplay By

Synopsis: Modern audiences may not be familiar with Our Mister Sun, but many students growing up in the '50s and '60s (and into the '70s) remember being pleasantly surprised when this very entertaining program was part of their science class curriculum. Given its age, it's surprising how much of Our Mister Read More

Here Comes the Groom

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, Franchot Tone, James Barton

Synopsis: Here Comes the Groom was the second collaboration between director Frank Capra and star Bing Crosby. Though not as "socially relevant" as previous Capra productions, the film is a thoroughly likeable yarn about a happy-go-lucky newspaperman named Pete (Bing Crosby). In order to legally adopt a Read More

Riding High

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Bing Crosby, Coleen Gray, Charles Bickford, Frances Gifford, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Anxious to remain active in the 1950s, director Frank Capra wanted to prove to Paramount Pictures that he could deliver an "A" picture on a modest budget. To that end, Capra bought the rights of his 1934 film Broadway Bill from Columbia, and remade it under the title Riding High. He then hired Read More

State of the Union

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Florence Auer, Spencer Tracy, Irving Bacon, Katharine Hepburn, Van Johnson, Art Baker, Angela Lansbury, Adolphe Menjou, Tom Fadden

Synopsis: Frank Capra's only MGM film, State of the Union was adapted by Anthony Veiller and Myles Connolly from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. Spencer Tracy plays an aircraft tycoon who is coerced into seeking the Republican Presidential nomination by predatory Read More

It's a Wonderful Life

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers

Synopsis: This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a Read More

War Comes to America

Crew: Director, Producer

D-Day: The Normandy Invasion

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This classic yet little-seen documentary, co-helmed by screen legends Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak, uses strategic newsreel footage to chronicle one of the most famous and pivotal episodes of World War II: the beachfront mass-landing of the Allies in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. ~ Nathan Read More

Two Down and One to Go

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director Frank Capra is deservedly well known not only for his triumphs in Hollywood, but for the Why We Fight series that he created for the U.S. government during World War II. Each tape in this series collects film he shot during those years, here thematically framed. Narrated by George Read More

Know Your Enemy: Japan

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director Frank Capra is deservedly well known not only for his triumphs in Hollywood, but for the Why We Fight series that he created for the U.S. government during World War II. Each tape in this series collects film he shot during those years, here thematically framed. Narrated by George Read More

Attack! The Battle for New Britain

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Subtitled The Battle for New Britain, this 56-minute documentary was assembled by the Office of War Information. Lensed in the Southwest Pacific, the film deals with the efforts to recapture the island of New Britain from the Japanese. After a grueling training period (shown in unsparing detail) Read More

Know Your Ally: Britain

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director Frank Capra is deservedly well known not only for his triumphs in Hollywood, but for the Why We Fight series that he created for the U.S. government during World War II. Each tape in this series collects film he shot during those years, here thematically framed. Narrated by George Read More

Tunisian Victory

Crew: Director

Actors: Bernard Miles

Synopsis: Like the military operation it celebrates, Tunisian Victory is a joint Anglo-American project. Produced by the British Film Unit and the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the film was supervised by England's Hugh Stewart and Hollywood's Frank Capra. Running 75 minutes -- unusually long for a documentary Read More

Arsenic and Old Lace

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson, Peter Lorre, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Arsenic and Old Lace is director Frank Capra's spin on the classic Joseph Kesselring stage comedy, which concerns the sweet old Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), beloved in their genteel Brooklyn neighborhood for their many charitable acts. One charity which the ladies don't advertise Read More

The Battle of China

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Battle of China was number six in the Why We Fight series, a group of government-sponsored documentaries aimed at explaining World War II to the American home front. The film describes the rape of China at the hands of the Japanese warlords. Once China is enslaved, Japan uses the captured land and Read More

The Negro Soldier

Crew: Producer

Actors: Carlton Moss

Synopsis: During WWII, the U.S. government produced numerous documentaries, often under the supervision of Frank Capra, designed to build support for the war. One of the more curious entries in this effort was The Negro Soldier. The structure of the film is that of a black minister who preaches a sermon to Read More

Divide and Conquer

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Divide and Conquer was the third of Col. Frank Capra's government-ordained Why We Fight series. Using newsreel footage and animated maps, Capra delineates Hitler's strategy in overtaking Europe. We watch as the Nazis occupy Denmark and Norway, push back the British Army, and force France into a Read More

The Battle of Russia

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The 60-minute documentary was the fifth of the Army Special Service's "Why We Fight" series. Assembled under the supervision of Lt. Colonel Frank Capra, the film is a sublimely assembled collection of authentic newsreel footage from both the U.S. Signal Corps and various Soviet sources. Narrated Read More

The Battle of Britain

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Walter Huston

Synopsis: The Battle of Britain was the fourth of the US government's Why We Fight documentaries. The film uses newsreel footage and a few re-created scenes to illustrate the courage of the British people under the bombardment of Hitler's Luftwaffe. Much is made of the fact that Britain stood alone in 1940 Read More

The Nazis Strike

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: The Nazi Strike was the second of Col. Frank Capra's government-ordained "Why We Fight" series. This hard-hitting documentary artfully assembles existing stock footage to trace the rise of Adolf Hitler and his thirst for world conquest. Virtually wresting the German government from more moderate Read More

Prelude to War

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Prelude to War was the first entry in the US War Department's Why We Fight series, a group of seven morale-boosing documentaries supervised by Lt. Col. Frank Capra. As brilliantly assembled as any of Capra's "populist" Hollywood films, Prelude demonstrates how the diplomatic and political blunders Read More

Meet John Doe

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington

Synopsis: The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered Read More

Cavalcade of Academy Awards

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: This Warner Bros. 3-reeler was produced to commemorate the 12th anniversary of Hollywood's Academy Awards ceremony. With fine impartiality, the film offers clips provided by several studios, though emphasis is placed upon Warners' only Oscar-winning feature, 1937's Life of Emile Zola. At least Read More

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi, Harry Carey

Synopsis: Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior Read More

You Can't Take It with You

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Lost Horizon

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Ronald Colman, Edward Everett Horton, H.B. Warner, Jane Wyatt, Sam Jaffe, John Howard, Margo

Synopsis: It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost Horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen. After a lengthy preamble, inviting audiences to imagine their own ideas of Utopia, the Read More

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglas Dumbrille, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in Read More

Broadway Bill

Crew: Director

Actors: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Walter Connolly, Helen Vinson, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family Read More

It Happened One Night

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Claire McDowell, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas

Synopsis: Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s Read More

The Bitter Tea of General Yen

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Gavin Gordon, Toshia Mori, Walter Connolly

Synopsis: The Bitter Tea of General Yen is the oddest, least characteristic talkie effort of director Frank Capra. Barbara Stanwyck stars as the intended of an American missionary (Gavin Gordon) who is sent to spread the good word in China. During a military revolution, Stanwyck and her fiance inadvertently Read More

Lady for a Day

Crew: Director

Actors: Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: May Robson plays Apple Annie, a slatternly Broadway apple peddler. Annie has a curious setup whereby she is able to finagle other street merchants and beggars to pony up part of their weekly earnings to her--yet she never seems to spend any of the money on herself. This is because Annie has a Read More

Forbidden

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Bellamy, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: In this romance a school marm takes a cruise and falls for an unobtainable man, a district attorney married to a crippled woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

American Madness

Crew: Director

Actors: Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Constance Cummings, Gavin Gordon, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but which also irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Depression. Elsewhere in the bank, criminal Dude Finlay (Robert Ellis Read More

The Miracle Woman

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Sam Hardy, Beryl Mercer, Russell Hopton

Synopsis: A minister's daughter finds fame as an evangelist but struggles with her own lack of faith in Frank Capra's impassioned drama. Inspired by the true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, the film follows the rise to prominence of Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck). Disillusioned by the mistreatment of Read More

Dirigible

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Holt, Ralph Graves, Fay Wray, Hobart Bosworth, Roscoe Karns

Synopsis: Columbia spent the 1920s and 1930s dusting off its reliable "two guys/one girl" military plotline and dressing it up in a variety of uniforms. Dirigible was the 1931 edition of this old chestnut, with navy pilots Jack Holt and Ralph Graves battling over the affections of Fay Wray. The film picks Read More

Platinum Blonde

Crew: Director

Actors: Loretta Young, Robert Williams, Jean Harlow, Louise Closser Hale, Donald Dilloway, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: A rather bleak comedy-drama from Frank Capra, Platinum Blonde basically starts where Capra's later and much more buoyant It Happened One Night (1934) ends: the marriage between a brash newspaperman and a society dame. But where the latter comedy was enhanced by the director's patented optimism Read More

Rain or Shine

Crew: Director

Actors: Joe Cook, Louise Fazenda, Joan Peers, William Collier, Jr., Tom Howard

Synopsis: Legendary Broadway comedian Joe Cook, who was capable of reducing audiences to paroxysms of helpless laughter by telling them what he wasn't going to do that evening, was invariably better than the shows in which he appeared. Fully aware of this, director Frank Capra brought Cook's 1928 Read More

Ladies of Leisure

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Marie Prevost, Ralph Graves, Lowell Sherman, George Fawcett

Synopsis: Reformed gold-digger Barbara Stanwyck falls in love with a womanizing and wealthy aspiring artist and tries to convince him that she has really changed in this romantic Frank Capra drama. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Donovan Affair

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Holt, Dorothy Revier, William Collier, Jr., Fred Kelsey

Synopsis: This comedy-mystery is famed director Frank Capra's first all-talking film. It tells the story of a bungling police inspector who tries to re-enact a murder scene with disastrous results. The first killing occurred within a darkened dining room. Unfortunately, when the inspector resets the scene Read More

The Younger Generation

Crew: Director

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Lina Basquette, Rosa Rosanova, Rex Lease

Synopsis: In this sentimental drama, the son of a Jewish pushcart vendor abandons his roots as he builds himself a successful new life and moves his family to a posh Fifth-Avenue apartment. Though he loves his parents, he is deeply embarrassed by their humble provincial ways and introduces them as his Read More

Flight

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Holt, Lila Lee, Ralph Graves, Alan Roscoe, Harold Goodwin

Synopsis: This early Frank Capra talkie stars popular screen action team Jack Holt and Ralph Graves as US marines stationed in Nicaragua. The "two guys fighting over one gal" throughline is there because the audience expected it -- and besides, leading lady Lila Lee is awfully cute. But the meat of the Read More

The Swim Princess

Crew: Screenwriter

That Certain Thing

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Aggie Herring, Viola Dana, Burr McIntosh, Ralph Graves

Synopsis: Director Frank Capra's first feature for Columbia Pictures, the silent That Certain Thing stars Viola Dana and Ralph Graves. Dana plays a poor girl who falls in love with wealthy Graves, the son of a millionaire restaurateur. When Graves declares that he has no intention of going into the family Read More

The Power of the Press

Crew: Director

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Jobyna Ralston, Robert Edeson, Philo McCullough, Mildred Harris, Dell Henderson, Wheeler Oakman

Synopsis: Presently unavailable for public reappraisal, the biting and cynical melodrama Power of the Press would seem to be a precursor to such Frank Capra talkies as Platinum Blonde and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Cub reporter Clem Rogers (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) wants a "big scoop" more than anything else in Read More

Say It with Sables

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Banker John Caswell (Francis X. Bushman), a wealthy widower, decides to leave his scheming mistress Irene (Margaret Livingston) and marry the upper-class Helen (Helene Chadwick) instead. Seeking revenge, Irene starts an affair with Caswell's son Doug (Arthur Rankin). Caswell learns of their Read More

The Way of the Strong

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This silent gangster tale centers on a scarred racketeer, ironically called Handsome Williams (Mitchell Lewis), who has been robbing the liquor shipments of bootlegger Tiger Louie (William Norton Bailey). Handsome also runs a café where Dan (Theodor Von Eltz) works as a pianist. Outside his café Read More

Submarine

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Holt, Ralph Graves, Clarence Burton, Arthur Rankin, Dorothy Revier

Synopsis: Recorded sound effects punctuate this silent drama, the first big-budget release from the then-Poverty Row studio Columbia. Navy man Jack Reagon (Jack Holt) falls for dance-hall girl Bessie (Dorothy Revier) and they marry, but she can't adjust to the bonds of matrimony. A love affair starts Read More

The Matinee Idol

Crew: Director

Actors: Bessie Love, Johnnie Walker, Ernest Hilliard, Lionel Belmore, David Mir

Synopsis: For many years considered a "lost" Frank Capra silent, The Matinee Idol was restored in the mid-1990s to very nearly its entire 60-minute length. Johnnie Walker is cast as brash Broadway star Don Wilson, who out of boredom takes a leave of absence from his latest show and heads to the boonies. Read More

So This Is Love?

Crew: Director

Actors: Shirley Mason, William Collier, Jr., Johnnie Walker

Synopsis: No relation to the 1953 Grace Moore biopic of the same name, So This is Love was another early Frank Capra production for fledgling Columbia Pictures. The hero, dress designer Jerry McGuire (William Collier Jr.), is tired of being considered a wimp. After business hours, Jerry secretly takes Read More

Long Pants

Crew: Director

Actors: Harry Langdon, Gladys Brockwell, Al Roscoe, Alma Bennett, Priscilla Bonner, Frankie Darro

Synopsis: Few comedies of the 1920s were as bizarre and surreal as Harry Langdon's Long Pants. Having recently come of age, small-town-boy Langdon aspires to become a great lover, drawing inspiration from the romantic novels he's been reading since childhood. Falling hard for a "vamp" (Alma Bennett), Harry Read More

For the Love of Mike

Crew: Director

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Ben Lyon, George Sidney, Ford Sterling, Hugh Cameron

Synopsis: Recently fired by comedian Harry Langdon, young director Frank Capra found it difficult to line up any new projects. He was finally afforded the opportunity to direct a New York-based production originally titled Hell's Kitchen, but eventually released as For the Love of Mike. The story is the old Read More

The Strong Man

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Harry Langdon, Priscilla Bonner, Gertrude Astor, William V. Mong, Robert McKim

Synopsis: The Strong Man was the second starring feature of silent screen comedian Harry Langdon--not to mention first feature-length directorial effort of Frank Capra. Langdon plays a Belgian soldier who, during World War I, is captured by German conscript Arthur Thalasso. Almost immediately, the armistice Read More

His First Flame

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Harry Langdon, Natalie Kingston, Ruth Hiatt, Vernon Dent

Synopsis: Baby-faced comedian Harry Langdon plays a timorous fireman in His First Flame. Much of the action involves Langdon's efforts to impress the unimpressable Ruth Hiatt. She is so resistant to his "charms" that she can't even act grateful when he rescues her from a burning house. Filmed during Read More

Saturday Afternoon

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Harry Langdon

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Harry Langdon, Joan Crawford, Tom Murray, Edwards Davis, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: When baby-faced comedian Harry Langdon left Mack Sennett Studios to make features for First National, he wisely brought along the two Sennett staffers who helped make him a star: gag writer Frank Capra and director Harry Edwards. Langdon's first feature-length comedy at his new studio was Tramp, Tramp, Tramp Read More

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies

Crew: Screenwriter