Frank Capra

The third chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series picks up after Britain and France declare war on Germany. It follows the Nazi capture of Denmark and Norway, the conquest of Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and the collapse of France in just over a month. The film pays blunt attention to Nazi atrocities, including the bombing of Rotterdam, and explains the German tactic of flooding roads with refugees to slow Allied armies. Made for the U.S. War Department, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Flight is a 1929 pre-Code aviation adventure directed by Frank Capra for Columbia Pictures, dedicated to the United States Marine Corps and made with their full cooperation. Jack Holt plays Panama Williams, a hard-boiled Marine gunnery sergeant and pilot stationed in Nicaragua, where he and a hotshot young corporal (Ralph Graves) fly missions against the rebel leader Sandino and rivalry over a nurse (Lila Lee). Columbia built a complete flying field at North Island in San Diego and shot the aerial sequences from real planes without process photography, and Holt's plane actually crashed during filming. Capra wrote the dialogue from a story by Graves, and the film was advertised as the "first all-talking aviation epic." As a 1929 release whose copyright was not renewed, the film is in the public domain.

Adventure · War

Frank Capra's companion piece to the "Why We Fight" series, produced for the War Department to orient troops headed for the Pacific. Joris Ivens began the film; Capra finished it, building a portrait of Japanese history and militarism out of captured Japanese footage — including material taken from Japan's own propaganda — before the surrender made it obsolete. It was withheld until 1977, and its portrayal of an entire people is both historically revealing and deeply of its moment. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Barbara Stanwyck. Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves), the artistic son of a wealthy railroad magnate, hires Kay Arnold (Stanwyck), a "party girl" he meets while driving along the waterfront, as his model. As they work together, Kay falls in love with Jerry and begins to reform herself, but faces strong opposition from Jerry's family, who disapprove of her past. The film was based on the 1924 Broadway play Ladies of the Evening by Milton Herbert Gropper. The success of the film made Stanwyck a star and established Capra as a major director at Columbia Pictures.

Drama · Romance

A silent comedy directed by Frank Capra, starring Harry Langdon as Harry Shelby, a sheltered young man who finally receives his first pair of long pants—a rite of passage into manhood. But when he falls for a seductive female smuggler, his innocence leads him into a world of danger and absurdity. Langdon's baby-faced, slow-burn comedy style was a sensation in the mid-1920s, and Capra—who was then Langdon's writer-director—helped craft some of his best films. The partnership ended acrimoniously when Langdon fired Capra, a decision that contributed to Langdon's rapid career decline. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Silent

A newspaper columnist about to lose her job invents a letter from a "John Doe" who says he will jump off a building on Christmas Eve to protest the state of the country. The letter goes viral, the paper hires a former ballplayer turned hobo to play John Doe, and his radio speeches about neighbors helping neighbors start a real movement. Then the publisher who owns the paper tries to turn that movement into a political machine for himself. Frank Capra's film sits between his optimistic comedies and his darker wartime work, and it argues that ordinary decency is the only thing standing between people and demagogues. Gary Cooper plays the reluctant symbol and Barbara Stanwyck the writer who created him and comes to regret what she built. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Drama · Comedy

The first chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series, made for the U.S. War Department to explain to soldiers and the public why the country was at war. The film frames World War II as a struggle between the "slave world" of the Axis dictatorships and the "free world" of American liberty, tracing the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, and Japanese militarism through archival footage and animated maps. Walter Huston narrates. The series was supervised by Capra, then a major in the Army Signal Corps, who drew on captured enemy footage and Hollywood editing techniques to make propaganda that played like a feature film. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Frank Capra's circus comedy, adapted from the hit Broadway musical. When her father dies, Mary Rainey (Joan Peers) inherits his struggling show, kept afloat by the manic clown Smiley Johnson (vaudevillian Joe Cook, recreating his stage role) until a climactic fire threatens to end it all. Originally shot as a full musical, the numbers were cut before release to dodge the public's backlash against the genre, leaving a fast-paced comedy that was a hit for the young Columbia Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Drama

The fourth chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series is devoted to the British stand against Germany in 1940, from the fall of France through the Luftwaffe's campaign to destroy the Royal Air Force and the Blitz that followed. The film argues that the Royal Air Force's refusal to break saved Britain and, by extension, the possibility of a liberated Europe. It blends British combat footage with captured German material and animated maps. Made for the U.S. War Department. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The sixth chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series explains Japan's long ambition to conquer China. It covers the invasion of Manchuria, the fall of Nanking, and the Chinese resistance that unified a fractured country against a foreign enemy. The film highlights the Burma Road, the seven-hundred-mile supply route the Allies built over the mountains to keep the Chinese army fed and armed, and argues that Japan's frustration in China drove it toward the Pacific and the United States. Made for the U.S. War Department. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The fifth and longest chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series covers the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Red Army's defense. Co-directed by the Russian-born Anatole Litvak, the film recounts seven hundred years of failed invasions of Russia, then traces the Nazi advance to the gates of Moscow and Leningrad and the turning point at Stalingrad. Released two years before the Cold War, it portrays the Soviet people sympathetically as allies. Walter Huston narrates, with a score by Dimitri Tiomkin drawing on Tchaikovsky and Russian folk song. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

The second chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series covers Adolf Hitler's plan for world conquest and Germany's march across Europe. From the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia through the invasion of Poland that triggered the British and French declarations of war, the film lays out the Nazi strategy of "softening up" future targets with political subversion before striking militarily. It uses captured German footage alongside Allied material. Made for the U.S. War Department, it was shown to troops heading overseas and then to the public. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary

Frank Capra's feature directorial debut is a silent comedy built around the gentle, elfin persona of Harry Langdon. A meek Belgian soldier carries a letter and photograph from an American girl named Mary Brown through the trenches of World War I. After the war he travels to America to find her, falling in with a strongman act along the way. Langdon's comedy is the opposite of Keaton's athleticism or Chaplin's sentiment: he plays a bewildered innocent who survives by accident, and Capra's staging lets the slow burns land. The film was selected for the National Film Registry in 2007. It is now regarded as one of the finest silent comedies of the late 1920s. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2022.

Comedy · Silent

The seventh and final chapter of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series tells the story of America's slide into the war it had spent years trying to avoid. It traces the rise of isolationism and the German-American Bund, the growth of American industry and the draft as war grew inevitable, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that ended the argument. The film is both a defense of American values and an argument that those values could not survive a world ruled by the Axis. Made for the U.S. War Department. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary