Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
People here are funny. They work so hard at living they forget how to live.
—Longfellow Deeds

Mr. Deeds Goes To Town is a 1936 classic film directed by Frank Capra, which won him the second of three Oscars. It stars Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds, a smalltown tuba player who is suddenly left a massive fortune by his rich uncle. He moves to the big city, where everyone wants a piece of his fortune. Intrepid Reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur) meets Longfellow, initially exploiting his simpleness to advance her journalistic career but gradually finding herself falling for him. However, it's the Deeds family attorney, the scheming Mr. Cedar, whose greed will provide the biggest obstacle for Mr Deeds.

It was remade, quite loosely, as the 2002 Adam Sandler vehicle Mr. Deeds.


Tropes used in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town include:

Deeds: Did you hear him? Talking about women as if they were cattle...
Servant: Well, each man has his own tastes.

  • Hidden Depths: Babe (and the audience) slowly begin to realise Deeds is not simply a naive hayseed. He quickly cottons to on to when he is being mocked by his fellow poets and shows himself to be a deep and rather eloquent thinker.

People here are funny. They work so hard at living - they forget how to live. Last night, after I left you, I was walking along and looking at the tall buildings and I got to thinking about what Thoreau said. They created a lot of grand palaces here - but they forgot to create the noblemen to put in them.

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