Because Capra's films often carry a message about basic goodness in human nature, and show the value of unselfishness and hard work, his wholesome, feel-good themes have led some to term his style " Capra-corn.

Although It's a Wonderful Life and State of the Union were successful shortly after the war ended, Capra's themes were becoming more out of step with changes within the film industry and with the public mood.

As for Capra's subject matter, film author Richard Griffith tries to summarize Capra's common theme:

Noted reviewer Graham Greene was effusive that this was Capra's finest film to date, describing Capra's treatment as " a kinship with his audience, a sense of common life, a morality ..." Variety noted " a sometimes too thin structure the players and director Frank Capra have contrived to convert (...) into fairly sturdy substance.

" After a brief stint at United Artists, Bernds quit and went to work at Columbia, where he worked as sound man on many of Frank Capra's ' 30s classics.

Even now, Capra's book, with its nutty denials of what has happened in particle theory, can be found selling well at every major bookstore.

At the heart of the matter is Mr. Capra's methodology — his use of what seem to me to be accidental similarities of language as if these were somehow evidence of deeply rooted connections.

In many of Capra's films, the wise-cracking and sharp dialogue was often written by Riskin, and he and Capra went on to become Hollywood's " most admired writer-director team.

Capra's final film, Rendezvous in Space ( 1964 ), was an industrial film made for the Martin Marietta Company and shown at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

During the golden age of Hollywood, Capra's " fantasies of goodwill " made him one of the two or three most famous and successful directors in the world.

In 1944, Ivens made Know Your Enemy: Japan for Frank Capra's U. S. War Department film series Why We Fight.

* In 1947, the studio acquired Frank Capra's production company, Liberty Films, which produced only 2 films in the 1940s: It's a Wonderful Life, released originally by RKO Radio Pictures, and State of the Union, released originally by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ( the latter made under Paramount ownership ).

A vaudeville performer, Taylor made his film debut in 1938, playing cheerful ex-football captain Ed Carmichael in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It with You.

The Capra's body may be made of different materials depending on local tradition, such as carpet or red cloth with adornments sewn on: traditional colourful cloth, embroidered handcerchiefs in Suceava, beaded ornate women's textile girdles in Bacău, reed ( Phragmites australis ) seed heads in Botoşani and Iaşi, goat pelts in Vrancea and in Mehedinţi, fabric ribbons or coloured paper in Neamţ and in Giurgiu etc.

He made his last film appearance in Frank Capra's Academy Award-nominated 1961 comedy Pocketful of Miracles.

She had a successful career at MGM, RKO and Columbia including important roles such as the tragic Beth in the original Little Women, among many other film appearances including Frank Capra's Lady for a Day and Gabriel Over the White House ; Sequoia ; Limehouse Blues with George Raft and Anna May Wong ; The Ghost Goes West, opposite Robert Donat ; and Rasputin and the Empress, with the Barrymore siblings ( John, Ethel, and Lionel ) in the only movie they all made together.

It would become Capra's last important film and, although he directed five more films over the next 14 years, his successful years were now behind him.

Capra's personality when directing gave him a reputation for " fierce independence " when dealing with studio bosses.

Film historian and author William S. Pechter described Capra's style as one " of almost classical purity.

His son Frank Capra, Jr. – one of the four children born to Capra's second wife, Lucille Capra – was the president of EUE Screen Gems Studios, in Wilmington, North Carolina, until his death on December 19, 2007.

In only his tenth movie, he co-starred with one of the " grand dames of the silver screen ," Barbara Stanwyck, in Frank Capra's critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful The Miracle Woman ( 1931 ), and the movie's failure to attract an audience disappointed Capra tremendously.

Though prolific in the movies, Novello was limited mostly to bits in minor films, one of his more noteworthy assignments being the officious Spanish consul in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles.

Because of Capra's engineering education, he adapted more easily to the new sound technology than most directors.

The film, however, became Capra's most controversial.

In 1941 Capra directed Meet John Doe ( 1941 ), considered by some to be Capra's most controversial movie.

Although the project had an excellent pedigree with stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, the film was not a success, and Capra's eyebrow-raising statement, " I think State of the Union was my most perfect film in handling people and ideas " has few adherents today.

In arguably her most famous role, she co-starred as Ronald Colman's character's love interest in Frank Capra's Columbia Pictures film Lost Horizon ( 1937 ).

Travers ' most famous role was as the angel Clarence who comes to save James Stewart's character from suicide in Frank Capra's classic It's a Wonderful Life.

Stander was in a string of films over the next three years, appearing most notably in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ( 1936 ) with Gary Cooper, playing Archie Goodwin in Meet Nero Wolfe ( 1936 ) and The League of Frightened Men ( 1937 ), and in A Star Is Born ( 1937 ) with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.

Friedman finds that while Capra's ideas were popular to depression-era and pre-war audiences, they became less relevant to attitudes of a prospering post-war America.

Many popular science fiction and self-development works, such as What the Bleep Do We Know and the Fritjov Capra's Tao of Physics allude to the possible spiritual implications.

Frank Capra's Why We Fight ( 1942 – 1944 ) series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U. S. public that it was time to go to war.

After World War II, however, Capra's career declined as his subjects were more out of tune with the mood of audiences.

Capra's family was Roman Catholic.

He notes that the English word " capricious " derives from it, " evoking the animal's skittish temperament ", adding that " the name neatly expresses two aspects of Frank Capra's personality: emotionalism and obstinacy.

They eventually settled in an Italian ghetto in Los Angeles, where Capra's father worked as a fruit picker and young Capra sold newspapers after school for the next 10 years, until he graduated high school.

Capra's only prior exposure to films, however, was in 1915 while attending Manual Arts High School.

During the following years, however, Langdon's films went into decline without Capra's assistance.

Few of the studio heads or crew were aware of Capra's engineering background until he began directing The Younger Generation in 1929.

" His films soon established Capra as a " bankable " director known throughout the industry, and Cohn raised Capra's initial salary of $ 1, 000 per film to $ 25, 000 per year.

Capra also directed a film for MGM during this period, but soon realized he " had much more freedom under Harry Cohn's benevolent dictatorship ", where Cohn also put Capra's " name above the title " of his films, a first for the movie industry.

Nonetheless, McBride insists that The Younger Generation " abounds with parallels to Capra's own life.

Capra's films in the 1930s enjoyed immense success at the Academy Awards.

" That film expressed Capra's patriotism more than any of his others, and " presented the individual working within the democratic system to overcome rampant political corruption.

Film author Richard Glazer speculates that the film may have been autobiographical, " reflecting Capra's own uncertainties.

" Glazer describes how " John's accidental transformation from drifter to national figure parallels Capra's own early drifting experience and subsequent involvement in movie making ... Meet John Doe, then, was an attempt to work out his own fears and questions.

Capra's job was to head a special section on morale in order to explain to soldiers " why the hell they're in uniform ", writes Capra, and were not " propaganda " films like those created by the Nazis and Japan.