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.

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

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.

Nonetheless, Capra's vision about the film's significance was clear:

" 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.

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.

Biographer Joseph McBride argues that Capra's disillusionment was more related to the negative effect that the House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC ) had on the film industry in general.

Capra's final theatrical film was with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, named Pocketful of Miracles ( 1961 ), a remake of his 1933 film Lady for a Day.

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.

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.

The film was based on a stage play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and along with Frank Capra's It Happened One Night ( released the same year ) is considered to be the defining film of the screwball comedy genre.

The film was Capra's last feature, and although it was not the commercial success he hoped it would be, he " gushed about Falk's performance.

Colbert was noticed by the theatrical producer Leland Hayward, who suggested her for a role in Frank Capra's film For the Love of Mike ( 1927 ), now believed to be lost.

Capra's " first, last and only choice " for the pivotal role of the eccentric Longfellow Deeds was Gary Cooper.

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.

" Joseph McBride in a later biography notes that Capra's emphasis on theme rather than people was evident in the film ; he also considered the film a financial " debacle.

The song was later used in Frank Capra's propaganda film, The Battle of China.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Maguire family was setting up a separate camp nearby.

The car was just about to us, its driver's fat, solemn face intent on the road ahead, on business, on a family in Sante Fe -- on anything but an old pick-up truck in which two human beings desperately needed rescue.

From L'Turu, I heard that until about 1850 the people of this island -- which was about the size of Guam or smaller -- had been of both sexes, and that the normal family life of Melanesian tribes was observed here with minor variations.

But his prime interest, apart from music, he insisted seriously, was his family -- his wife, daughter and son.

The family was Protestant, but for me it was only irksome and I let it go.

Heidenstam was born in 1859, of a prosperous family.

The family estate was situated near Vadstena on Lake Vattern in south central Sweden.

Although Faulkner was the heir in his own family to this tradition, he did not have Stark Young's inclination to romanticize and sentimentalize the planter society.

and, `` I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world '', burst out Jo some five hundred pages later in that popular story of the March family, which had first appeared when Henrietta was eight ; ;

but both groups were so closely knit that despite individual differences the family life in both cases was remarkably similar in atmosphere if not entirely in content -- the one being definitely Jewish and the other vaguely Christian.

Moreover, because of the particular blot on your family escutcheon through what may only have been one unbridled moment on your grandmother's part, and because you had the lean-to kitchen and trundle bed of your childhood to outgrow, what you obviously most desired with both your conscious and unconscious person, what you bent your whole will, sensibility, and intelligence upon, was to be a lady.

His father, George A. Mercer, was descended from an honored Southern family that could trace its ancestry back to one Hugh Mercer, who had emigrated from Scotland in 1747.

She was Ellen Aldridge, a widow of good repute who was employed by Gorton's wife and lived with the family.

After complimenting Morgan and the riflemen and saying he was praising them to Congress, too, the ardent Frenchman added he felt that Congress should make some financial restitution to the widow and family of Morris, but that he knew Morgan realized how long such action usually required, if it was done at all.

He was shown a warm welcome regardless, and spent the time in Winchester recuperating from his ailment, enjoying his family and arranging his private affairs which were, of course, run down.

Meltzer was a boarder with the Banks family.

Banks the Butcher was a hard master and a hard father, a man who didn't seem to know the difference between the living flesh of his family and the hanging carcasses of his stock in trade.

When founded by Franklin the Gazette was a weekly family newspaper and under its new name its format remained that of a newspaper but its columns gradually contained more and more fiction, poetry, and literary essays.

Jemela ( surname: Gerby ), 23, seems Hong Kong Oriental but has a Spanish father and an Indian mother, was born in America and educated at Holy Cross Academy and Textile High School, says she learned belly dancing at family picnics.

His parents talked seriously and lengthily to their own doctor and to a specialist at the University Hospital -- Mr. McKinley was entitled to a discount for members of his family -- and it was decided it would be best for him to take the remainder of the term off, spend a lot of time in bed and, for the rest, do pretty much as he chose -- provided, of course, he chose to do nothing too exciting or too debilitating.