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.

It becomes a smash hit and the first of Capra's great screen classics.

Capra's first choices for Apple Annie and Henry D. Blake, Marie Dressler and W. C. Fields, could not be cast for the same reason.

The first film was shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck and the Music Hall became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio.

Mitchell's first credited screen role was in the 1923 film Six Cylinder Love. as Tom Blue in the trailer for The Black Swan ( film ) | The Black Swan ( 1942 ) Mitchell's breakthrough role was as the embezzler in Frank Capra's 1937 film Lost Horizon.

One of her last important roles was in Frank Capra's first film for Columbia Pictures, That Certain Thing ( 1928 ).

Dirigible was Capra's and Columbia's first film to be given prominence with a premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, but despite high hopes, the film received lukewarm reviews.

Gary Cooper was always Frank Capra's first choice to play John Doe.

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.

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.

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

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

* 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 ).

Capra's synopsis: " Showing the gallant and victorious defense of Britain by Royal Air Force, at a time when shattered but unbeaten British were only people fighting Nazis.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

Many of these stories have their backgrounds in movies, for example Topolino nel favoloso regno di Shan Grillà ( 1961 ) is based upon Frank Capra's Lost Horizon ( 1937 ); not to talk about all the stories starring Snow White or the Seven Dwarfs, obviously based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ( 1937 ).

With the sound era, films like All Quiet on the Western Front ( 1930 ) ( and its much darker German counterpart Westfront 1918 ), Howard Hawks ' Road to Glory ( 1936 ) and Grand Illusion ( 1937 ), focused on the futility of war for non-American soldiers whilst Hollywood produced American soldiers featuring in World War I comedies such as Buster Keaton's Doughboys ( 1930 ) and Wheeler & Woolsey's Half Shot at Sunrise ( 1930 ), or exciting tales of the U. S. Marine Corps putting down rebellions in Central America, China, and the Pacific Islands in films like Frank Capra's Flight ( 1930 ), The Leathernecks Have Landed ( 1936 ) and Tell it to the Marines ( 1926 film ).

The " Apple Annie " story transformed into Capra's Lady For A Day ( and Pocketful of Miracles ) has long been considered a natural source for a stage musical and a number of prominent writers, including Jerry Herman, David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr ; the team of John Kander and Fred Ebb have all worked on unfinished and unrealized adaptations.

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.

She then joined Glenn Ford and Ann-Margret for the Frank Capra film A Pocketful of Miracles ( 1961 ) ( a remake of Capra's 1933 film, Lady for a Day ), based on a story by Damon Runyon.

In Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life ( 1946 ), George Bailey ( center, played by James Stewart ) is shown by his guardian angel how the world would have been radically different for the worse if Bailey had never existed.

Along with Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, also released in 1934, Twentieth Century is considered to be a prototype for the screwball comedy.

Seneca Falls is believed by some to have been the inspiration for the fictional town of " Bedford Falls, N. Y ." portrayed in filmmaker Frank Capra's classic 1940s film " It's a Wonderful Life ".

Frank Capra's Academy Award-winning movie series Why We Fight, the installments The Battle of China and Prelude to War describe the Tanaka Memorial as the document that was the Japanese plan for war with the United States.

After being nominated in 1957 and 1958, in 1962 Glenn Ford won a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor for his performance in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles.

He played the same role in Capra's 1934 film Broadway Bill and the 1950 remake, Riding High.

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 ).

He is probably best known to audiences today for his role as sad sack Uncle Billy in Capra's 1946 Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life opposite James Stewart.

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.

In 1946, she had an uncredited role, singing in Martini's bar as James Stewart was praying, in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.

In Frank Capra's 1936 Film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the eccentricities of the main character are attributed to his having become " pixelated ", or falling under the influence of pixies.

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.

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 family was Roman Catholic.

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.

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.

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.