Few experiences compare to seeing a good movie on the big screen, but DVDs and videos can also be mighty affecting. In this review we’ll take a look at two movie gems on DVD: the classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and the much more recent My Dog Skip (2000).They’re not similar thematically, but they both have an uplifting message, one consistent with Christian values, that seems all too rare in films these days.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is vintage Frank Capra and probably even more relevant in today’s cynically amoral age than it was in 1939. The senator of a Midwestern state dies suddenly and is to be replaced by a political hack who will take orders from the state’s senior senator, the governor, and the boss of the state’s political machine. Jefferson Smith (played by James Stewart in at least as powerful a performance as the role of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life) has no political experience and is appointed only because he is well known as an advocate for poor, disadvantaged boys. However, the political bosses, all of whom have sold their souls, don’t realize that Smith is cut from different cloth.
Arriving in Washington, Smith is naïve and pliable at first. On the suggestion of the senior senator, he introduces a bill to establish a national boys’ camp. The trouble is, the area where the camp is to be built is also the site of a dam on land owned by the corrupt political boss and his cronies. Smith refuses to play along with their slimy scheme and is soon viciously vilified and threatened with expulsion from the Senate. His only recourse is to undertake a one-man marathon filibuster, supported only by his assistant (wonderfully played by Jean Arthur) and by the vice-president, who controls the Senate.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is about integrity, about doing the right thing, regardless of the cost or risk to us personally. Smith knows that his chances of prevailing are slim, but he proceeds anyway. In his words, “lost causes are the only ones really fighting for.” How many of our political leaders today would do the same? How many of us would do the same?
My Dog Skip is also about doing the right thing. Based on writer Willie Morris’s personal memoir of childhood in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Skip opens in 1942, when Willie’s hero and next-door neighbor Dink goes off to fight the war in Europe. With Dink gone, Willie’s life is difficult: he has no friends his age, and the other boys pick on him. On his ninth birthday, his parents give him Skip, a Jack Russell terrier who becomes his best friend and in Willie’s later words the “wisest creature” he has ever known, a companion who continually teaches Willie about life. Willie says, “I was an only child, and Skip was an only dog. …Why in our youth do we wish childhood to pass so quickly? We want to grow up fast. As adults, we wish the opposite.”
So far this probably sounds like your typical boy-meets-dog story. It’s more than that, though. Willie does something pretty terrible, the kind of thing we’ve all done and need to atone for. Film reviewer Gene Shalit calls My Dog Skip “a grown-up movie for adults that young people will also cherish.” Right on, Gene. Skip isn’t a classic yet, but it should become one. By the way, the title role was played by six Jack Russell terriers, including the one who was “Eddie” on the TV comedy Frasier.
These two movies are best seen with others present, so invite people over. Both can easily be purchased or ordered through Netflix. Serve plenty of snacks, and make sure you have your handkerchiefs out.
My Ratings:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: 4 stars (not rated)
My Dog Skip: 3 ½ stars (PG)
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