OTHER BOOKS
& PUBLICATIONS ON
OR ABOUT FRANK CAPRA
Frank Capra's American Dream
(1997, 105 minutes)
Available from amazon.com DVD or VHS
A straightforward telling of the Capra legend with numerous film clips.
Many Hollywood directors, stars and film-scholars are given screen-time to talk about
Capra's films, their meanings (some with obvious enthusiasm). A running narrative by Ron Howard keeps all of the information organized in the interesting format of a story that moves from Capra's birth to the event of Capra publishing his autobiography. Capra's deep retirement years are not covered in any particular depth, and perhaps it was still too recent at the time of the making of this film. The documentary features home movies, interviews with Capra's sons, and a broad overview of Capra's evolution from Hollywood novice to established director. It is a well-made overview of Capra's oeuvre with a quick sketch of his personal life at each step along the way.
Frank Capra
Authorship and the Studio System
Edited by Robert Sklar & Vito Zagarrio
Temple University Press, 1998, 293 pages
This
collection is a nice little Capra Reader, and is chock-full
of differing and varied ideas about Capra's major films.
Description: This book contains an introduction and nine essays. The essays
are: Anatomy of a House Director: Capra, Cohn, and Columbia
in the 1930s (By Thomas Schtz); A Leap into the Void: Frank
Capra's Apprenticeship to Ideology (By Robert Sklar); It is
[not] a Wonderful Life: For a Counter Reading of Frank Capra
(By Vito Zagarrio); Capra and the Abyss: Self-interest versus
the Common Good in Depression America (By Charles J. Maland);
It Happened One Night: The Recreation of the Patriarch (By
Richard Maltby); Roosevelt, Arnold, and Capra, [or] the Federalist-Populist
Paradox (By Giuliana Muscio); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington:
Democratic Forums and Representational Forms (By Charles Wolfe);
Studio Metamorphosis: Columbia's Emergence from Poverty Row
(By Brian Taves); Notes on Columbia Pictures Corporation,
1926-1941, with a New Afterward (By Edward Buscombe). The
book also has a Bibliography and Filmography, as well as notes
on the individuals contributors to the volume.
Six
Screenplays by Robert Riskin
Edited with an Introduction by Pat McGilligan
University of California Press, 1997, 696 pages
This
book has an informative and well-written 89 page introduction
which easily doubles as a loose-biography of Riskin while
also analyzing Riskin's impact on Frank Capra's film work.
The information put forward (a significant amount via Riskin's
widow, actress Fay Wray) helps to flesh out some of what Joseph
McBride brought up in his biography Frank Capra: The Catastrophe
of Success, particularly how Riskin and Capra worked together.
That the two men liked each other, and Riskin's loyalty to
Capra even after there appeared examples of Capra hedging
credit on his films at the expense of Riskin, is a cause for
pause. Frank Capra was certainly "the name above the
title," yet it seems that Riskin was at the heart of
many of the major Capra films. Film fans who subscribe completely
to the "one man, one film" dictum of the auteur have a gordian knot of puzzles to separate when it comes to
Riskin/Capra.
The
six screenplays for Capra reprinted herein are: Platinum
Blonde, American Madness, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds
Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, and Meet John Doe.
"Riskin's
populism (he hated the word) was from the heart. Over and
over again his scripts affirmed their "faith"
(a word that recurs in Mr. Deeds) in "the
people," his optimism often founded upon lead characters
who were strangers or nobodies. Critics still prefer to
call that formula "Capraesque," although some
think it should be known, at least equally, as "Riskinesque."
(page 45)
American
Vision : The Films of Frank Capra
By
Raymond Carney (Published by Weslayan University Press, 1996.
Trade paperback, 6x9 ". 510 pp.)
Carney discusses Capra in regards to American transcendentalism,
including the paintings of Homer, Eakins, Sargent, and Hopper
and the writings of Emerson, Poe, Hawthorne, and William and
Henry James, and others. Includes analysis of Capra's films.
British Film Institute
New Index Series #3
Time Magazine
Article
on Frank Capra
(Published August 14, 1938)
Frank Capra:
American Film Institute
Televised
program (Published 1982)
Another
Frank Capra: Cambridge Studies in Film
By
Leland Poague (Published 1995)
Columbia
Mirror
October
1939
Columbia Pictures promotional magazine
Features Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Frank Capra
By Charles J. Maland (Published
1995)
Frank Capra's American Dream
By Ron Howard
VHS Tape program1997
Meet John Doe : Frank Capra, Director:
Rutgers Films in Print Vol
13
By Charles Wolfe (Editor) (Published 1989)
The Complete Films of Frank Capra
By Victor Scherle, William
Turner-Levy (Published 1992)
Examination of Narrative Structure in
Four Films of Frank Capra
By Brian G. Rose (Published 1980)
The Films of Frank Capra (Retrospective)
Special Program to the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts Capra
film retrospective.
(Publishing date: unknown)
It's a Wonderful Life
(St. Martins Original Screenplay Series)
By Frances Goodrich (Published 1986)
Literature Film Quarterly : Fictional Realism
Frank Capra Interview. Vol IX Vol 9
(Published 1981)
Populism and the Capra Legacy
(Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture, No 44)
By Wes D. Gehring (Published 1995 )
American Madness : The Life of Frank Capra
Joseph McBride / Published 1990
The Cinema of Frank Capra : An Approach to Film Comedy
By Leland A. Poague (Published 1975)
Tantativy Press. 252 pgs
The Films of Frank Capra
By N.J. Secaucus (Published 1977)
The Films of Frank Capra
By Donald C. Willis (Published 1974)
Frank Capra : A Guide to References and Resources
(A Reference Publication in Film)
By Charles Wolfe (Published 1987)
Frank Capra the Man and His Films
By Glatzer R (Published 1975)
Identity: Italian Americans Magazine
(Published May 1977)
The Men Who Made the Movies :
Interviews with Frank Capra, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Alfred
Hitchcock,
Vincente Minnelli, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh (Published 1975)
