Spoiler : Wonderful director Frank Capra with his list of magnificent film credits .They were nearly all involved with social justice of one form or another e.g.Mr Deeds goes to Town orMr Smith Goes to Wasjington or maybe You Can't Take it With You.Gary Cooper, James Stewart worked so well in his films. Mr Capra a hero of mine.

Spoiler : Awesome actor & director.

Spoiler : Great actor and great director.

Spoiler : My Very Favourite Actor & Director Of All

Spoiler : Love Frank Capra films

Spoiler : What a great director!My favourite is You can't take it with you.My mother used this expression often - I never knew where it came from until I saw the movie!

Spoiler : Remembering director, producer and writer Frank Capra who left us on September 3, 1991.

Spoiler : The youngest of seven children and an Italian immigrant, Frank came to the U.S. with his family in 1903 at the age of five. He would always remember the 13 day journey in steerage as one of the worst experiences in his life, calling it “the most degrading place you could ever be.” He would also recall his father’s excitement on seeing the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor, telling his son “That’s the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem! That’s the light of freedom! Remember that.”

Spoiler : Frank’s first job in the East Side of Los Angeles was selling newspapers, which he did after school for ten years. Once he graduated high school, he went against his parents’ wishes and enrolled in college rather than working full-time. He would wait tables, work at the campus laundry facility, clean engines at a local power plant and play banjo at nightclubs while attending the California Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a degree in chemical engineering in 1918.

Spoiler : He became a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I, teaching mathematics to artillerymen at Fort Point in San Francisco. Frank contracted the Spanish flu and was medically discharged to return home to his mother, who had been widowed in 1916 when his father was killed in a work-related accident. In 1920, Frank became a naturalized U.S. citizen and took the Americanized name of Frank Russell Capra (his birth name was Francesco Rosario Capra.)

Spoiler : Despite his college education (the only one in his family with such an education), Frank had difficulty finding employment, leading to bouts of depression. He jumped on freight trains, traveling through the western United States and supporting himself with odd jobs on farms, playing poker, and as a movie extra. It was during this time, in late 1921, that he directed his first film - - a documentary short called LA VISITA DELL’INCROCIATORE ITALIANO LIBYA A SAN FRANCISCO.

Spoiler : The following year, he was selling books written and published by the philosopher Elbert Hubbard -- something Frank disliked and would cause him to realize “all I had was cockiness . . . and let me tell you, that gets you a long way.” It was while he was selling books, and nearly broke, that he read a newspaper article about a new movie studio opening in San Francisco. He contacted the studio, telling them he had moved from Hollywood to San Francisco and that he had movie experience. Studio founder Walter Montague was impressed with the cocky young man and hired him to direct a one-reel silent film for $75.

Spoiler : Frank found work at another minor San Francisco studio, which led to an offer to work with producer Harry Cohn in Los Angeles. He would work as a property man, film cutter, title writer and assistant director before becoming a gag writer for Hal Roach’s OUR GANG shorts. Mack Sennett hired Frank to write for his Keystone Kops in 1924, as well as write scripts for comedian Harry Langdon. It was Langdon that took Frank along to First National Studios when Langdon left Sennett and Keystone to make feature-length movies; Frank would be Langdon’s personal writer and director. The duo made three films together in 1926 and 1927, all of them successful with the public and the critics and putting Langdon on par with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Unfortunately, Langdon and Frank had a falling out and Frank was fired. Without Frank’s guiding hand, both in writing and directing, Langdon’s films went into decline. Frank directed one more picture for First National, FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE (1927), which starred newcomer Claudette Colbert. It was a failure.

Spoiler : Nonetheless, Frank returned to Harry Cohn and his newly named Columbia Pictures, to help the-then Poverty Row studio, produce full-length feature films. Up to that point, Cohn’s studio produced shorts and “fillers” that would play between the main features. It was a brilliant move on both Cohn’s and Capra’s parts as Frank would eventually direct some 20 films for Columbia, many of them classics.

Spoiler : Due to his engineering background, Frank was able to quickly adapt and understand the new sound technology, making him very valuable. Unlike most silent film directors, he was happy to transition to talkies and, also unlike many in Hollywood, he did not believe sound technology was a fad.

Spoiler : Harry Cohn realized that Frank’s films for Columbia during that time -- nine the first year -- led to Columbia making better quality pictures. Cohn, considered quite the dictator at his studio, was more trusting of Frank, where he put his director’s name above the title of his films (the first director in the industry to get such an honor) and raised his salary from $1,000 per film to $25,000 per year (the equivalent of just over $356,000 in 2018.) Frank would always hold Cohn in respect, as Cohn gave him a chance and Frank felt he owed his entire career to the studio head. By the same token, Frank helped to propel Columbia Studios into the big league in Hollywood.

Spoiler : During his years at Columbia, Frank would work with writer Robert Riskin and cameraman Joseph Walker. Many of his films would harken back to Frank’s own youth and earlier years with the theme of struggle, grief, despair, cynicism, and the American Dream. His film crews also garnered a reputation as being more professional, as Frank’s philosophy was that the crew was working for the actors, not the other way around.

Spoiler : Thanks to his perceived natural style of directing (Frank was a fan of improvisation), and the themes of the courage and the underdog triumphing that were prevalent in his films, the term “Capraesque” was coined. Surprisingly, some critics felt his films were “Capra-corn” -- sappy and simple.

Spoiler : A loyal filmmaker and friend, Frank was partial to casting Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Stewart in his movies. Of Stewart, he said his “appeal lay in being so unusually usual.” It was Stewart to whom Frank turned following World War II with this idea to film the short story “The Greatest Gift.” Frank felt the story was the one he had been looking for all his life and he pitched it to Jimmy without a script in hand. Jimmy immediately agreed and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE was born.

Spoiler : Frank always considered IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE his favorite film and the greatest he ever made. He never saw it as a Christmas film and the theme of an individual’s belief in himself sums up Frank Capra’s life and accomplishments in one sentence. He attended an annual IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE celebration in 1981 and deemed it “one of the proudest moments of my life.”

Spoiler : He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II and helped to make propaganda films.

Spoiler : Frank was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences four times (1935-1939) and three times president of the Directors Guild of America (1938-1941), which he helped found. During his presidency, he worked hard to give directors more artistic control of their films.

Spoiler : In his spare time, Frank enjoyed mountain climbing, fishing, hunting, playing guitar, and writing short stories and songs. He also collected fine and rare books.

Spoiler : Upon his death in 1991, Frank left a portion of his 1,100 acre Fallbrook, California ranch to his alma mater, Caltech, to use as a retreat.

Spoiler : Today Frank Capra is remembered as one of the most influential directors in film history.