Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town1936

Director: Frank Capra
Stars: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglass Dumbrille
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: Unrated
Runtime: 115 minutes

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is Frank Capra's classic screwball comedy about a village innocent who inherits $20 million, only to discover it's more trouble than it's worth. The screwball in question is Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), a small-town greeti… more »



Longfellow Deeds:
About my playing the tuba. Seems like a lot of fuss has been made about that. If, if a man's crazy just because he plays the tuba, then somebody'd better look into it, because there are a lot of tuba players running around loose. 'Course, I don't see any harm in it. I play mine whenever I want to concentrate. That may sound funny to some people, but everybody does something silly when they're thinking. For instance, the judge here is, is an O-filler.

Judge May:
A what?

Longfellow Deeds:
An O-filler. You fill in all the spaces in the O's with your pencil. I was watching him.

Longfellow Deeds:
That may make you look a little crazy, Your Honor, just, just sitting around filling in O's, but I don't see anything wrong, 'cause that helps you think. Other people are doodlers.

Judge May:
"Doodlers"?

Longfellow Deeds:
Uh, that's a word we made up back home for people who make foolish designs on paper when they're thinking: it's called doodling. Almost everybody's a doodler; did you ever see a scratchpad in a telephone booth? People draw the most idiotic pictures when they're thinking. Uh, Dr. von Hallor here could probably think up a long name for it, because he doodles all the time.

Longfellow Deeds:
Thank you. This is a piece of paper he was scribbling on. I can't figure it out - one minute it looks like a chimpanzee, and the next minute it looks like a picture of Mr. Cedar. You look at it, Judge. Exhibit A for the defense. Looks kind of stupid, doesn't it, Your Honor? But I guess that's all right; if Dr. von Hallor has to, uh, doodle to help him think, that's his business. Everybody does something different: some people are, are ear-pullers; some are nail-biters; that, uh, Mr. Semple over there is a nose-twitcher.

Longfellow Deeds:
And the lady next to him is a knuckle-cracker.

Longfellow Deeds:
So you see, everybody does silly things to help them think. Well, I play the tuba.

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