Old Films for the New Depression: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) is a strikingly relevant film, as we are currently in the midst of the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Is this film aggressively white, with a protagonist who came to life from a Hallmark card? Yes, this movie was made in 1936. Is there some low-level sexism in the shrewish Mrs. Semple and the alleged common-law wife of the deceased Mr. Semple? Again, it was 1936. I try to pick my battles wisely.
The film almost feels like it contains two different stories with the same beginning: Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), a small-town man inherits 20 million dollars from a distant uncle, Martin Semple, equivalent to more than $370 million in 2021. The late Mr. Semple’s attorney, John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), embezzled money from his client and Cedar needs to get power of attorney from Deeds in order to cover up the embezzlement. A still-living relative, Mr. Semple, and his wife, the other potential heirs to Martin Semple’s fortune, live comfortable middle class lives but feel they have been slighted by not inheriting the money.
The story that occupies most of the first hour of the film is the story of a sweet, sincere man who is fooled by a slick city reporter, Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur). Deeds, the protagonist, thinks that Bennett, is just a poor working woman named Mary Dawson. Bennett pretends to faint from exhaustion in front of his mansion, saying she walked all day to find a job. Deeds’ romantic ideal is saving a woman in distress, so he falls for her almost instantly, while she uses their courtship to write popular articles mocking Deeds. She brands him ‘The Cinderella Man,’ and mocks him for playing the tuba to help him think, and feeding doughnuts to a horse. Although Bennett attempts to retain her cynical attitude, she ends up gradually falling for Deeds.
Bennett plans to confess her true identity to Deeds, but just before she can, he finds out the truth from Cobb, the man whose job is to keep bad press at bay. Deeds is crushed. The one person he thought he could trust in New York City is the person who has written every negative headline about him. So, he decides he’s going home to Vermont immediately. That’s where the first story ends.
There was no Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok in 1936, but the American obsession with wealth still existed. Mr. Deeds’ activities are deemed news material only because he is rich, in the same way Elon Musk’s opinions are glorified just because he is rich. (The man tried to invent the bus stop a few years ago and people still think he’s intelligent.) However, since the media attention Deeds received was negative, perhaps he should be compared to the Kardashians, who became famous for their wealth and various antics. Either way, Mr. Deeds, like so many wealthy Americans, was deemed notable mainly because of his newfound wealth, rather than for any particular accomplishment or misdeed on his part. This film shows American culture has always linked wealth and virtue. And if the millionaire in question does not behave as they are supposed to, society will turn against them in the blink of an eye. In addition, Deeds lives under the type of microscope we now consider ordinary. Every foible or stupid mistake we make can now be uploaded in seconds—although in 2021, someone feeding a horse donuts would probably end up as a viral video rather than a humiliating news article.
As entertaining and socially relevant as the first story contained within the film is, the second story is far more relevant when considering the pandemic and its socioeconomic impact. The late Mr. Semple’s attorney, John Cedar, embezzled money from his client. Cedar needs to get power of attorney from Deeds in order to cover up the embezzlement.
Just as Deeds is about to go back to Vermont, a man who lost his farm due to the Great Depression bursts in, and gives a stirring monologue while threatening Deeds with a gun. After the farmer and Deeds eat lunch together, Deeds decides to use 18 million of the 20 million he inherited to give farms to homeless families as long as they agree to work the land for at least three years. The problem is, Deeds generosity will completely expose Cedar’s embezzlement, so he works with the other potential heir to Martin Semple’s fortune to try and get Deeds declared mentally incompetent. There is a hearing to determine whether or not Deeds will be allowed to control his fortune. The charges state that Deeds is “insane and incapable of managing the Estate.” As Deeds puts it, “just because I want to give this money to people who need it, they think I’m crazy.”
The second phase of the plot opens up the broader question of who is entitled to a bailout when times get tough. For example, the first COVID bailout bill gave $300 billion in direct payments to Americans and $500 billion in loans and other money for large corporations. The bill gave $260 billion in increased unemployment benefits, and the creation of the Paycheck Protection Program gave small businesses an initial $350 billion in funding, later increased to $669 billion. The bill also included corporate tax breaks. According to the Orlando Sentinel, thriving companies will also be eligible for these tax breaks, including a company making N95 masks for the federal government and GrubHub, whose orders went up due to the pandemic. Huge corporations barely pay taxes as it is. Amazon paid no taxes in 2017 and 2018, and paid 1.2% of pre-tax income in 2019.
And remember, just because your check was means-tested doesn’t mean the corporation checks were. Companies like Shake Shack and Hallmark Financial got bailed out through programs designed to go to small businesses, while real small businesses struggled to stay afloat.
Offering corporations more tax breaks rather than giving people money during a pandemic is impractical even from a market capitalism based perspective. Here’s why: in a good economy, most people have disposable income, which they use to buy products. They choose to buy products from the stores with the best prices and/or the best products. But it doesn’t always work that way. For example, Walmart has a monopoly in some rural and suburban areas. In some areas, Walmart controls at least 70% of grocery sales.
But even with these issues, consumers still try to purchase the best and most affordable options available to them. Giving corporations money instead of consumers is problematic because consumers are supposed to support corporations through purchasing their products, not through paying their taxes. There were certain industries, like airlines and restaurants, which needed cash bailouts, because of the nature of the pandemic, but in most cases, had Americans received larger bailout checks in lieu of giving corporations money, Americans would have spent that money and given the economy a boost that way. According to a 2017 report from the Economic Policy Institute, if wages of the bottom 90% of Americans went up, economic growth would too. According to the same report, the primary constraint on American economic growth in recent years has been a lack of spending by households, businesses, and governments. Giving individuals and families money isn’t just good morally, it’s good policy. If we had given Americans money, the economy would have gotten better bottom up instead of top down.
Government bailouts consistently offer corporations money instead of offering it to people; pay attention to the breakdown of how much individuals get and how much companies get. During the 2008 financial crisis, when at least 10 million Americans lost their homes, there was a bank bailout bill passed which gave the Treasury Secretary the ability to purchase $700 billion in troubled assets from any financial institution. How much money did you or your family get from the federal government in 2008? All of these flawed bailouts speak to the issue at the heart of this film: Who deserves to get money?
Deeds takes a position more in alignment with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s point of view, while Cedar takes a position more in alignment with Senator Mitch McConnell’s point of view.
In his opening speech at the trial, Cedar points to the country’s “economic ailments” and says that it is “endangered with an undercurrent of social unrest.” According to Cedar, Deeds’ plan to give his money away will “foment a disturbance from which the country may not soon recover,” and that the plan must be “attributed to a diseased mind.” Essentially, if people see what they are entitled to, they might start demanding it from the government or other millionaires.
Cedar essentially doubles down on this point when it looks like Deeds is about to win. He jumps to his feet and shouts that if Deeds is “permitted to carry out his plan, repercussions will be felt that will rock the foundations of our entire governmental system!”
Deeds points out that there will always be haves and have nots, those who make it to the top easily and those who can’t. “…The fellows who can make [it] should stop once in a while and help those who can’t.” Deeds points out that Cedar “wants a free ride” instead of letting Deeds help “those men out there who are drowning.” The nail in the coffin for Cedar comes when Deeds points out that Cedar offered to settle before the trial. “So you see, he wouldn’t think I was crazy if he got paid off.”
Our government can give checks to desperate people, but only if we also give money to corporations who don’t need it and might not even pay their employees with it. We can only help those who need it if we can slip it in with money and tax breaks for corporations.
There’s a happy ending to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town: Deeds wins the case, punching Cedar in the process, and gets the girl of his dreams. Everyone, including the judge, is on his side. But will the American people get a similar happy ending?
