American Madness

Frank Capra made this in 1932, in the middle of the Depression, and its subject is exactly what was happening outside: a run on a bank. Tom Dickson runs a small bank and lends on character rather than collateral, which his board treats as recklessness. The bank is robbed, and the missing sum grows as it passes from mouth to mouth. Rumour spreads that the bank has failed and depositors mass at the doors. The film shows how that panic propagates, growing from telephone call to telephone call, with an almost technical coldness. Capra cut the crowd sequences unusually fast; the run on the bank is regarded as some of the most dynamic work of his career. Walter Huston plays Dickson. Robert Riskin wrote the screenplay, and this is the first socially conscious collaboration between him and Capra, the foundation of everything they made afterwards. Harry Cohn produced. It was shot in the last year of Herbert Hoover's presidency. Who it is for: viewers curious about Depression-era American cinema and about where the bank-run scene in It's a Wonderful Life came from. Who it is not for: anyone wanting depth. It runs seventy-five minutes, its resolution is far too optimistic, and the characters are defined by a single trait each.