what were some actions the machine took to expose senator smith as a fraud

When someone asks y'all to write a letter to your Senator, do it. Information technology works. They get really agitated.

"Freedom's also precious a matter to exist buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold information technology upwards in front of them every single day of their lives and say, 'I'thousand gratis to call up and to speak. My ancestors couldn't, I can, and my children volition.'"

— Jefferson Smith, doing Eagleland proud

A film from 1939, directed by Frank Capra, with an All-Star Cast that included James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, and Thomas Mitchell. One of Capra's greatest works, and maybe the best picture Stewart ever made.

A senator dies in the eye of his term, and the country Governor (Guy Kibbee) has to pick a replacement. The crooked political machine controlled by Jim Taylor (Arnold) has a candidate in listen, but this human is already known to have positions unpopular with the populace of that state. The reformers in the land are agitating for a radical to get the seat, but the crooked political machine won't stand for that.

The Governor decides to Accept a Third Selection: He picks someone who is highly idealistic but inexperienced in politics, whom he thinks the political motorcar can keep under command. This person, this new senator, is Mr. Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers.

Mr. Smith gets to meet his idol, the other senator for his state, Senator Joseph Paine. Sen. Paine did peachy things for the state many years agone and he was a personal friend of Smith's father. He's controlled by the machine now, unfortunately, but Mr. Smith isn't really aware of the machine yet.

One time in Washington, he too meets his chief of staff/secretary—the very beautiful, intelligent Saunders. She does take a heart of gold, but she's an utter cynic.

Now, there is one problem the state machine has with Mr. Jefferson Smith. Mr. Smith has one issue he supports—building/improving a Male child Ranger camp past a major river in the land. But 1 of the principal goals of this machine is to dam the river (to produce profit for the car boss, who owns some of the land), which would wipe out many of the natural attractions Mr. Smith hopes to preserve. And then, the senior senator and his secretary have to forbid Mr. Smith from voting against the dam, decoying him away from a session where a crucial preliminary vote on the issue is held by sending him on a date with the senior senator's daughter.

However, despite the all-time efforts of Taylor and Paine, Smith finds out about the dam. Taylor and Paine effort to buy Smith off, but non only does he turn down a payoff, he vows to betrayal their crooked bargain. Backed into a corner, the Taylor machine turns on Smith—with a vengeance.

James Stewart was already a man on the ascent in Hollywood after his plough in the previous twelvemonth'due south You Tin can't Have It with You, but this movie made him one of the leading stars of his twenty-four hours.

Fun fact: Jean Arthur had an imbalanced contour. She believed that she was much prettier from her left side than her right, and a lot of Hollywood people agreed. Watch her scenes in this moving-picture show and note how she'due south about always shot from the left.

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Tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny: During his filibuster, Smith declares, "Either I'm dead right or I'thousand crazy!" Senator MacPherson promptly deadpans, "You wouldn't intendance to put that to a vote would you, Senator?" This gets a chuckle from everyone in the sleeping accommodation, including Smith.
• Affably Evil:
  • Senator Paine may exist corrupt, but he isn't cruel.
  • Taylor as well tin can be very generous to his employees. Cross him, nevertheless, and he'll throw y'all under a bus. Fight, and he'll smear your name with a massive media empire.
• The All-American Boy: Mr. Smith is a perfect grown-up case, as well equally all the Boy Rangers.
• All In that location in the Script: H.B. Warner and Pierre Watkin's characters are, respectively, credited as Senate Bulk Leader and Senate Minority Leader. In the script they also have names, respectively, Sen. Martin Agnew and Sen. John Barnes. Their party affiliations are presumably opposite, but it is never stated which is a Democrat and which a Republican.

• Armor-Piercing Question: When Smith angrily confronts some cynical paparazzi, this exchange takes the wind out of his sails:

  Reporter: What do y'all know about laws or making laws or what the people need?
  Smith: I don't pretend to know.
  Diz: Then what are y'all doing in the Senate?

• Artistic License – Politics:
  • Smith is able to social club the unabridged Senate to be forced to attend his 24-hour filibuster because the entire assembly (relieve Smith) storms out in protest over him, making him the "bulk party" and thereby able to order everyone else back inside. In reality, Senators are well-acquainted with this tactic and at least two others would stay behind and proceed i from passing such singular motions.
  • Since none of the other Senators support Smith, they should be able to shut down his filibuster with a two-thirds vote (iii/5ths after 1975).
  • Expulsion of a United States Senator has not happened since the Civil War, mainly because senators faced with an expulsion threat have oft called to resign. Like anything else in American politics it'due south a laborious procedure, and it certainly would not exist equally lightning-quick as in the movie, especially with a senator equally determined to fight every bit Smith is.
• As Yous Know: Early on in the picture Taylor and Paine accept a talk explaining things that both of them know, virtually the Willet Creek Dam graft scheme.
• Numberless of Messages: Mr. Smith expects his filibuster to sway public opinion in his favor, but he is presented with numberless of letters that reveal public opinion has turned against him. The mass of letters almost makes Smith lose hope.
• Ban on Politics: Despite beingness a film nigh politics, it studiously avoids any potentially polarizing details such as party affiliations, hot-button problems, or even what state the senators are from — they refer to "his land" or "that state". The words "Republican" or "Democrat" are never so much every bit alluded to; the most we go is a glimpse of "the bulk leaders" and "the minority leaders."
• Bastardly Speech:
  • Paine's spoken communication near the finish is one of the all-time.
  • Taylor criminalizing Mr. Smith using his media machine is basically this trope on a enormous level.
• Beware the Prissy Ones: Jefferson Smith has a cursory moment where he punches a group of men in sequence that comes out of nowhere, but those men had it coming, considering they made fun of Mr. Smith in the newspaper and mocked him.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Senator Joseph Paine and James Taylor are the Decadent Politicians who control a vast political motorcar and desire to dam a major river, which would destroy the natural attractions that Mr. Smith wants to preserve.
• Large Bad Friend: Paine is this to Smith, hoping to spare him from the crooked realities of the Taylor machine.
• Blood on the Contend Floor: Sort of, at the end, when Sen. Smith is dizzy with exhaustion and dehydration later having talked on the floor of the Senate for 24 hours.
• Break the Cutie: The Inherent in the System entrenched abuse, along with a personal betrayal from Senator Paine, gets very shut to Smith, only a smile from the President of the Senate inspires him to get on until he faints. So the trope would exist Subverted in this example.
• Broken Pedestal: Smith is deeply shocked when he finds out that Paine, a man he had admired, an old friend of his father, is in cahoots with Taylor.
• Buffy Speak: When Diz asks Saunders where a particular drink is, she says, "Information technology's in the thing... behind the matter."
• Graphic symbol Action Title
• Character Filibuster: Literally. Never before has a political filibuster been so dramatic.
• The Coats Are Off: When recieving crucial phone calls, Saunders became and so agitated, that she promptly took her jacket off.
• Collapsed Mid-Speech: Mr. Smith does this at the climax of the film.
• Decadent Corporate Executive: Taylor is a paper magnate past trade.
• Corrupt Political leader: Paine is conspiring with Taylor to get the Willet Creek dam canonical in social club to line the pockets of Taylor and his cronies.
• Land Mouse: Jeff Smith. Many Frank Capra protagonists are in this mold.
• Darkest Hour: By the stop of the picture, Jeff has been framed for abuse, betrayed by his former idol, the Senate is on the verge of expelling him, his newspaper has been shut downwardly Taylor's thugs, he's barely witting and dehydrated, and political opinion has largely been turned confronting him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Saunders.

  "I don't mean to be complaining, Senator, but in all civilized countries, there's an institution called dinner."

• Defrosting Ice Queen: Saunders.
• The Determinator:

  Jefferson Smith: Yous recall I'm licked. Yous all recollect I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked. And I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if the room gets filled with lies similar these, and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place.

• Disappeared Dad: Jefferson's dad, Clayton Smith got murdered while fighting a syndicate earlier the events of the film.
• Dork Horse Candidate: While he was appointed rather than elected, Jeff was the original Dork Horse Candidate.
• Double Take: Saunders does a beaut when Jeff shows upwardly to the part for the first time hours belatedly, and she yells at him to leave, only to finally recognize who he is.

  Saunders: (as she runs out to become him) That wouldn't be Daniel Boone!

• Dragon-in-Chief: Jim Taylor's political influence is what keeps Senator Joseph Paine in power.
• Driven to Suicide: Paine tries to do this later Smith collapses.
• Eagleland: At first glance a Flavour 1, with the idealistic Jefferson Smith visiting the Lincoln Memorial and saying things like the page quote. Nevertheless, the movie also shows bosses similar Taylor owning senators like Paine and manipulating them for their corrupt ends. This pushes the movie closer to the Mixed blazon.
• Endearingly Dorky: Jeff Smith naively stumbles and fumbles his way into the heart of a cynical Washington insider.
• Embarrassing Offset Name: Clarissa Saunders. And so embarrassing, it doesn't even get listed in the credits.
• Expy: The "Male child Rangers", due to the Boy Scouts of America'southward fierce defense force of the use of its protected proper name.
• Fainting: Smith collapses of exhaustion after his filibuster.
• Fallen Hero: Paine, who was in one case a crusading reformer similar Smith's begetter simply at some point in the by sold out to the Taylor motorcar.
• Femme Fatale: Susan Paine uses her attractiveness and feminine wiles to keep Jeff's eye off the ball.
• Foreshadowing: After administering the oath of office, the Vice President says to Smith, "Senator, y'all tin talk all you want to at present." Laughter ensues.
  • And when Taylor tells Paine, "If he convinces those senators, yous might also blow your brains out," Paine looks equally if the words have inspired him to do but that. You'll see the same look on James Stewart'south face in It's a Wonderful Life when Potter tells Bailey "You're worth more dead than alive."
• Frame-Upwards: After Smith starts investigating the Willet Creek dam and then refuses to play ball with Taylor, Taylor and his flunkies and so frame Smith as the man behind the graft scheme, complete with false documents, forged signatures, and perjured testimony.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Or colleague, in this case; none of the other reporters care much for Nosey (Diz calls him an ambulance attorney), but when Jeff, angry about the coverage he received from the press his first night in D.C., starts punching out every reporter he sees, they agree him off when he follows Nosey into the Press Guild.
• Glad I Thought of Information technology: The Governor takes credit for appointing Jeff, which was suggested by his own children.
  • Inverted subsequently by Jeff; while he was the one who had the idea for the boys campsite, when Senator Paine suggests Jeff go to piece of work on it (to put him off reading other bills he'southward not supposed to), Jeff acts equally if the whole thing was Senator Paine's idea.
• Skilful Is Not Impaired: Paine says "This boy'south honest, non stupid."
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: "Horrrrseradish." Doubles as either a Last-Second Discussion Swap (for "whore") or an Unusual Euphemism (for "horses**t").
  • Our sometime friend "cockeyed", substituting for "God-damned" as in many films, is there too.
• The Government
• Government Conspiracy: Sen. Paine is conspiring with Taylor to get a neb passed to build a dam on land Taylor owns. Taylor volition make a mint when the feds buy the country.
• Government Procedural
• Guile Hero: Smith...thanks mainly to Saunders' working every bit The Man Behind the Man.
• Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: Mr. Smith, cheers to Taylor's endeavour at grapheme assassination. However, when he sees that Sen. Paine is willing to perjure himself, he storms out of the room without maxim anything.
• Heads, Tails, Border: The governor is being pressured to choice a party stooge past Taylor, while reform groups are pushing for a crusading outsider. He flips a coin, which lands on its edge, propped upwardly by a newspaper open to a story near Boy Ranger leader Jefferson Smith.
• Heel–Face Plow: Sen. Paine; see Villainous Breakup below. Paine, ridden with guilt and shame both over selling out to Taylor decades ago and framing Smith now, and horrified when the young homo he liked so much collapses on the Senate floor, admits to the whole chamber that everything Smith said was true.
• Heroic BSoD: Later the Frame-Up, Jeff goes dorsum to the Lincoln Memorial, and breaks down in tears.
• Heroic Resolve: Past the end of the movie, Smith is barely standing, public opinion has been turned confronting him in his own state, his paper has been close down past Taylor'due south goons, and he's about to face expulsion. But even so, he stands his ground.
• Heroic RRoD: One of the well-nigh epic examples. In the climax he speaks his heart out, over the course of it his vox gets fainter, he grows stubble, and his face up gets paler than even Blackness and White picture standards. He never gives up, but his body does when he passes out.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Smith'south blessing ratings drib heavily in his dwelling state during the filibuster, thanks to Taylor'southward machinations in mobilizing his Propaganda Machine and using force to interruption up pro-Smith protests.
• Holding the Floor: Maybe the most iconic case in fiction, as Jeff Smith stands on his feet and talks for nearly 24 hours. Manufactures nearly filibuster reform in the United States characteristic pictures of James Stewart a lot.
• Hot And Common cold: Saunders. She warms up to Mr. Smith over the course of the story.
• I Did What I Had to Do: How Paine justifies his abuse to Smith, saying that it gave him a take chances to practice more good for the country.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Jefferson Smith, who rejects an offer from Taylor for any kind of payoff he'd like.
• I Demand a Freaking Drink: After meeting Jeff for the first fourth dimension, Diz tells Saunders, "I demand to become out and drink this over."
• I Never Said Information technology Was Toxicant: Averted. When Smith tells the Senate virtually being offered bribes by Taylor, he tries to cover for Paine by maxim he never said Paine was one of the senators in the room with him. Paine replies, "I was in that room!" (To make matters even more than Zig-Zagged, Paine was in fact not in the room at the time, although he was aware of the meeting.)
• Interrupted Suicide: Offscreen with Sen. Paine—we hear a gunshot and cut to Paine, who is having a gun wrested from his easily.
• Intrepid Reporter: Diz, who, much like Saunders, starts off quite cynical just is won over past Smith.
• In Wine Veritas: Saunders spills the truth almost the Willet Creek scam to Smith after she's had likewise much to drink, although she apparently doesn't regret information technology one time she sobers up.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Martin Monroe. He looks down on Jeff, after reading about his shameless beliefs at Mount Vernon, but comes to admire him after witnessing his hours-long filibuster.
  • Saunders herself. A truly cynical graphic symbol who besides looks down at Jeff, but she becomes enamored with his sunny idealism, and gives him the means to help him out.
  • Diz, one of the Paparazzi who is a existent wiggle to Jeff when he first arrives in Washington— helping publish derogatory stories about him and giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to his face— but when he sees Smith's fight confronting political corruption, he gets on Smith's side and tries to swing the papers to support him likewise.
• Lady in a Ability Conform: Saunders wear ane for the last third of the movie.
• The Concluding DJ:
  • Once Jeff gets wise, Taylor offers him a chance at beingness Senator for the rest of his life, equally well as other favors, if he plays brawl. Jeff refuses, at which signal Taylor throws him under a bus.
  • Smith'due south father was also this, using his newspaper to fight against a criminal syndicate. It ended with him getting a bullet in the back.
• Manchild: Jeff is accused of beingness this several times.
• Peradventure Ever After: Saunders and Jeff, although given how much she apparently adores him one might presume that They Do.
• Meaningful Name: Jefferson Smith is named subsequently a founding father, Paine is morally conflicted, and Taylor shapes politics to his own designs. The latter gets lampshaded:

  Saunders: Public opinion made to order.

• The Mole: Saunders, sort of, when she conspires to become Smith out of the Capitol on the day the deficiency nib is being read out.
• Newscaster Cameo: H.V. Kaltenborn, a renowned CBS radio commentator from the era, appears to cover Smith'due south filibuster.
• Nice Guy: Jeff Smith.
• Nice Task Fixing It, Villain: To encourage Smith, who'southward dejected after his run-in with the reporters, Paine suggests he should introduce a neb to fund i of his dream projects. Unbeknownst to Paine, this project happens to be a male child'due south army camp in Willet Creek, which leads directly to Smith blowing the lid off Paine and Taylor's graft scheme.
• No Newspapers Were Harmed: The Boy Rangers put out a paper called Boys' Stuff, which some viewers may still recognize as Grit . There is a clear nod, non quite a Shout-Out, to the American amateur printing every bit well.
• Noble Demon: Sen. Joseph Harrison Paine, who obviously feels guilty about selling out years ago, and feels even more guilty when Jeff Smith arrives and reminds him of times past.
• Nobody Poops: Smith's delay lasts 24 consecutive hours, during which he cannot sit down or leave the room. In that location are sure actual functions that cannot be delayed for 24 hours. In Real Life, Strom Thurmond had to purposefully dehydrate himself for a total 24-hour interval in a sauna before his tape-breaking filibuster (24 hours, 18 minutes against the 1957 Civil Rights Deed) so that he would not accept to go to the bathroom, and, at ane point, fifty-fifty forced a page to hold a bucket outside the Senate while he pissed in information technology... one foot even so on the Senate floor.
• No Party Given: In Real Life FDR and the Democrats dominated the government at this time, but in the moving-picture show no parties are mentioned.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Claude Rains' natural British accent comes through in several places, not helped by the fact that the "Mid-Atlantic" elocution that was standard for upper classes at the time sounds posh to modern audiences.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Congress itself is described like this.
• Paparazzi: The D.C. printing. Justified, because they are very contemptuous about politics.
• Paper Tiger: The printing corps call Jefferson Smith a "Christmas tiger" to his face, telling him that he was only appointed to fill a seat in the Senate and vote the way Senator Payne wants him to, which chafes the idealistic young senator. A Christmas tiger is a Japanese bobblehead toy, a hariko no tora. It's commonly made of papier-mache. They were called that likely because they were popular in the U.S. as Christmas presents or decorations. ^note Esso (Exxon) actually gave them out as premiums for Christmas a few years before this moving-picture show was made.
• The Plan: With the Senate moving to expel him, Jeff Smith will hold the floor and sway pop opinion against Paine and Taylor's machine.
• Ideal Life-Partners: Diz and Saunders, although Diz apparently wishes they could exist more and at one low point Saunders proposes.
• Post-Victory Plummet: happens a little earlier than Jeff would accept liked.
• Propaganda Auto: Taylor has a fearsome one. It is easy to forget, in the modern media age, how owning a couple of radio stations and a newspaper or two could at i time allow an individual to control the public discourse in a rural area, at least for a piddling while. And it'south implied Taylor owned a lot more than ii.
• Quote Mine: When Smith first arrives in DC, the Paparazzi take advantage of his naiveté and goad him into making quotes and poses that they print out of context to brand him look like a ridiculous rube. He is extremely upset by this.
• Railroad Plot: Smith wants to turn a tract of land into a not-Male child Scout camp. The same land is bought by a corrupt businessman planning on grafting it to the authorities to build a hydroelectric dam proposed by his paid-off Senator.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The Vice President, who is presiding over the Senate and gradually grows more sympathetic to Smith.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Smith confronts the reporters, they lay one on him by mercilessly explaining that his "honorary engagement" really makes him fiddling more than a ceremonial seat filler who's merely there to vote at his party's behest.

  Diz: "You lot're not a Senator. You're an honorary stooge. Yous ought to be shown upwardly."

• Reconstruction: The outset half of the movie shows the ugly realities of politics, tearing at Jeff'southward ideals. Simply the 2d shows Jeff, using the rules of Senate, taking a stand for those ethics.
• Red Baron: Paine is known as "The Silver Knight"
• Scout-Out: The "Boy Rangers" after the Male child Scouts of America refused to participate.
• Sesquipedalian Smith: Jefferson Smith
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: The cynical Saunders falls for the earnest, naive but ultimately forthright and honorable Jefferson Smith.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Pessimism: Ultimately generally idealistic, although Smith has to lose a lot of his naiveté forth the style. Or, to put information technology another mode, idealistic about American values and contemptuous about American politicians.
• Boring Clap: Played with. When Smith presents his neb to the Senate, he has an obvious case of Performance Anxiety and the senators are chuckling patronizingly behind their hands. Equally soon equally he finishes, even so, he gets an uproarious ovation from a tour group of orphans who, unnoticed by anyone else, were observing from the gallery. Hearing this, the senators realize that Smith's bill is actually a pretty good idea and gradually bring together in the adulation.
• Spiritual Successor: To Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, another Frank Capra film in which a rube from the sticks gets taken advantage of by urban sophisticates, until he rises to the occasion. Also, both films feature Jean Arthur as the cynical girl who exploits the hero earlier falling for him. This wasn't a coincidence—the original idea was for this to exist a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes To Boondocks. Afterward the filmmakers couldn't get Gary Cooper, they revised the story and changed the main character's proper name.
• Strawman News Media: Type 1!
• Take a Third Option: The Governor's pick of Mr Smith, rather than ane of Taylor's stooges or a popular insurgent.
• That Liar Lies: When Taylor tempts Smith to go part of his syndicate, he mentions that he's been telling Senator Paine what to practice for 20 years. Smith's blunt response: "You're a liar." Unfortunately, Paine confesses that Taylor was telling the truth in that example.
• Throwing Out the Script: A Capra staple trope.
• Token Practiced Teammate: Jefferson Smith is the nicest, greatest guy in the world, and everyone effectually him sucks. But past beingness effectually him, they first to get improve. Ms. Saunders the secretary, the Decadent Senator from Smith's dwelling house state, they all see the light.
• Unwitting Pawn: The idea is that Smith will be a placeholder until the Taylor machine tin can elect one of its own people.
• Villainous Breakdown: Paine, afterward Jeff collapses and his attempted suicide is averted.

  Expel me! Not that male child! I'k non fit to be a Senator! I'yard not fit to live!

• We Demand a Distraction: Susan Paine lures Smith out on a date then he misses a crucial vote on the dam.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The country represented by Senators Smith and Paine is not named. It's definitely somewhere in the western one-half of the land, and its capital letter is named Jackson City, which suggests that information technology might exist intended to be Missouri (after all, information technology would be confusing for the upper-case letter to really exist "Jefferson City"...)
• Whole Plot Reference: Supposedly the film was based on an unpublished short story called "The Gentleman From Montana". Nonetheless, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play chosen Both Your Houses (1933) has very similar plot points. In the stage play, a neophyte congressman from out westward comes to Washington. A gaggle of corrupt politicans are drafting a graft-laden appropriations bill for the construction of a dam in the neophyte congressman's district. The neophyte congressman is a paragon of Incorruptible Pure Pureness and as such resolves to fight the bill, with the assist of his hypercompetent Daughter Friday secretary. Columbia Pictures wound upwardly buying the rights to Both Your Houses to stave off a lawsuit.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Love Wide Eyed Jefferson Smith.
• Wingding Optics: Mentioned by Saunders. "Look, when I came here, my eyes were big blue question marks. Now they're large light-green dollar marks."
• Would Injure a Child: Taylor'southward thugs. They deliberately crash into a car full of Boy Rangers trying to deliver their own paper in back up of Smith.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/MrSmithGoesToWashington

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