Includes: American Madness, It Happened One Night,    Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,    You Can’t Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 

When Joseph Walker, ASC worked with Frank Capra for the first time, on That Certain Thing in 1928, the director tested Walker’s patience to the point that the cinematographer asked Columbia executive Sam Briskin not to assign him to any more Capra pictures. Walker changed his mind after he saw the completed film, however, and the cinematographer and director eventually collaborated on 20 pictures, five of which are included in the recently released, indispensable boxed set The Premiere Frank Capra Collection.

The first film in the set is American Madness, which is new to DVD. This smart and funny tale of a bank in crisis reflects New Deal thinking and addresses issues both political and personal; the movie has a lot to say about class, and it’s equally insightful in its exploration of male-female relationships. Most of the story takes place in an elaborate bank set, which Walker often lit in a chiaroscuro style that foreshadowed the film noir movement of the next decade.

Walker shifted to a completely different style for the romantic comedy It Happened One Night, the film that put Capra on the map. The movie fulfills the most important requirement of any love story: two characters that the audience wants to end up together. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert’s iconic performances are enhanced by Walker’s gloriously romantic lighting, which makes both characters look gorgeous.

After the success of It Happened One Night, Capra was in a position to do whatever he wanted, and he eventually used his new clout to make the social satire Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. In this story of a decent man who inherits a fortune, Capra developed themes that he would focus on for the rest of his career: the role of the individual in American society, the intersection between money and power, and the conflicts between institutions and communities.

The movie features a terrific performance by Capra favorite Jean Arthur, whose work is greatly aided by Walker’s use of lighting and composition to illustrate her character’s changing feelings toward hero Gary Cooper. The early scenes in which Arthur views Cooper with condescension are lit in a flat, slightly harsh manner that underscores the methodical way in which she means to destroy him. But as Arthur’s character grows to love and respect Deeds, Walker frames the heroine in close-ups in which subtle gradations of light convey her softening feelings.

Capra and his collaborators experimented on Deeds, eschewing conventional coverage for longer takes and opting for editing that prioritizes emotional continuity over spatial continuity. This approach was further developed in You Can’t Take It with You, a hilarious farce that marked Capra’s first collaboration with actor James Stewart. One year later, they reteamed on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, one of Capra’s best and most personal films. This story of a principled young senator fighting corruption is both an inspirational tale and a prescient examination of the media’s power to bring out the worst in human nature. The complexity of the piece is echoed in Walker’s visuals, which balance documentary-style realism and stylized Hollywood romanticism.

Overall, Walker’s luminous images have been beautifully captured in these excellent DVD transfers, although the Deeds pressing exhibits some picture flaws. Each film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Frank Capra Jr., who proves to be an astute commentator on his father’s work. His recollections of his father’s relationships with studio executives and collaborators are a delight for anyone interested in Hollywood’s golden age. On American Madness and You Can’t Take It with You, Capra shares the commentary track with film scholar Catherine Kellison.

Supplemental material also includes four featurettes totaling 70 minutes; these feature interviews with Capra Jr., Kellison, and film historians Jeanine Basinger and Richard Peña. The featurettes cover Capra’s family life, his collaborations with other artists, his golden period at Columbia, and his later years as a mentor to young filmmakers. There is some overlap among the interviews, documentaries and commentary tracks, but this is understandable given the massive amount of supplementary material here.

The highlight of the bonus materials is Kenneth Bowser’s 1997 documentary Frank Capra’s American Dream, a feature-length overview of the director’s work that contains interviews with key collaborators and admirers such as Oliver Stone, John Milius and Allen Daviau, ASC. Also included are theatrical trailers and radio promotions. All of this adds up to a feast for Capra fans.