Deeds Goes to Town is a 1936 American comedy-drama romance film directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur in her first featured role.

Based on the 1935 short story "Opera Hat" by Clarence Budington Kelland, which appeared in serial form in The American Magazine, the screenplay was written by Robert Riskin in his fifth collaboration with Capra.

[2][3]Longfellow Deeds is the co-owner of a tallow works, part-time greeting card poet, and tuba-playing inhabitant of the hamlet of Mandrake Falls, Vermont.

Cobb is outfoxed by star reporter Louise "Babe" Bennett, who appeals to Deeds' romantic fantasy of rescuing a damsel in distress by masquerading as a poor worker named Mary Dawson.

Bennett proceeds to write a series of enormously popular newspaper articles on Longfellow, portraying him as a madcap yokel who has suddenly inherited riches, giving him the nickname "Cinderella Man".

He expresses his scorn for the seemingly heartless, ultra-rich man, who feeds doughnuts to horses but will not lift a finger to help the multitudes of desperate poor.

During the hearing, Cedar calls an expert who diagnoses Deeds with manic depression based on Babe's articles and witnesses to his recent behavior.

Uncredited: Originally, Frank Capra intended to make Lost Horizon after Broadway Bill (1934), but lead actor Ronald Colman could not get out of his other filming commitments.

As production began, the two lead actors were cast: Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds and Jean Arthur as Louise "Babe" Bennett/Mary Dawson.

[5] The first scenes shot on the Fox Studios' New England street lot were in place before Capra found his replacement heroine in a rush screening.

[5] Despite his penchant for coming in "under budget", Capra spent an additional five shooting days in multiple takes, testing angles and "new" perspectives, treating the production as a type of workshop exercise.

[9] Variety noted "a sometimes too thin structure [that] the players and director Frank Capra have contrived to convert ... into fairly sturdy substance".

Deeds Goes to Town was placed at number 88 in their all-time chart based on cinema admissions in the UK, with an estimate attendance of 8.3 million.

[24] The bucolic Vermont town of Mandrake Falls, home of Longfellow Deeds, is now considered to be an archetype of small town America, with Clarence Budington Kelland, the author of the original story, having created a type of "cracker-barrel" view of rural values contrasted with that of sophisticated "city folk".

[25][26] The word pixilated,[N 2] previously limited to New England[27] (and attested there since 1848), "had a nationwide vogue in 1936" thanks to its prominent use in the film,[28] although its use in the screenplay may not be an accurate interpretation.