Last year at the Venice Film Festival, I saw a documentary directed by Matthew Wells called “Frank Capra: Mr. America.” It was engaging, informative, and very pro-Capra. My friend, Farran Smith Nehme, ...

Such is the arc of Frank Capra’s 1936 comedy “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” starring Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds, a greeting-card poet from the fictional town of Mandrake Falls, Vt.

But now, after more than 30 times of watching the film, I’ve learned the Jimmy Stewart/Frank Capra collaboration was a critical flop. Honestly, I don’t know how I missed it. Maybe I was too ...