Pocketful Of Miracles

Frank Capra - 1961
The semblance of happiness; could this be Capra's finest work?
Within Capra's style, I was forced to ask myself; does colour make the 30's classical style impossible? The plan americains, long takes of three or four, of the 30's just look awkward, stiff, mannered in colour. They don't draw attention significantly. Is it something to do with black and white drawing attention to the face, and colour not doing so in the same way? Probably not. But something's going on.
This film then does look a little stiff, awkward. The sound design has charaqcters waiting for each other to deliver their rather clunking, on occassion, jokes. There are gaps. I would have to say this whole film feels 'out of date'. Is this deliberate.
But how, after a worrying start, it com es together. And that is because this film is about the semblance of happiness, the desperate, perhaps inevitability doomed to failure, wish for it.
In the plot, the semblance of happiness is required. And so it comes, the goodness is allowed to us just once. Capra lines us up for a big payoff, and then doubles even this bounty in that tremendous party moment.
But the masterstroke is to not resolve issues; how on earth did the Dude do it? Presumably Annie will have to continue lying, how will the Dude not go to jail? Isn't he still involved with Darcy? This film, like Hollywood at its best, offers that little glimpse of happiness. This films shows that in all its beauty, and crucially its fragility; it's a semblance.