The director of It’s a Wonderful Life, who won five Oscars in the 1930s for films that embodied the pre-World War II notion of American exceptionalism, was pushed into semi-retirement by the early 50s by changes in tastes and political priorities. Capra was brought back to the Hollywood director’s chair by Frank Sinatra in the 1960s, but Capra quickly became embittered by an industry that he felt had left him behind, and in 1971 published an autobiography airing grievances about an industry that he believed was “stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art to compete for the 'patronage' of deviates and masturbators.”

(00:00) Introducing The Old Man is Still Alive

(02:11) Frank Capra

(06:22) Antisemitism and Adult Circumcision

(11:59) Fascism vs. Communism

(19:53) Propaganda

(21:55) It's A Wonderful Life

(26:22) Naming Names

(37:15) "The new look in conformity"

(01:02:03) Hitting Bottom

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