Capracorn

by Randy Fuller May 06, 2026

Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we have a trio of films directed by the late, great Frank Capra. There is also a trio of wines for pairing.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a 1936 romantic comedy starring Gary Cooper as a country bumpkin from Vermont and Jean Arthur as a wise cracking New York City reporter. You couldn’t be a reporter back then unless you could crack wise while getting the scoop. Capra scooped up the Oscar for Best Director.

Cooper’s character, Longfellow Deeds, inherits $20 million from his uncle. Back in the Depression, $20 million was a lot of money. His uncle’s lawyer brings Deeds to the Big Apple and tries to keep him away from reporters. Wise cracking Arthur worms her way into Deeds’ heart by pretending to be a poor person looking for work. He falls for the story, then finds out about the ruse and packs his bag to go back home. It would be a short, sad movie if it ended there, but it doesn’t.

Once the situation is sorted out, Deeds gets the gal, wise cracks and all. One might assume that she softens a bit, what with the $20 million boyfriend. It’s Happily Ever After, just like Capra intended.

You might think that seeking out a wine from Vermont is a fool’s errand, but let me set you straight. Eden Ciders has ice ciders available for $30, although they come in small bottles. They do have grape wines, made from cold-hardy varietals, but if you try the cider, you’ll be a big apple convert.
http://www.nowandzin.com/2011/10/wine-country-vermont-eden-vermont-ice.html

Capra directed 1939’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which starred Jimmy Stewart as senatorial neophyte Jefferson Smith. He wants to take a piece of land and do good with it, while an elder statesman wants to make money with it. Let the clashing begin.

Nobody could do an impassioned speech like Stewart. His verbal takedown of the bad pol in the chamber is a classic. You haven’t seen such sweating on the Senate floor since Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

The movie was criticized at the time by politicians. You had to see that coming. They said the film cast Washington in a bad light. Reading that sentence in today’s political climate is cause for guffaws. What kind of light do you have that will make Washington look good? A magic lamp? If you turn it on and a genie pops out, ask it for some principled Republicans and a nice bottle of Bordeaux.

Master of Wine Tim Atkin writes that when politicizing wine, the big, bold reds are usually favored by conservatives, while more restrained efforts capture the hearts of liberals. I don’t know about that, but from France, where they never accepted the idea of Freedom Fries, comes Château Haut-Bages Liberal. It’s a Cab/Merlot blend that sells for around $50, depending on the vintage. Liberal, by the way, is the name of a previous owner of the estate a couple hundred years ago. Just goes to show, if you get your name on a French wine, it stays there.
https://gc-lurton-estates.com/en/chateau-haut-bages-liberal.html

Pairing wine with certain movies requires a leap of faith. How would you really feel having fava beans and Chianti while watching “Silence Of The Lambs”? Arsenic And Old Lace presents a similar difficulty.

Capra’s film rendition of Arsenic And Old Lace stars Cary Grant as a newlywed who discovers his two sweet, old aunts are inviting old men to their home and offering them elderberry wine dosed with poison.

They do this as a sort of public service. They figure the old guys have nothing to live for, so they give them a little push toward everlasting peace. So, two sweet, little old ladies are revealed to be murderers. Sweet, little, old murderers, but murderers nonetheless. It’s a dark comedy with plenty of laughs.

While noodling around on the internet – we call that “research” – I found an interesting wine factoid about Cary Grant. Supposedly, Grant once beat Winston Churchill in a wine tasting contest! The score was evened later when Churchill beat Grant at cigar tasting. Is it true? Who knows? It was on the internet.

You can “pick your poison” for Arsenic And Old Lace, but how could you resist pairing it with elderberry wine? Manischewitz offers an elderberry wine that’s easy to find and keeps the cost of date night down – it’s less than $5 a bottle. It’s a very sweet wine, just like those little old ladies. By the way, if you offer Manischewitz on a first date, there probably won’t be a second.

The trouble is, it’s not really elderberry wine. It’s made from Concord grapes with some flavoring added. Not so bad, considering what’s being added to the wine in the movie.

You can make your own elderberry wine, or have someone you really trust make it for you. Just don’t use the recipe given in the movie, which calls for “one teaspoon full of arsenic, half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide.”

Whatever wine you choose for Arsenic And Old Lace, we recommend opening the bottle and pouring in plain view of all present. We want the only “funny stuff” to be that which is in the movie.