The Donovan Affair

This early all-dialog talkie was among the first of the many films Frank Capra directed under his contract deal with Harry Cohn, boss of Columbia Pictures, a deal that took Capra from two-reeler Mack Sennett obscurity to total creative freedom--he was the first studio contract director whose name was permitted to precede the film's title when the credits rolled--and that made Columbia a major studio. In coming years, Capra was to win three Academy Awards for directing within a five-year period (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, 1934; MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, 1936; YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, 1938). THE DONOVAN AFFAIR was Capra's first all-talking picture; a murder mystery, it ...