Directed by William Wyler, this is a light comedy and drama about the quest for taking accurate polls that involves only a small defined population as being an accurate representative of the whole country. The trick is to find that localized population, and hope it stays that way for some years. Thus, it should ideally be conservative in its growth and change in demographics, or so Jimmy Stewart's character thought.It has its comedic moments, such as the chaotic time when it becomes the destination for many outsiders, who want to move there or give their opinions there. The ups and downs in the relationship between Jimmy Stewart, as the chief pollster and Jane Wyman, head of the movement to make Grandview grow, is amusing. But, to me, the funniest bit is the informal competition between Stewart and Jane in reciting "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (Stewart), and "The Song of Hiawatha"(Jane), simultaneously, to each other. That took some talent!The Middletown sociological study which inspired this screenplay was conducted during the 1920s and '30s, by Robert and Helen Lynd. They searched for and found a town with demographics for the Caucasian residents only, similar to the mean for the US as a whole. About 5% of the population was African Americans, who were excluded. It appears that the study in this screenplay also excluded African Americans, Latinos and Asians, as none were seen among the residents or visitors. Thus, neither the original study nor the polls taken in this screenplay necessarily provided an accurate sample of Americans as a whole. This is even more true today, when African Americans, Latinos and Asians make up about 35% of the population. The 2016 presidential election showed that the great divide between small town plus rural areas, on the one hand, and large cities plus their large suburbs, on the other, was the most significant factor in determining whether Republicans or Democrats carried a region or state. Thus, to conduct a reasonably accurate poll on the presidential candidates would require a minimum of inclusion of representatives of these two populations in their proportion in the US as a whole. Also, in the case of presidential elections, one would have to estimate the number of probable voters in each of these categories for each state, because the number of electors/voters is slightly greater for small population states than for large ones. Thus, although Hilary Clinton won the overall popular vote by a very slim margin, Donald Trump won the electoral vote by a substantial margin, partly because the Democrat votes were more concentrated in the big population states, especially California.Interestingly, after the town people realized that their opinions were being tracked as representative of an ideal town for taking polls, they were asked whether they thought a woman could function satisfactorily as president. 79% responded 'yes'. This was considered an outrageous result. As history has shown, in reality, the nation was far from considering the possibility of a woman president.I don't understand why people confused Grandview as a representative town for taking polls with Grandview as an ideal town to live in or near. This confusion of attributes is what precipitated the chaos after a news report labeled Grandview as the ideal(not typical) American town.See this film in B&W at YouTube.

A professionally made, good-looking, but ridiculous, bad movie. The further it goes, the more preposterous the plot becomes, until it reaches a crescendo of implausible nonsense at the end. There is far too much inept rehashing of elements from "It's a Wonderful Life", with Stewart doing an impersonation of himself as George Bailey. There are places, particularly when his character is drunk in public, that are unpleasant to watch. Nice to see Ned Sparks and Donald Meek in their farewell appearances. Jane Wyman shows great legs in the basketball gym scene, but I can't believe they paid somebody a lot of money to give her that horrid hairdo.

I expected to enjoy this Robert Riskin written moral comedic-drama, especially with number one good-guy James Stewart in the lead, but somehow the movie fails to satisfy. Contriving a plot out of Stewart's discovery of a small-town USA which uncannily and perfectly mirrors American public opinion hardly seems an exciting or credible proposition to hang a movie on, never mind Stewart's big-city, small-time pollster's belief that it will make him a millionaire too.From there the film awkwardly pitches big business against ordinary citizens and children against adults in a frankly confusing and awkward plot that takes some swallowing and seems almost communistic in its point of view. It doesn't help that Stewart for once is cast as an ambitious guy on the make but wouldn't you know it, the love of moral champion, local newspaper editor Jane Wyman and his affiliation with the local kids' basketball team turn his head around and between them they resolve everything and live happily ever after.Perhaps in Capra's hands, the film might have taken off and inspired the feel-good vibe I was anticipating. It didn't help that there was little chemistry between the leads (especially when you hear the callous way Stewart's Rip Smith character runs Wyman down in a telephone call to a colleague) and that there were just too darn many eccentric supporting characters too. The direction too was stiff and stilted, never worse than when the film is brought to a juddering halt by two long verses of the awful school song which everyone sings out heartily while Stewart, the outsider, looks on in some discomfort.It's not often I mark down a film from the Tinsel Town Golden Age, especially one starring Stewart, but this sadly doesn't rank among his best and is one I'll not remember in my memory for very long.

Okay, I'll admit the plot is silly and contrived. Sure, the idea of an actuary determining that there is a "perfect" city that is actually statistically represents America in a microcosm is silly. And, their plan NOT to tell anyone in the town but surreptitiously poll just these townspeople in order to find out what America thinks about a wide variety of issues is far-fetched. BUT, with Jimmy Stewart and Jane Wyman as well as William Wellman's direction, who cares?! This is one of those "just sit back and enjoy" pictures that isn't particularly deep but that is charming and great fun to watch. And I think we need a few films like this now and again.