BackgroundMr.Smith Goes to Washington(1939) is producer/director Frank Capra""s classic comedy-drama, and considered by many to be his greatest achievement in film (and reminiscent of his earlier film,Mr.The three stopped a few crew members who were attempting to escape in a lifeboat.Riggs boarded the vessel as it ran aground and killed the remaining crew members.Meanwhile, the fishing boat was hit by one of the flaming barrels and sank.Adrift in the water, Leo and Murtaugh, who were threatened by a shark (the one that they had caught earlier), managed to swim to the lifeboat.Fearing for her young infant son""s life, Yochabel (Martha Scott), with assistance from her young daughter Miriam (Babette Bain as youth) watching from the Nile River reeds, deposited her baby (Fraser C.The remainder of the film""s narrative is set in Paris.In the next scene, a clever transitionary scene from Venice to Paris, a Morse-Code like radio-transmitted signal is beamed from the top of a technology-transformed Eiffel Tower (viewed at night) - the signals shoot out like bolts of lightning (similar to the RKO Pictures opening trademark).