"I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries." -- Frank Capra, born May 18, 1897.

Looking for a flick to peruse, darlings? One to make you laugh, or cry, or want to canoodle with the one you love? We promise you’ll find one – likely many more – among movie directed by the wondrous Frank Capra.

Born in Sicily. In l903, Cap came with his family to the US. They were immigrants, and poor - unable to speak English and subsisting on bread and some bananas on the boat to America. As he grew up, Frank Capra went to school, sold newspapers, worked as a janitor and, as a teen, and developed an interest in theater and lighting. After high school, he enrolled in the Throop College of Technology (which became the California Institute of Technology) to study chemical engineering. He worked in the school laundry to pay for the $250 a year tuition.

But Capra ended up besotted with the school's fine arts department, falling in love with words, the possibility of touching hearts and minds with creative expression.

"It was a great discovery for me. I discovered language. I discovered poetry," Capra wrote in his autobiography. "That was a big turning point in my life. I didn't know anything could be so beautiful."

While finishing his final year of college, he enlisted in the army when the US declared war on Germany in l917 (although he wasn't a naturalized citizen at that point) and served as a supply officer for student soldiers. !

This Italian immigrant graduated -- with the highest grades in the college, by the way -- in September of l918. The next month, he was shipped out to active service but two things happened: World War I ended and he almost died from the Spanish flu that killed 20 million people around the globe.

When he recovered from the illness, Capra took whatever jobs he could get around L.A., including digging ditches. Then he found work as an extra and doing odd jobs for an independent movie studio that would soon become Columbia Pictures - where he would shine as a director one day.

And what a wonderful director! Yes, his movies will make you cry - and laugh and think and, sometimes, stand up and cheer, or want to!

Capra directed "It Happened One Night," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and many more. During World War II, he also served once again in the military - and made documentaries to boost the morale of US soldiers and those on the home front.

The Brazen Hussies will always remember you, Mr. Francesco Rosario Capra! We’re glad you made it to America. Your artistry has become part of the tapestry of our country's yearnings, dreams, smiles and tears.

Your movies endure. They give us hope the basic goodness in people will, in the end, prevail. And we thank you.