A star-studded audience packed Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall on October 17, 1939. Included among the Hollywood notables in the audience were forty-five United States Senators and 250 members of the House of Representatives. The event -- a world premiere of the Columbia Pictures film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, directed by Frank Capra. The film starred a young Jimmy Stewart as the noble but naive "Mr. Smith," who is appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy, and Claude Rains as his corrupt but ultimately redeemable senior colleague. More than six decades later, the film remains a classic among American films. Yet it is noteworthy for other reasons as well. The film was shot in and around Washington, D.C. and Capitol Hill, and featured a two-thirds scale exact replica of the Senate Chamber as it looked prior to renovations in 1950. The same set, updated to the 1960s, was used in Otto Preminger's 1962 classic film, Advise and Consent. In 2004, the Senate acquired one of the replica desks used in the film.  Read The Senate in Literature and Film, by Senator Robert C. Byrd (pdf).