You Can't Take It with You

One message. "Nothing is worth doing if you can't enjoy it, and when it's over- you can't take it with you!"

Do any of Capra's works actually speak 'that' one particular message? Perhaps the closest to the above is "It Happened One Night". "Lost Horizon" is about rediscovery and peace of mind. "Mr Smith" is politically and small town oriented and "Mr Deeds" deals with the same except without some political yawn. George Bailey should have had a better dosage of the "You Can't Take it With You" policy in "It's a Wonderful Life".

Here is a play that exercises Frank Capra's famous adage with all humour already built in. Why shouldn't it work?

The stage version was a phenomenal success, written superbly by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. If their story is slightly lacking, look no further than the delightful cast of characters. Mr Poppins, toy and mask maker. Alice's Father who meddles with fireworks. Essie the ballerina, Penny the playwright and the wonderful Russian ballet teacher. The uptight Kirby banking corporation. Then there's the "Mr Smith" duo, Tony (Jimmy Stewart) and Alice (Jean Arthur).

The stand out performer here, is naturally the lovable Lionel Barrymore as Grandpa Vanderfhoff. Although the first film in which the damaging effects of his arthritis began to show, Capra had his leg put in a cast and had him move around on crutches. He relishes his performance.

I have heard of complaints which discuss the fact this film fails to address corruption and greed in a similar manner to "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" which successfully played its part going against the American capital. Once again, Capra emphasises his favourite theme of the little guy up against the world and succeeds, but "You Can't Take it With You" basically does not even make a mild attempt to criticise the American system of government, past or present, even though I know very little about it.

On different levels, look at this film in the light of discussing heavier issues, as the aforementioned greed and corruption. I just don't think Mr Capra would have liked it as much for one of his works to be remembered like that, especially with the basic message staring at us right in the face.

Nevertheless, it is another of Capra's life saving feel good movies. All it is encouraging us to do is to have a little fun.

Rating: 8/10

Take a large free-spirited family without visible means of support. Add a large mean-spirited tycoon intent on taking over their neighborhood. Mix in a romance between their daughter & his son. Sprinkle with zaniness & bake for two hours. Enjoy while hot.

This is one of those big comedy productions with a huge cast that only someone like Frank Capra could have pulled off. That he did so, winning the 1938 Best Picture Oscar, is immensely to his credit.

Hobbling on the crutches that signaled the crippling arthritis that would soon confine him to a wheelchair, Lionel Barrymore is the focal point of the film as the grandfather of a wacky clan that believes in doing whatever makes them happy. So they dance, make fireworks, bake candy, paint, write novels, and construct toys with equal joy - laughing through the Depression with much love & great contentment. Jean Arthur, James Stewart & Edward Arnold co-star, with a mammoth cast of supporting players.

This is the movie for viewers who want to feel warm & safe & cuddled & protected.

Among all the enthusiastic reviews for this movie, it is hard to find a sufficiency of praise for the work of Edward Arnold. A familiar face on the screen in the thirties and forties, with his round face, solid body, and trademark pince-nez, Arnold surpasses himself in this film

Too often type-cast as a plutocrat, Arnold nevertheless demonstrates nuance and sensitivity as a man who, despite many flaws and faults, is redeemed by his love for his son. Arnold is seldom credited with the subtlety and poignancy of his characterizations, probably because he generally played greedy capitalists in a time when greedy capitalists were even more frightening than they are (and properly so) now, but this is an omission that should be corrected. His characterization in this comedy is a powerful performance, and grossly under-appreciated. He was one of the masters of American cinematic acting, with never a false note on his performances, and it is shameful that he is not so acknowledged.

With many of the same themes, and indeed many of the same actors, 'You Can't Take It With You' can be considered a sister film to 'It's a Wonderful Life', though preceding it by eight years. It's a romantic comedy but also a study in class differences told at a fascinating point in history, with America still in the Great Depression, and with the world in tumult. A wealthy banker (Edward Arnold) seeks to monopolize the munitions industry prior to the world going to war, but needs to purchase the house owned by eccentrics led by a whimsical old man (Lionel Barrymore). In a convenient coincidence, the banker's son (Jimmy Stewart) is dating the old man's granddaughter (Jean Arthur), and the pair want to get married, so there are two conflicts here.

Barrymore is in the role of the good guy, the one who's figured out that material things are less important than having friends and enjoying life. He also understands that you've got to let people be free to explore themselves, and be who they are. He has a charming scene early on with Arthur, listening to her describe her new love, and reminiscing about his deceased wife. He's also the voice of reason about extremism in the world, commenting that everybody was running out to 'get an ism' to solve their problems, e.g. communism or fascism, as opposed to sticking to the principles of America. "With malice toward none and charity to all," he quotes Lincoln, "Nowadays they say think the way I do or I'll bomb the daylights out of you." It's a wonderful character, and well played by Barrymore.

Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur are endearing in their roles as well, and they also turn in very good performances. Watch Arthur's small facial reactions in the aforementioned scene with Barrymore, and later when she's with Stewart when he's clowning around in the restaurant and threatening to scream. The idea that the innovation Stewart's character wants to pursue harvesting energy from the sun's rays like plants really made me smile, seeing as this type of green energy sounded so crazy in 1938. The film isn't bullish on the idea per se, but it gets across the point that it's better to have the courage to follow one's dreams, than it is to bury them in a hum-drum existence.

There is a joy to the film in this house that Barrymore runs, with inventors in the basement letting off firecrackers, Jean Arthur sliding down the bannister, and her sister (Ann Miller) twirling around to her ballet instructor's direction. On the night Stewart decides to drop in on them as a surprise so that his family can see Arthur's in a true light, Miller is dancing about, Barrymore is tossing darts, his daughter (Spring Byington) is working on an awful old painting of hers with one of the guys posing as a Roman discus thrower, and the servants are dancing delightfully in the kitchen. Everyone is simply being themselves. No one cares how good they are, or exactly how they'll monetize what they're doing. They simply do what they want to do, and have fun at it, letting the money sort itself out in some mysterious way that isn't immediately apparent to us.

A lot is made of director Frank Capra's idealism, which may seem naïve to the modern viewer. It's true that this is movie of hope and optimism, but at the same time, Capra was clear-eyed about what was happening in the world. When Barrymore asks the Russian ballet teacher (Mischa Auer) "Did you bring me any Russian stamps?," the latter replies "No, nobody writes to me, they're all dead," which considering Stalin's purges in 1937-38 is a chilling comment slipped in to the script. Capra also recognized the danger of a climate of fear, and through Arthur's character (actually quoting Barrymore's), says that he has a special aversion to those "the people who commercialize on fear, to sell you something you don't need." He's also spot on when it comes to satirizing the ultra-wealthy, and pointing out how unfair the world is when the wealth gap is so large. Edward Arnold's character buys influence in Washington and has a squadron of lawyers and yes-men to help him push his weight around. On the personal side he turns up his nose at the idea of eating humble fare, and his wife (Mary Forbes) haughtily looks down on everyone. As he's about to explain to a bunch of guys in jail how unemployment is "an emotional problem", he tosses a cigar away and a horde of them go after it, which is such a perfect metaphor. Capra was a beacon in the darkness, and with his ability to deliver such stirring social messages in delightful movies - making them work on both levels - he should be considered a genius.

On the other hand, it's interesting that Barrymore's character has such a casual attitude about money, I mean, one does need to be able to eat. It's a little disturbing that when an IRS agent calls on him, he admits that he's never paid income tax because he "doesn't believe in it." He then goes on to ask where all those dollars go, ridiculing the idea that America needs battleships since they haven't been used since the Spanish-American War (hmmm not so prescient in that comment), and not seeing the irony in the fact that his own servants are "on relief." He'll later say that he was just joking about all this, that he doesn't owe the government a dime, but I just thought this smacked of such backwardness, and counter to all of the programs FDR started that were helping Americans. Later we find out that he was once an executive himself, until one day "it struck me that I wasn't having any fun." I admire the sentiment to prioritize life over amassing a fortune since, after all, you can't take it with you, but it seems a little tone deaf to not recognize the need for some amount of wealth to have this luxury.

There are lots of parallels to 'It's a Wonderful Life', including the rich industrialist who has lost his sense of values and is poor in the more important ways in life, the 'little guy' who resists his plans for a monopoly by not selling out to him, and a spontaneous cash collection from friends when one is in trouble. In addition the obvious actors in both films, you'll also find Papa Bailey (Samuel S. Hinds) here, as well as the same raven (Jimmy the raven), who apparently had quite the filmography and collaboration with Capra. In this case Stewart is the scion of the industrialist, not the little guy, and he ultimately quits his dad's company to pursue his own dream, as opposed to finding himself forced to stick around at the ol' Building and Loan. The biggest difference, however is that this film imagines that rich men have souls, and that there is a place deep within that can be reached through friendly overtures and some harmonica music. Perhaps recognizing this was idealistic even by his own standards, it's notable that eight years later, that wasn't the case with Mr. Potter, who was never reached.

I wouldn't exactly call YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (YCTIWY) Capra's forgotten movie--after all, it *did* win the Best Picture Oscar in its year. And I *have* heard of this film by word of mouth previously, though perhaps not as frequently or with as much ubiquity as some of Capra's other films. Compared to IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, for example, YCTIWY distinctly has the status of a 'minor classic'. I don't believe this is deserved, even if themes and (co-)stars are shared between these movies: YCTIWY should definitely be far better known and remembered than it actually is.

First of all, the story-telling is flawless. It very cleverly sets up the two very different families, the Vanderhof/Sycamores (an offbeat family trading most importantly in happiness) and the Kirbys (a stiff up tight banking family trading mostly in weapons). To complete the biggest deal of his career, Anthony Kirby Sr (Edward Arnold) must buy up the last house in a neighbourhood, and of course, this house belongs to Martin Vanderhof (a delightful Lionel Barrymore). The movie pleasantly surprised me in *not* having young Tony Kirby (James Stewart) be assigned to get Vanderhof to sell his house and thereby falling in love with Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur) and her zany family. Rather, he was in love with her to begin with, and loved her regardless of what he thought of her family. (Though it would be impossible to hate any of them, I feel!) The story really is simple: Tony loves Alice no matter what, and doesn't want her or her family to put on a show to impress his own family. When he surprises her by turning up a day early for a dinner engagement, the Kirbys meet the Vanderhof/Sycamores for who they truly are, wind up in jail, and along the way, learn a little bit about being real human beings.

There are several delightful scenes in the film as well, all beautifully filmed and connected such that the story is a coherent whole. I'm especially partial to practically any scene with James Stewart wooing Jean Arthur (those two, quite seriously, make the cutest couple imaginable)--I love it when he sort of proposes to her. "Scratch hard enough and you'll find a proposal." Or that lovely intimate scene in the park where he directs her to a seat like he would at the ballet, or when they start dancing with the neighbourhood children. The scene in the restaurant was also amusing, when Tony kept warning Alice that there was a scream on the way, building it up so perfectly that *she* wound up screaming before he did. It's hard to beat the scene in night court too, when Capra foreshadows pretty much the exact same scene and sentiment in the forthcoming IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, when all of Vanderhof's friends chip in to pay off his fine. It's sweet, it's real, and it's something you really do wish could still happen in this world. Even the littlest things like Grandpa Vanderhof's dinnertime prayers are enough to remind the viewer of what a world could be like if we kept our values simple, our wants satisfied, and ourselves happy.

Second of all, the acting is superlative. How could it *not* be, with a cast like this? Evidently I was completely charmed by James Stewart and Jean Arthur, who are both incredibly believable both as real people and movie stars, and who together make Tony and Alice an utterly credible, true-to-life couple. Edward Arnold was great as the stuffed shirt Anthony Kirby Sr too--his eventual 'thawing' was something that could easily have been played in too exaggerated a fashion, but both the actor and director, I suspect, are too good to have allowed that to happen. I also had great fun watching Ann Miller in her secondary role as Essie Sycamore, Alice's dancing sister. I sincerely hope that every person making this film had just as much fun as I did watching it, because the whole secondary cast was excellent, and I loved all the characters we were introduced to, particularly the entire Sycamore family with their attendant friends (the ex-iceman DePinna, or the toymaker Poppins) and even their servants Rheba and Donald, who were treated almost as much as part of the family as could be expected at that time. But my greatest praise would have to be reserved for Lionel Barrymore as Martin Vanderhof--a sweeter, lovelier old man you just couldn't imagine, and a complete change from his much-better-known Mr. Potter in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. He really does make Grandpa Vanderhof very much a real person, from his reminiscences about Grandma Vanderhof, to his messing around with the IRS agent, to his harmonica-playing and evident love of life and people.

I really could not say enough good things about this movie (which I prefer to IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE). It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and quite frankly, it'll make you glad to be alive. Not many movies can do that. And it's most certainly true that you can't take your money with you... but what you *can* do is take this movie and its message to heart. 10/10, without a doubt.