You Can't Take It with You (1938)

Just perfect...

Better Late Then Never

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Anthony P Kirby is a wealthy banker. In order to clinch his next deal his company, Kirby & Company, is buying up all the properties in a neighbourhood. Everyone has sold, except one. Martin Vanderhof won't budge, not for any offer. He is happy where he is, living with his daughter, son-in-law, two granddaughters, grandson- in-law and a few other people in a community largely free of life's pressures. Mr Kirby's son, Tony, is a new-appointed Vice President of Kirby & Company and is in love with his secretary, Alice Sycamore, Mr Vanderhof's granddaughter. Their relationship, and the property issue, puts the two families, the Kirbys and Vanderhofs, on a collision course. It's more than a clash of families but a clash of outlooks, ideals and what's important in life.Directed by Frank Capra who later went on to direct It's A Wonderful Life. Like It's A Wonderful Life, You Can't Take It With You has a warm, fuzzy, sugary-sweet yet noble and liberating central message. In It's A Wonderful Life, Capra surrounded that message with a wonderful plot, beautifully and sensitively executed. With You Can't Take It With You, the execution is flawed, to the point that it negates the message.From the beginning of You Can't Take It With You there is a folksiness and raw, naïve idealism that makes the movie seem more like a children's fantasy than profoundly-themed adult drama. No subtlety at all and it only gets worse once we meet the collection of oddballs in the commune. They were meant to provide light entertainment but for the most part they are silly and irritating. Particularly irritating was the Russian guy. I presume his schtick was meant to be funny, but really he is just an obnoxious dickhead. Xylophone guy was also pretty bad – pretty much a rednecked simpleton.So, little to no engagement with the "good guys" of the piece. Add to this the fact that Capra draws Kirby as a pretty much stereotypical, one-dimensional heartless villain and we have a movie with little in the way of character depth. In fact, I was so disengaged, the more silly the "heroes'" antics became, and the more Capra turned Kirby into a cartoon villain, the more, out of a sense of rebellion, I rooted for Kirby!Ending can be spotted a mile off, the movie is that predictable.Thankfully Capra didn't try to duplicate the formula when he made It's A Wonderful Life.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU The film is a romantic comedy that at times treated very serious topic. The rich snobs against wacky, eccentric but, it seems to me very nice people. Conflict of family, property and way of thinking. Meeting of two different social categories shaken "most beautiful" thing in the world - love. My impression is that most Capra's protagonist finds happiness in small things. Of course, there must be a difference between a good and successful man. These little things may act strange, but certainly not negligible. Source of happiness and satisfaction is at hand, only it needs to be open.Martin "Grandpa" Vanderhof's (Lionel Barrymore) house is the film's utopian space. All are happy and satisfied, somewhat eccentric and definitely crazy. Of course, everyone is doing only what they want. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Vanderhof's daughter, writes plays because a typewriter was accidentally sent to the house eight years ago. Her daughter, Essie Carmichael (Ann Miller), practices dance even though she exhibits no talent for it. Ed Carmichael (Dub Taylor), Essie's husband, plays xylophone in order to accompany her dancing. The house in which all are welcome. The basement is the right valley of creativity.Important segments of the story are the government and capital. One individual resists both. Grandpa Martin Vanderhof is incredibly calm and positive character and he "protest" in a specific way. You Can't Take It With You also subtly links class with gender. Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), of the lower middle-class, is engaged to Tony Kirby (James Stewart), son of millionaire. This proportion is slightly idealized. How important vision is? The vision is temporary? At different moments of most of the characters accept the truth in this or that way. For this reason I do not like the idyllic ending of the film. I convinced myself that this is a romantic comedy.Capra has again been very careful with cinematography, framing and dialogue. Acting is at a high level. Of course Lionel Barrymore is masterly. The film is a good way out of the dark for two hours. It's very funny.

Here's the thing about eccentrics: They're not the best people to look to for a coherent ideology.So it is with the Vanderhoffs and Sycamores, a clan of crazy, loving, and lovable people who have decided to exit the rat race and follow their wandering muses... and boy, do they wander! Grandpa spends his days playing his harmonica and attending the graduation ceremonies of people he doesn't know. His daughter, Penny, decided to become the next George Bernard Shaw after someone dropped a typewriter at the home by mistake. Granddaughter Essie dances very, very badly, and her sister Alice, rebelling against her family of rebels, decides to become a banker's secretary (she still finds time to slide down banisters, though). Grandpa, it should be known, hasn't paid his taxes, well, ever, and his defense of this fact to the rather dunderheaded IRS agent who comes a'calling has been lauded by Tea Party types and abhorred by modern- day liberals as a polemic in favor of bathtub-sized government. Yet it should be noted that another resident of the house is on government relief and Grandpa seems totally fine with that. He may have thought through his rejection of soulless corporate America, but that doesn't mean he's right or consistent about everything. SPOILER AHEADWhat's more, for all his praise of the virtues of friendship over money, he actually betrays his friends pretty epically when he agrees to sell the house to a company trying to take over his neighborhood. While he does this in order to move closer to Alice, it nearly gets all his neighbors evicted. Not very friendly, right?END SPOILERDoes all this mean that Grandpa is a bad person? No. Is he a questionable role model? Yes, and Frank Capra's attempt to make him a populist hero doesn't quite work. But you should watch and enjoy the hell out of You Can't Take It With You--it's touching, hilarious, and does contain genuine insights on how to live a good life. But don't go to it for a ready- to-serve political belief system. Go for the wish fulfillment: the chance to imagine doing exactly what you want with your life without fear of failure or poverty. I've got a good idea about what I'd do (drawing, acting, college classes on film appreciation, etc.), and I suspect you do too.

A young banker falls for an attractive secretary, who lives in the kooky, eccentric family of Grandpa Sycamore. When the banker's parents meets this family, not only are they surprised of how crazy their personalities are, but of the way they want to live their lives. And that's what succeeds the most about You Can't Take it With You. It's a classic screwball comedy, but its heartwarming message sums up the overall film as a whole, that while we may have untold riches and wealth, without the love of friends and happiness, you're a complete and utter failure. Lionel Barrymore gives likely one of cinema's most profound characters to grace Hollywood cinema, as his speeches about laid-back happiness and eternal optimism are so true, even in today's faster-paced society. There's also great performances from Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart, and like the message, the comedy is flawless.