You Can’t Take It with You (1938) - film review

Anthony Kirby  is the president of a major US bank.  The embodiment of soulless capitalism, he has resolved to buy up a block of houses to make way for a munitions factory that will make him even wealthier.  One man thwarts his ambitions, an eccentric oldster named Martin Vanderhof who owns one of the houses and who stubbornly refuses to sell up.   Vanderhof is a social dropout who encourages his friends and family to do as he does, which is to avoid work and live a free-spirited life, doing only what pleases them.  Unbeknown to Kirby, his son Tony has fallen in love with Vanderhof’s granddaughter, Alice, the rebel of the family (because she has a paid job).  Tony is determined to introduce his mother and father to his future in-laws and so arranges for them to drop in on the Vanderhofs one evening...

The film that won Frank Capra his third (and least deserved) Best Director Oscar is this crowd pleasing adaptation of the hit Pulitzer Prize-winning play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.  Although the film also won the Best Picture Oscar and was the highest grossing film of the year it is far from being Capra’s best work.  It doesn’t just wander coyly into Schmaltzville; it boldly marches in and sets up permanent residence there – not that this spoils one’s enjoyment of the film greatly.

You Can’t Take It With You marked the first of three collaborations between Frank Capra and actor James Stewart (at the time a virtual unknown).  They would subsequently work together on two of Capra’s most highly regarded films: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the film that made Stewart a star, and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

The star of this film is the veteran performer Lionel Barrymore, who by this stage in his career was visibly suffering from the crippling arthritis that would ultimately confine him to a wheelchair.  To conceal his ailing health, Barrymore appears throughout the film on crutches, which is explained (plausibly) by the fact that he had an accident when he slid down the banister.

Whilst the over-earnest moralising (dubbed Capracorn by the director’s detractors) does get mildly irksome in a few places, You Can’t Take It With You still manages to be one of Capra’s more entertaining films.  The jokes, when they come, are hilarious, and the ensemble cast are clearly having a great time.  In common with many of Capra’s films, this one champions individuality and good honest citizenship over soulless conformity and capitalist greed, and its messages ring loud and clear today.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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