You Can't Take It With You

In 1938, Frank Capra solidified his standing as the preeminent director of the 1930's when he won his third Best Director Oscar for You Can't Take It With You, which also won the Best Picture prize. An adaptation of the hit play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, it is one of the few outright comedies to win top honors from the Academy. It is also notable for being the first pairing of Capra with James Stewart, as the two would go on to make cinema magic a few more times.

Looking at the film today, there is a lot of charm, but mostly it's quaint, and occasionally creaks from sentimentality. It's easy to see how the context of the depression made this story about how money doesn't necessarily buy happiness resonate. Stewart is the scion of a cold-hearted banker, played by Edward Arnold. He is a dreamer, not cut out for banking, and has fallen in love with his secretary (Jean Arthur) who comes from a family of eccentrics. They are led by the patriarch, Lionel Barrymore, who was a businessman but one day quit and is surrounded by a family of both relatives and friends who follow their bliss, whether it's stamp collecting or making fireworks. One of the menagerie is the iceman, DePinna, who came one day nine years ago and never left.

The lifestyle of following one's passion, and not working at a job that one doesn't enjoy, is very appealing, and I must admit it's a siren call for me, as I currently work at a job I do not have fun with, but there are certain realities that keep one from just walking out and never leaving, such as eating three meals a day. This is never completely explained in the film, and though the film relies on whimsy to keep it afloat you can't help but wonder who pays the bills. There's a scene in which an IRS agent (played by the great Charles Lane, who only died a year ago after living past 100) pays a call on Barrymore to point out that he has never paid income taxes. Barrymore engages him in circuitous logic, saying we don't need to pay for battleships, etc. This, of course, was three years before Pearl Harbor.

If you can just go with the flow, You Can't Take It With You is pleasant entertainment. Barrymore is terrific (interestingly, Capra would cast him eight years as the polar opposite, the evil Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life). I also thought Arnold did good work here, as the embodiment of capitalism as it's worst, but still maintaining his humanity. Though the ending, when all the characters are dancing to the tune of Polly Wolly Doodle, is rank sentimentality, I couldn't help but get a little choked up.