You Can’t Take it With You (1938)
Decided to start watching all of the Oscar best picture winners, in order. I hadn’t heard of some of these movies, some I love and have seen multiple times already and I actively hate others, planning to never watch them again. Fair warning, there will be spoilers in these and other reviews to help explain my point of view.
Telling the story of the eccentric and loving Sycamore family, this film is a delight. Joyous and full of interesting characters, I really liked this one and am really pleased that something so enjoyable was able to nab an Oscar for Best Picture.
This movie is especially fascinating to me because the cast has a number of actors who are also in Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”, with them playing characters somewhat, if not completely, different from their characters in the latter film. Lionel Barrymore in particular, here the loving and caring patriarch of the family who everyone calls Grandpa, would of course go on to be the villain of “Life”, so it was fascinating to see the complete 180, since I haven’t seen much of his work. Here, he was the one who inspired people to do what brings them joy and to surround themselves with friends and family, even if only with their memory, rather than chase the almighty dollar.
James (not yet Jimmy) Stewart portrays Tony Kirby, the scion of a wealthy family of bankers, is in love with his secretary Alice, portrayed by Jean Arthur. The love story between Tony and Alice is sweet and fully realized; we want them to be together and happy, all the while hoping that Tony leans into the silliness and eccentricity of the Sycamores, rather than the snobbery and stuffiness of his own family.
Of course this being a screwball comedy from the 30s, the story is a bit convoluted. Tony’s father needs to buy the Sycamore family home, as well as the other homes and businesses in their neighborhood, for a huge business deal that will make him and all of Wall Street a ton of money, but the Sycamores are holding out, refusing to sell since their home means so much to them. Also, not a single one of them cares one whit about money, so there is no upside to them selling, not even for the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’re offered.
The turning point in the story comes when the Kirbys and the Sycamores meet. Tony gets the night off on a bad foot by purposely bringing his parents over on the wrong night, allowing them to see the Sycamore house in its natural, messy, goofy light. This upsets Alice, since she desperately wanted to make a great impression on her future in-laws, especially since Tony’s mother already had a bad impression of Alice from running into her at the office. I understand Tony’s motivation in doing this; he didn’t want his parents to meet a sanitized version of Alice’s family. He immediately fell in love with all of them and their singing, dancing, firework making and all-around loving goofiness and wanted his parents to do the same. However, he should have discussed his intentions with Alice so she, at least, could have been prepared. With Alice already low-key angry with Tony, things boiled over to the point of no return when everyone in the house was arrested after the police showed up. They were only there due to machinations from the elder Kirby; he had instructed his real estate man to do whatever it took to get the Sycamores out so he could get their house on the cheap. The joke was on him though when he got caught up in the arrest and had to spend a few hours in the drunk tank.
Even though, with this being a Capra movie, I saw the ending coming from a mile away, it was nice to see the elder Kirby learn to loosen up and not take money and life so seriously, after talking to Grandpa and rediscovering his love of the harmonica. My only quibble with the end is that it was wrapped up just a bit too neatly. Kirby gave up on his big deal, allowing everyone to keep their homes and businesses, he and his wife started spending time with the Sycamores and Alice and Tony got back together, after Alice rightfully ended things when Tony didn’t stand up for them when they went before the judge. There seemed to be no real fallout from Kirby changing his mind and causing many people and companies to lose a lot of money. I get it, the point being made is that money doesn’t buy happiness, which is interesting considering the time this was made. Many people would have still been feeling the effects of the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression, so to make a movie telling everyone that money wasn’t necessary, as long as you have friends and family, must have been a hard message for some people to take, considering how bad things must have been for some at the time. Perhaps though, this is the exact message audiences wanted, to to encourage them to continue forging ahead as the economy recovered.
All in all, this was fun movie I enjoyed very much and would definitely watch again. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
