ALICE SYCAMORE HAS TO INTRODUCE THE FAMILY OF HER FIANCE, TONY KIRBY, TO HER OWN FAMILY. THE KIRBY’S ARE WEALTHY, STUFFY FAMILY OF GREAT SELF-IMPORTANCE, WHILE THE SYCAMORE’S ARE A COLLECTION OF GOOD-HEARTED LUNATICS. WHEN THE TWO FAMILIES COME TOGETHER, LIFESTYLE AND PHILOSOPHY COLLIDE HEAD-ON.Frank Capra’s 1938 populist spin on the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart play about a family of happy eccentrics is a great deal of fun, though it significantly rewrites the original work and doesn’t represent Capra (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) at his best. Jean Arthur plays a member of the blissful Vanderhof household who falls in love with a rich man’s son (James Stewart) and brings him into her nutty home. Lionel Barrymore, who played such a bad guy eight years later in Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, is the wonderful Grandpa Vanderhof, who addresses God during the dinner prayer as “sir” and speaks plainly and beautifully of why it’s good to be alive. Capra took this opportunity to rail against big business and champion the common man, but the overall tone of the film–typical for the director’s comedies–is buoyant and snappy. –Tom Keogh
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March 5, 2010
#1
I had recently done the orginal stage play of this and a few of us csat members decided to rent the movie. It was turned off in about 10 minites. The movie is nothing like the play. In my opinion the play is way better.
March 5, 2010
#2
You Can’t Take It with You (Remastered)I thought that as this was a remastered edition that it would be IN COLOR! It isn’t. That’s disappointin because it didn’t clearly indicate on the site that it wasn’t in color, but in fact, black and white.We wanted a colorized version. Look at the picture on the site- COLOR!
March 5, 2010
#3
A Frank Capra film, with a cast of Jimmy Stewart and Lionel Barrymore? How could a movie like this go wrong? Well, you might be surprised.
I watched You Can’t Take It With You on one of our family nights in our den. We popped the movie in, and figured on enjoying an evening of cinematic enjoyment comparable to It’s A Wonderful Life. By the end of the movie, my opinion had changed.
Basically, besides the love story between Stewart’s character, which is almost a side plot, the movie is about a pack of pirates who don’t do anything…they just stay at home and lie around! Jimmy Stewart is pretty much the only thing that held this movie together for me, and the only reason that I finished the movie is that I hate to leave a movie started, but not finished.
Watch this movie only if you have some time, and can stand to be a little bored, or if you, like me, hadn’t ever seen Lionel Barrymore in a movie as a GOOD guy.
March 5, 2010
#4
Winner of two Academy Awards in 1939 (Best Picture, Best Director – Frank Capra), based upon a Pulitzer Prize winning play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, boasting a stellar cast, I was more than a little disappointed that I found myself immune to YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU’s charms. I really did much care for this movie.
Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur play a pair of young lovebirds related to a pair of bickering elders. Edward Arnold plays Stewart’s father, a heartless industrialist who is building the largest monopoly in history if only he can buy a small lot owned by Arthur’s eccentric grandfather Lionel Barrymore.
Barrymore plays a man who dropped out of the business world thirty-odd years ago to stop and smell the roses. Arnold’s character is ruthless.
The movie busies itself with the Stewart/Arthur romance, the education of Arnold’s character, and takes every chance it can to allow Barrymore to dispense some homespun wisdom. For my money, Barrymore’s brood is a little too eccentric, Edward Arnold is a little too cutthroat.
My favorite scene also contained a bit that drove me to distraction. An IRS comes to Barrymore’s coveted house. Barrymore hasn’t paid his income tax for years. The agent tries to convince Barrymore that he has to pay, while Barrymore parries with variations on “What does that money buy me?” In the meantime, granddaughter Ann Miller pirouettes poorly about the room, Spring Byington works on her play, Dub Taylor plays Mozart on the xylophones, and the boys in the basement are messing around with their home made fireworks. Arnold and wife and son arrive. They were supposed to meet Arthur’s family tomorrow, so they’re a day early.
Edward Arnold was an excellent actor, and he played the stuffed shirt as good as anybody. It’s fun to watch his dignity assaulted time after time in this scene. What isn’t so much fun is listening to Barrymore drone on and on with his ostensibly homespun variations on “Why should I pay taxes?” It’s supposed to be funny, I suppose, but in reality federal marshals would have run him in long before the frustrated IRS agent arrived. Barrymore is allowed to rant, but the movie doesn’t make him pay the consequences for his opposition. In other words, the Barrymore character seemed phony to me, and that severely affected my entire reaction to this movie.
This movie also shifts the point of view fairly frequently. I think Capra was more effective when he narrow his sights to a single character. It’s a lot easier to get emotionally involved with a George Bailey or a John Doe when the great majority of events is filtered through them.
So, with some disappointment, I gave this movie three stars. The dvd picture is fine, but some of the words are recorded at such a low level they’re impossible to hear.
March 5, 2010
#5
Although a very nicely done capra film, this version is too similar to Its a Wonderful Life.
I would recommend the 1992 PBS version with Jason Robards.