You Can't Take It with You (1938)

You Can't Take It with You, winner for Best Picture of 1938, was directed by Frank Capra, perhaps the most famous director of that decade. It deals with some typical Capra themes: the class struggle in America during the Depression, gender politics, our connections to our fellow human beings, all very much a part of the FDR era in the United States. Yet, at its heart, it's a farce, a story of how confusion can lead to the most intriguing of outcomes.

Anthony P. Kirby (the solid Edward Arnold) is trying to obtain a monopoly over the munitions industry in America. To do so, he needs to buy up all of the property in a 12-block area, but he faces one holdout: an elderly gentleman named Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), who lives in a home full of eccentrics. What Kirby doesn't know is that his son Tony (the young and smoothly handsome Jimmy Stewart) is in love with Vanderhof's granddaughter Alice (Jean Arthur), who works as Tony's secretary. Tony and Alice are unaware of the machinations of the elder Kirby, and even Grandpa Vanderhof doesn't make the connection to Kirby upon first sight because the businessman has been using a go-between for the negotiations. Tony meets Alice's family and still wants to marry her. Alice then tries to set up a dinner with Tony's parents where the Vanderhofs are all on their best behavior. When the Kirbys arrive a day early for dinner, all hell breaks loose.

You may be wondering what is so eccentric about the family. Grandpa quit work one day and hasn't earned a living in almost thirty years; he's also refused to pay his income taxes. His daughter, played by Spring Byington, has taken up playwriting because a typewriter was delivered by accident to their home; she keeps getting stuck, though, because she puts her characters into situations (like being in a monastery) about which she has no knowledge. Her husband makes illegal fireworks in the basement. Alice's sister Essie (Ann Miller in one of her earliest movie roles) has taken up dance lessons with an exiled Russian who likes to wrestle--that is, when she's not busy making candy named "Love Dreams" in the family's kitchen. Her husband (played by Dub Taylor, who has apparently always sounded that way) plays the vibraphone for her and likes to put cards in the candy with sayings like "The Revolution Is Coming." And those are just the family members. Anyone who wants to live in the house is welcome so long as he or she continues to have fun.

I'm not sure that this family would be considered all that odd these days, to be honest. More restrictive times might have called for them to be more isolated, yet they are friends with everyone in the neighborhood. In fact, when everyone in the house is arrested--oh, it's too complicated to explain it all here--the courtroom is filled with their friends, all of whom take up a collection to pay for the bail money as soon as the judge passes sentence. The judge looks on with bemusement as the collecting of the money renders his courtroom too chaotic to control with his gavel. It's actually one of the funniest courtroom scenes I've watched since What's Up, Doc?

There are some serious issues at work here as well. The elder Kirby begins to develop a conscience after spending time in jail with some of the poorer classes of people. And Grandpa Vanderhof spouts some pretty Socialist-sounding ideas at times. Not that those ideas would have been uncommon in 1938 anyway, given the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal and all. This movie is quite obviously on the side of the downtrodden and tends to showcase their humanity and friendliness. Those who make money are all portrayed as greedy and unconcerned with the fate of other people. They're also friendless, perhaps the greatest indignity of all in the context of this film. All of it is pretty typical of a Capra movie from this time period.

Just as an aside, I'm still trying to figure out why Jean Arthur has such a great reputation as a comic actress. She's good here, certainly, but everyone else in the movie outshines her in terms of getting laughs. I've seen two movies with her now, and as competent as she is, I don't think she's been quite as underrated as some claim. She might even be overrated if this and The Talk of the Town are any indication.

This is a fun movie, but it doesn't break any new ground stylistically or thematically. It's charming in its depiction of the kind of people who aren't often the subject of movies, but even they are given a pretty glossy shine. There's no "real" poverty on display here; all of the members of the family are perfectly content with their lives and none of them are struggling to find food to eat or shelter or any other of life's necessities. You Can't Take It with You has a message at its heart, but I doubt it's a message that was "radical" when the film was released. I'm pretty certain almost everyone would have been against corporate greed in the midst of the recovery from the Great Depression. Perhaps it was just the timing of its release that worked in its favor, what with its message that everyone wanted to see being reinforced, but I suspect it might have just been the hard-to-resist thought of living with such a band of people who live how they want to live, no questions asked.