Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Anora. You Can’t Take it With You is the eleventh film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. *Note, due to a streaming issue Best Picture #10 The Life of Emile Zola will be posted at a later date Just three years after Frank Lloyd became the first person to direct two movies to best picture, Frank Capra became the second. Perhaps more notably, You Can’t Take it With You would be the first of three notable collaborations between the director and his star James Stewart.
Adapted from a play of the same title, the film revolves around a romance between Tony Kirby (Stewart), the son of a prominent and often heartless banker (Edward Arnold), and Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur) the granddaughter of an eccentric old man (Lionel Barrymore) who refuses to sell his property to the elder Kirby. As Tony and Alice pursue one another, the ideological clash between his elitist parents and her free spirited communal home becomes a barrier to their being together. Much of the emotional pull of You Can’t Take it With You will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Capra’s more timeless classics, although I would argue that this one deserves something closer to the reputation It’s a Wonderful Life or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington enjoy. He carries forward some of the screwball elements of It Happened One Night and pairs it with the same sort of love thy neighbor idealism — some might say naivety — that made his later films so endearing. Through his filmography we can see that Capra seemed to view America as a land of hope and opportunity that has lost its way, needing a kindly spirit to awaken her from the grips of greed. In that sense, Barrymore’s Martin Vanderhof is a sort of mirror to the villainous Mr. Potter he would play opposite Stewart some eight years later. Vanderhof is good spirited and guffaws at the Kirbys’ obsession with more and more money at any cost. He cultivates a home for wayward souls to pursue passions that might seem frivolous in the world of business. All the money his family lacks relative to the Kirbys, they make up for in friends and respect in their community. It is impossible to watch You Can’t Take it With You and not be struck by how foolishly optimistic it is in willing generosity and love to triumph over greed and entrenched corporate power. It is also very difficult not to be endeared by the effort. Arthur and Stewart make a tremendously compelling pair, no wonder Capra would pair them up again the following year for Mr. Smith. Throughout the film Vanderhof and his motley crew make a more concerted case for the ills of capital than any of the contemporary Best Picture winners are able to. In this era, at the height of the depression this seemed to be a subject top of mind for the Academy. Between Mutiny on the Bounty and The Life of Emile Zola, plenty of films were being honored for showing the triumph of labor or the corrupting nature of power and money. This may be the best of that bunch. It’s also just a really good time. A handful of Oscar winners really feel like homework to work through — *spoiler* the next one — but Capra’s films are quite a delight and easy to revisit. Snappy dialogue, enthusiastic performances and a high-wire energy all contribute to You Can’t Take it With You being one of the more entertaining films to win Best Picture in the first couple decades. 8/10
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