‘The only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends…’
Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart are responsible for some of the most intoxicating and wonderful films in cinematic history. It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr Smith Goes to Washington are both bona fide classics, but You Can’t Take it With You, perhaps the lesser known of their three collaborations, also has merit. Alas, the decision to combine romance with a takedown of capitalism never really pays off…
Tony Kirby (Stewart) is caught between his lover Alice (Jean Arthur) and his responsibilities as the son of a wealthy Wall Street banker (Edward Arnold). The kicker is that Alice’s family, headed up by the Willy Wonka-esque eccentric Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), are embroiled in an insidious real estate deal with Kirby’s father.
To reiterate again, we really don’t need the romantic subplot here. Arthur delivers a forgettable performance and shares little chemistry with Stewart and the scenes in which they fall for each other really slow everything down to a crawl. If not for this misstep, You Can’t Take it With You would be another of Capra’s masterpieces. As it is, it will have to settle as simply being very good.
Usually, Jimmy Stewart is the best thing about any film he appears in. Here, Barrymore actually upstages him throughout in a joyous performance that sets Capra’s film apart from many other romantic comedies of the day. Indeed, the whole ensemble do a great job with an unusually strong cast of quirky and likeable characters slipping in and out of the action like circus performers. Not least Donald Meek’s unconventional inventor Poppins.
While You Can’t Take it With You never quite scales the heights of the other Capra/Stewart productions, it’s still worth seeking out for fans of the classics or for fans of Jimmy Stewart exclaiming ‘oh boy!’ whilst looking earnestly into the camera.