The Rich, The Very Rich, Are Just Like You And Me-Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You, 1938

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

You Can’t Take It With You, starring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Albert, directed by Frank Capra, from  a screenplay by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart

F. Scott Fitzgerald is famously (or infamously) noted for having said that the rich, which by that he meant the very rich, the ones who in his day lived in open air mansions and who today we of common clay never see since they are protected from view by about seven layers of security which even the President would envy, are different, very different from you and me. I believe that there was more truth in that statement than he realized and certainly today with all the talk about the income equality gap getting very much skewed it is plain for all to see. Of course not everybody has (had) to buy into that premise even in the Great Depression when everything for lots of people was going to hell in a hand-basket like in the film under review, an adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s play You Can’t Take It With You. In America the notion of class and class differences has always had a murky existence, always been muted by the roads paved with gold dream, even when those differences are rubbed in our noses every day.

This film is a comic tribute from the master of the genre Frank Capra who plays to that murkiness and presents a counter-position to Fitzgerald’s take on class in America. Now during the Great Depression when life’s laughs were few and far between almost everybody could a few laughs at the movie theater and that is what at the comedic level Capra gives us, and even I can agree that such entertainment has its place. As social commentary though especially in the later 1930s when working people were in some very heavy battles to organize themselves into unions and performed other acts of solidarity it runs rather thin even today as archival material. 

Here’s the skinny on this one and you make up your own mind about what is what about the rich, the very rich:        

Young Tony Kirby (played by amiable James Stewart), son of a high-end aggressive big time New York banker who is learning the ropes in his father’s business as a Vice-President in charge of himself apparently, is, well, smitten, with his secretary, Alice (played by Jean Arthur) which already does not bode well for what is to come. See old man Kirby (played in a part that is tailor-made for him by Edward Albert), a ruthless scoundrel out of the old school of cutthroat capitalism where the idea is to grab everything of value not nailed down (and even then give it a shot) has big plans with his cronies to run up a big monopoly on munitions production for what everybody knew was the seconding coming of war to Europe. Not only are old man Kirby and the boys interested in huge profits but also in ruining a fellow munitions maker who needs to expand his operation if he is to survive. Kirby came up with the bright idea to buy up all the land of the people around the competitor’s operation and freeze him out. Nice work.          

The problem is that the whole area had to be purchased or the deal would sink and of course there was one hold-out, Grandpa, Alice’s Grandpa (played as a jolly wise old ex-capitalist who had seen the light and dropped out of the rat race by Lionel Barrymore), who sees no reason to leave the old homestead for no matter how much filthy lucre. So we get to step two of the problem. Mother and Father Kirby as parents to young Tony Kirby are looking for him to succeed his father after he retires. They are not interested in seeing that derailed by his being taken in by a gold-digging secretary (their take, she is just America’s sweetheart) no good can come of any of this. Ho also just happened to be a granddaughter of the guy who is gumming up the works for old man Kirby’s big plans.

But this is where this film as romantic comedy comes in and saves the day. Young Kirby loves his sweetie more than somewhat screwy family and all (“and all being related and unrelated hangers-on at the wacky family homestead). So he will not be put off without a serious fight. After several social mishaps Alice comes down firmly on the “no go” side of the decision that she cannot marry into the Kirby family since they see her (and her family) as beneath them. She takes off for parts unknown. Not good, not good for young Tony and not good for Alice’s family when Grandpa decides to sell out and find a place for the family near wherever Alice is. At the same time Tony gave the old man the word that he was quitting the rat race business even though it is on the brink of creating the monopoly the old man has dreamed of. That triggers an epiphany in the old man as he realizes that despite his wealth (remembering that he can’t take with him) the loss of his son’s respect and presence only leaves ashes in his mouth. You can figure out the rest, figure out that a certain secretary from a wacky family is going to be going down some church aisle with a renegade son and with the father’s (and hesitantly the mother’s) blessing. See the rich are just like you and me when it comes to family. I don’t think this one would have been played that way in let’s say a Theater Guild production of the time but for entertainment it is just fine.