In the eleventh year of handing out Academy Awards, Frank Capra became the second director to helm two winners of the award for Outstanding Production (Best Picture). He followed up his 1934 win for It Happened One Night with a win in 1938 for You Can’t Take It With You. This is a film that has it all, and Capra showed that he is capable of seamlessly weaving genres to create a deep story that feels like real life while expertly crafting a prototypical Hollywood fantasy. Indeed, if you look up You Can’t Take It With You on IMDB it will list the genres as Comedy and Romance. In truth, this is a very dramatic picture as well, and while it isn’t a Fantasy in the traditional sense, Capra has created a film that certainly has elements of fantasy while taking place in the real world.

The real world in this film is New York City. This film came out as the Great Depression was reaching its 10th birthday and the drums of war were beating in Europe. However upheaval was happening here at home as well, and You Can’t Take It With You did an interesting job of straddling the line between conservative and liberal. Martin Vanderhoff, played with mischievous flare by Lionel Barrymore spends time alternately criticizing excessive capitalism and over-taxation. During one scene he tells Anthony Kirby (played by Edward Arnold) that he can’t take his wealth with him when he dies. Why does he need to make more money than he could ever spend, especially when his success comes from causing others to fail? However, a few scenes earlier when Kirby’s lackey has sent a tax collector in an attempt to shake down Vanderhoff and get him to sell his house to Kirby, Vanderhoff demands to know what his tax money will be spent on. It’s that type of balance that Capra demonstrated throughout his career that helped make his films so successful.

The premise of the film starts with Kirby in his uptown office. He’s a wildly successful venture capitalist and he has a plan now to take advantage of the coming war by building a factory in New York that will produce every bullet that the United States Army uses. He’s already bought up all of the land that he needs except for one parcel that the owner refuses to sell. No matter how much money his people offer, Vanderhoff shows no interest in selling. That’s when Kirby tells his men to figure out a way to get him to sell because he can’t build his factory and the deal will fall through unless he owns the entire block.

Meanwhile Kirby’s son Tony (James Stewart) shows up. He’s recently been promoted to Vice President of the company, but he clearly is uncomfortable in the roll and has no stomach for his father’s type of business. But lacking any real ambition, he goes along with the wishes of his father and over bearing mother. Things take an interesting turn when we discover that Tony is dating the company stenographer, Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), who also happens to be Vanderhoff’s granddaughter. Tony’s mother wants him to have nothing to do with such a common person and that he needs to court someone with more similar breeding, however Tony is in love with her and he makes several clumsy attempts to get her to fit into his world without losing her own sense of values.

That plan blows up in Tony’s face when he talks Alice into inviting him and his parents over for dinner. Alice lives with her grandfather and an eclectic cast of character lives in the house as well. Her mother, a part time painter and part time writer lives there along with her father, who is obsessed with building better fireworks. Her sister, an aspiring, yet awful ballet dancer lives there with her husband, and several other people, seemingly taken off of the street for their oddball sensibilities. Indeed, Vanderhoff’s house is one where everyone is welcome and everything is welcome, except normalcy. Tony gets introduced to this one night when he comes to pick up Alice to take her to dinner. This house is exactly the opposite of the stuffy and pretentious home that he grew up in and he loves it. However, Alice convinces everyone to act normally for Tony’s parents when they come to dinner. She has a fine dinner planned and wants nothing more than to show Tony’s parents that even though she’s not of their class, she can still pass the test of proper behavior. Tony, however, tells his parents that dinner is a night earlierh than he planned, and they show up unannounced. Tony explains to Alice that he wanted his parents to see her family in their natural state, rather than have them have to pretend to be something there not. His plan goes awry with hillarious consequences.

Then the irony sets in. Police show up under the direction of Kirby’s lackey, and all of them, including the Kirby’s are arrested. While in the drunk tank awaiting their hearing, Kirby lambastes Vanderhoff over his lifestyle and the life choices that he has made. Vanderhoff, to his credit, tells Kirby that his priorities are all askew and that even with all of his money, he lacks the true friends and deep relationships that Vanderhoff has, and Vanderhoff intimates that he is really the rich one. (Ironically, Barrymore’s character would be on the receiving end of a famous speech with a similar subject given by Jimmy Stewart some years later in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.) They go in to the court room and each man shows his true colors. Vanderhoff offers to fall on his sword to spare Kirby the public embarassement and Tony misses the chance to stand up to his father when Alice does it for him, and in turn foresakes him for not being his own man. Depressed and despondant, Alice leaves the city. Not wanting the family to be apart, Vanderhoff finally agrees to sell to Kirby so that the whole family can move up to Connecticut to be with Alice. Then Kirby has his epiphany and realizes that he doesn’t need to do this deal. That the men he’s surrounded himself with may respect him. They may admire him. But they don’t know him. The last straw is when Tony comes into his office and quits. Tony tells him that he’s not cut out for the business world and that he’s going to spend the next few years trying to discover what he is cut out for. Tony then goes to Vanderhoff to find Alice, who has shown up to get her things. He goes upstairs, and then Kirby arrives. He and Vanderhoff start playing harmonicas (it had been planted earlier in the film that Kirby played harminica in his younger days), and a bridge is built. Alice fogives Tony. Kirby lets Vanderhoff keep his house. The Hollywood ending is complete.

As Capra would demonstrate throughout his career, he created a film here that is loaded with thematic elements that give the film depth. This film is about money vs. friendship. It’s about freeing yourself from convention and living life to the fullest. But what does that mean? This film seems to say that rather than loading up with monetary and career success, one should strive to do what really makes one happy. In many ways, You Can’t Take It With You is a preview to It’s a Wonderful Life. Many of the players are the same, they all would have been under contract with Columbia anyway. Many of the thematic elements are similar and much of the character growth is similar as well. I think that It’s a Wonderful Life is actually a more sophisticated story, but that’s only because it’s standing on the shoulders of You Can’t Take It With You.

One interesting thing about his script is that it’s not entirely clear whose story it is. It starts off as Kirby’s story, as he is driving the action. Then we go a long time without even seeing him and Vanderhoff drives the action. The story pivots again as we watch Tony courting Alice. In the end, all three of them, Kirby, Vanderhoff and Tony, go through real transformations. Kirby realizes that all the money in the world can’t buy him happiness. Tony learns that he can’t follow in his father’s footsteps and that he needs to live his own life. Vnaderhoff discovers that life can’t be all jovial and fun. It’s serious business sometimes and you have to have a thick skin, and sometimes even be willing to fight, to preserve what you love. They all have equal screen time and they all have equal growth. You Can’t Take It With You might be one of the most successful films ever that doesn’t focus on a single hero to drive the plot. That said, it could be possible to say that this is ultimately Vanderhoff’s story and that Kirby is the antogonist. I would have a hard time disagreeing with you if you wanted to argue that point, especially when you put the film in the context of the Hero’s Journey.

Aspiring screenwriters and directors could find the storytelling in this film very instructive. Even though it lacks a clear main character, it has a very well-defined stucture and it actually has a well-constructed Hero’s Journey. There is a clear Ordinary World that they all live in. The Call to Adventure is the offer from Kirby to buy Vanderhoff’s house. Vanderhoff Refuses that Call, and the Crossing of the First Threshold happens when Vanderhoff convinces an accountant to leave his job behind and come live in his house with all of the other misfits. Tests, Allies and Enemies focusses on Tony and his budding relationship with Alice. The Approach is Alice trying to get everyone at her house ready for Tony and his parents to come over the following night for dinner, meanwhile Tony and his parents are at that moment on their way over. The Supreme Ordeal is the arrival of the Kirby’s at Vanderhoff’s house and the dramatic, awkward and funny dinner scene that follows. Ironically the Reward is the time in jail and in the courtroom where Vanderhoff and Kirby have their confrontation over which lifestyle is superior. The Road Back has Vanderhoff agree to sell the house so that the family can get back together, although in a different setting. The Resurrection focusses on Kirby and his resurrection from dead capitalist to live human being; someone who has learned to live again. It also shows Tony tyring to resurrect his relationship with Alice. The Return With The Elixir is the Hollywood ending where pretty much everyone gets either what they want or what they need.

Did the Academy get it right?

I don’t necessarily think that they got it wrong, however I could make a strong argument that both The Adventures of Robin Hood and Boys Town were more deserving films for this particular year. The former was quite possiby one of the most entertaining films of all time, and the latter was a dramatic coming of age film that was dramatic and poignant. Plus, if we’re talking about Outstanding Production, The Adventures of Robin Hood had far better production value than You Can’t Take It With You. It had well-choreographed and entertaining action sequences, well designed period costumes and set pieces, and a compelling story that at that point had yet to be told and retold (at least in cinema). Like many ideas at that point in time, it was still fresh. Both films were dealing in themes that were pertinant to the day, i.e. class structure and the rich having everything, but the poor having the real wealth. Probably what ultimately won the award for You Can’t Take It With You was that it took place in a real world of the United States during the Great Depression. People of the late thirties could relate to Alice and Tony and Vanderhoff better than they could with Robin Hood or Maid Marion or Little John. They had seen what people like Kirby and his lackeys were doing and how it was affecting their real world in a much more tangible way than the actions of Prince John or the Sherriff were affecting the fantasy world of Nottingham. In that sense, You Can’t Take It With You probably had a much deeper emotional impact on people, and you can’t blame anyone for voting with their heart. So even though in a vacuum I’d cast my vote for The Adventures of Robin Hood, I can’t be critical of the fact that You Can’t Take It With You took home the statue.