Thursday, June 11, 2015

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

This best picture winner by director Frank Capra is based on the Pulitzer prize-winning play of the same name.  The majority of the action takes places in a large house owned by Grandpa Vanderhof that houses a strange variety of eccentric family members that do whatever they please.  The family includes a wannabe ballerina, an aspiring accidental playwright, and a fireworks manufacturer.  This family is all about having a positive, happy life doing what you love with your friends and that money does not buy happiness as the greedy villainous banker finds out.  I suspect this was a refreshing message back in 1938 during the Depression.  Frank Capra was supposedly known for making movies about themes such as this one in this era.  Although the movie is a comedy, it is not laugh-out-loud funny.  But it is still a charming story that has its moments that made me smile.

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