Rating of
2/4
"You Can't Take It With You" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/20/12
James Stewart plays the son of a cold hearted tycoon who gets engaged to his secretary whose family are the antithesis of everything his snobbish upper class parents believe in. Essentially a class comedy from Frank Capra, You Can't Take It With You is one of those films that expounds the philosophy of "money isn't everything", and being Capra, you know right from the outset how it's going to end. Stewart and Jean Arthur make a cute couple although I couldn't help the feeling that Jimmy just wasn't in it enough, spending most of his time stood in the background smirking at the proceedings. Capra usually treads the line between sincerity and sentimentality with supreme skill, but this one all felt a little too contrived to me. Jean Arthur's family felt too forced into screwball wackiness to the point where I found them irritating rather than endearing and Edward Arnold's change of heart at the end was a little too convenient and unconvincing. I would also have to say that I found the "hero" of the piece Lionel Barrymore a little too self righteous for my tastes; I personally thought his spiteful attack on Arnold in the jail cell came across as plain obnoxious. Not funny enough to be considered screwball comedy and too implausible to be considered drama, this is far from Capra's best.
