You Can’t Take It With You (1938) A Quick Review

This movie is in 3 main parts all with a different tone to it.

The first part is the rise of a wealthy family who wants to have a monopoly and run a rival out of business but buying up a 12-block radius of housing around the factory. This is where the workers live. In the time frame of this movie people were very localized and did not commute to work and in fact had no transportation most of the time and public transit just did not exist.

The thing is, there is the one family – an extended family – that is holding out and won’t sell their home. This family has taken in others who needed a home and help to survive. There is in the basement of the home a workshop where they illegally make toys, masks, and fireworks. This leads to a misunderstanding with the cops at one point where they think a flyer is communist propaganda.

Enter the son developing a love interest with one of the workers. This leads to discontent with his parents to say the least as she is below his station, not to mention part of this group of holdouts that is delaying the success of the rich father.

Eventually the parents are taken to the home to meet up with the family, but the son brings them a day early as he wants them to see the family as they are and not prepared for them. This leads to a disastrous meeting with a lot of chaos and hilarity (this is in fact considered a “farce” commend).

The last part is shifted away from the comedy in part to be more serious and deepen an understanding of what life should be and not just the gathering of wealth that can never be satisfied.

The first part is in fact rather slow to get to the point of it, but it gets there. The pace is more consistent in the rest of the movie. Some, however, don’t like the fact they eased off the comedy in the final part of the film.

To sum up, there is a realization and an understanding in the end. The movie is well worth seeing and if you can find it, I recommend you watch it. IMDB has it as a 7.8/10 I’m giving it a 9/10. This is almost a perfect film, and modern Hollywood can learn from it if you ask me. At the time of this post, it is on Hollywood Suite. I found the DVD in the library of my building however and watched it from that.