Hi Tim,
An odd structure. I’ve tried to figure it out according to
Frank Daniel methods. But it seems to be out of the beaten path.
Based on a play, probably with 5 acts therefore 5 curtains, though
I’ve only seen the movie, which is what I’m trying to
figure out.
Story first:
You Can’t Take it With You script by Robert Riskin
after the Pulitzer-award winning Hart & Kaufman play. Director
Frank Capra, and he won his third Best Director oscar for this one –
the third in 5 years! He was on top of Hollywood, that’s for
sure.
The story deals with several characters. It seems the protagonist
is Antony Kirby, rich wall street banker, who is on the verge of
completing a world monopoly in explosives and munitions. He has only
one rival to crush along the way, guy named Ramsay who has one
independent munitions factory (all the others have agreed to sell
out) and who won’t sell. Kirby’s plan is to buy up every
single piece of property around ramsay’s factory so that ramsay
will be forced to sell (this is screwy, but we are not supposed to
know how business or the law work here). Kirby has deals to buy every
single property except one – and that guy will not sell, no
matter what the broker offers him.
Kirby, if he is the protagonist, promptly vanishes from the movie
for about an hour or so. Instead we meet his son, a happy go lucky
guy who doesn’t want to be vice president in daddy’s
bank, but there he is. he’s madly in love with his secretary.
She happens to be the grand-daughter of the guy who won’t sell,
only Kirby doesn’t know that.
Kirby’s wife is stuffy, and is outraged her son might want
to marry ‘a stenographer.’
Meanwhile, we meet the guy who won’t sell: he was once a
business big shot himself, only one day, 35 years ago, he learned he
wasn’t happy, so he quit to do only what he enjoyed doing.
Since then he has raised his daughter and her husband who live in the
house, along with the two granddaughters (the other is married and
this couple also live in the house) and a collection of freeloaders
and misfits, all of whom do whatever it is they want to do –
play zylophone, print things, paint, dance, write plays, invent
things, make fireworks.
Later we will learn the reason why grandpa won’t sell: he
loved his wife dearly when she was alive, and is convinced that there
is a strange odor in her old room – it’s her, she’s
still there somehow, and he couldn’t bear to leave the house
for that reason.
Granddaughter and Kirby Jr. get along well, and Kirby Jr. is
enchanted and amused by the collection of oddballs in the house –
he is no stuffed shirt like his parents. He says he doesn’t
care what his folks think, but the girl is determined that they can’t
be happy together unless she wins his parents’ approval –
the mother’s approval most of all. But one thing leads to
another, and it only gets worse.
Granddaughter insists that Kirby Jr bring his folks over to meet
the household for dinner. She is determined to impress them and win
their blessing. But Kirby Jr sees that alice (the granddaughter) is
going to make the oddballs behave normally, and put on a fraud, so he
double-crosses her, by bringing his parents over the night before
alice expects them.
As a result (I know, there’s a lot going on in the story)
the Kirbys encounter the menagerie in all its kookiness; moreover, as
a result of Kirby’s real estate broker’s sneaky doings,
the cops bust in and try to find incriminating evidence so as to
force grandpa to sell the house. The cops corrall the Kirbys along
with everybody else when the basement full of fireworks go off, and
they all go to jail.
There the Kirbys are forced to encounter the lowest of society.
This has no impact on Mrs Kirby, but mr Kirby is shamed when grandpa
gets mad and tells him he will die friendless because he’s a
failure as a man and a father, and is much worse than the ‘scum’
he finds in jail, who at least have friends.
In the court hearing, the Kirbys are ashamed to admit they were in
the house because their son was romantically involved with alice; at
this alice blows up, tells them all off, and tells Jr the engagement
is off.
A montage of headlines details how Kirby was arrested, Jr was
spurned by ‘cinderella’ and how ‘cinderella’
has fled new york and nobody can find her.
At the house some days later, things just aren’t the same
without alice. Kirby Jr. comes by, begging them to tell him where she
is, but they don’t know and wouldn’t tell him anyway. He
goes, but grandpa comes in afterward with a letter from alice. she’s
trying to get over heartbreak, and the house has bad memories, so she
has decided to live in connecticut with her school friend.
At this point grandpa decides he can’t let alice live alone
and miserable, and they all miss her, so he will sell the house and
they will go live with alice.
As a result of grandpa’s decision, though all the real
estate deals become valid, and all the neighbors will lose their
homes and businesses – Kirby will own all the blocks and kick
everybody out.
The result of this is another montage of headlines, as news of the
big monopoly shakes wall street, stocks go up, they go down, and
Kirby is about to become king of the world.
In the Kirby bank, all his allies and board members are
congratulating one another on the success, but Kirby is alone in the
conference room, wondering about what grandpa told him, wondering if
grandpa might not be right. But he decides he’s got to grab the
great deal he has engineered, and to hell with grandpa’s words!
He tells the board to go up to the board room and they will sign all
the papers and make the monopoly.
Just then ramsay himself comes in, tells Kirby that he is
friendless and how awful it is, and forecasts the same fate for
Kirby. He collapses and later dies from heart failure.
The board members go upstairs, leaving Kirby alone to contemplate
this for a moment. Then his son enters. Kirby Jr tells daddy that
he’s quitting. ‘but you’ll be president of the
monopoly,’ dad protests, but Jr says he never wanted it, and he
won’t have it. he’s going away to try to forget alice,
and figure out what he does want to do in life – probably he
will pursue solving solar energy (yeah, in the 1930s they were
talking about this! Amazing). He goes, leaving daddy shocked.
Daddy goes up the elevator to the boardroom, and the elevator
doors open, all the allies and board applaud, and Kirby tells the
elevator man to take him back down again. He leaves the deal undone.
In the madhouse, they are all packing up getting ready to leave.
it’s sad farewell, and the cook tells her fiance she found
grandpa in grandma’s room crying in front of her portrait.
Kirby Jr comes in, and begs them to tell him where alice is, for
the last time. But grandpa won’t tell. He will say, ‘upstairs
is alice’s luggage, and that’s going where she is’
and Jr starts upstairs to watch the luggage and never let it out of
his sight until he finds alice.
But then alice herself comes in. she has heard that grandpa will
sell the house, only she knows what it really means to him, and she
begs him not to. Jr wants to explain to alice, but she tells him to
shove it and goes up to her room to pack, locking the door. Jr pounds
on the door, begging her to open up.
At this point, Kirby Sr enters. He talks with grandpa alone. He
says he wants his son back, and asks for advice. Grandpa says, they
should play together on the harmonica. Real loud. So they do, and the
xylophone player joins in, the dancer dances, the crazies set in
again, and one lights off the last unlit firecracker.
This noise brings alice and Jr downstairs. She sees Kirby and
grandpa playing together, and Jr nods to his dad, and his dad nods
back, and alice kisses Kirby Sr, and Kirby Sr wrestles with the
russian dance teacher, and everybody cheers.
In a final epilogue, the family – grandpa and his crazies
and the Kirbys alike – are gathered for dinner, some days
later. Grandpa blesses the meal, talking to God the way he does,
giving god all the credit for arranging things, and nicely tells us
how everything has been wrapped up, nobody lost their home or
business, and everybody is happy, and even Mrs Kirby will come around
eventually.
The end.
I had a bit of a hard time analyzing this one. If we look at is as
the romantic comedy starring Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart, then the
breakup scene in the courtroom is our second curtain. But this leaves
45 minutes left, a very long act 3. better for general timing is if
the banker is the protagonist – he after all is the one who
learns ‘you can’t take it with you,’ meaning money
is worthless after You’re dead, so you should enjoy life while
You’ve got it. Then the second curtain comes when he tells the
elevator man to take him down: he has gotten his big deal just like
he wanted – only he finds he doesn’t want it after all;
it’s his son, his family, life and friendship he really needs.
Now generally the rule is to enclose lesser storylines within
greater ones, so:
A Story begins … B Story begins … … B Story
end … A Story end
If we follow this, we find first Kirby Sr introduced with what he
wants. Kirby Jr is introduced but we have no sense of what he wants.
Then vanderhof (lionel barrymore, grandpa) is introduced, and we
learn what he wants.
After this we get an introduction to the menagerie, then Alice is
introduced indirectly – they talk about her in the menagerie –
and directly – her mother the playwright calls her, and
interrupts a makeout session with james Stewart as Kirby Jr. at this
point we find out what alice and Kirby Jr want – each other.
There are 2 problems with calling it a battle between Kirby Sr and
vanderhof though. First, they drop out of the story; most of the
screentime involves the romance and family complications to this –
will the Kirbys accept alice? Will Kirby Jr be welcomed by the
menagerie, and what will he think of it?
Kirby Sr does not directly work upon getting the house: he just
tells his broker that there’s to be no commission unless he can
get every single property in these 12 blocks, and do it anyway he
can. Hangs up phone.
And grandpa doesn’t really work to secure his household. He
doesn’t intend to move or do anything about the attempts to buy
the house except to ignore them all.
Is it grandpa’s story? He had his happy menagerie life,
second curtain is deciding to sell the house (which gives the banker
his victory by implication, though it hasn’t been fully settled
yet).
Both these moments – alice breaking the engagement, and
grandpa saying he will sell – interestingly enough, are
followed by swift recap of events in a montage of headlines.
A twist ought to follow the second curtain, about the middle of
the third act. Well we have 2 twists also: when grandpa says he will
sell is the twist in the romantic comedy (because when alice learns
of it she comes back, and finds Jr waiting) – and when the
banker says ‘take me down’ and turns his back on the
monopoly (we have been prepared for this with a series of shots of
the banker thinking over what grandpa tells him in jail). and if the
banker saying ‘take me down’ is the second curtain, then
the twist would be that playing the harmonica with grandpa brings Jr
down right to him, and everything is solved.
The two storylines are wedded in that alice’s heartbreak
leads to grandpa selling, and Kirby Sr’s newfound desire to get
his son back depends upon Jr getting alice to wed, which also depends
upon getting the house back.
So, whose story do you say it is? Where is the climax, and what is
the twist (if any)? is it a good structure, one that is complicated,
or does the double-storyline make it a bad model, and outside of the
model Frank proposed?
(written around 27 February 2009)
