You Can’t Take it With You (general thoughts)

Hi Aki,

Tonight I watched You Can’t Take it With You script by Robert Riskin after the Pulitzer-award winning Hart & Kaufman play. Director was 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 it 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.

Or it’s 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.

Hmm.

(written around 27 February 2009)