You Can't Take It With You

"Maybe it'll stop you trying to be so desperate about making more money than you can ever use? You can't take it with you, Mr. Kirby. So what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends." -Grandpa Vanderhof to Mr. Kirby in You Can't Take It With You

Always and forever will I be a big fan of Frank Capra.  And while this one isn't my absolute favorite, Capra and Stewart still make a pretty incredible film.  Even Lionel Barrymore, whose squeaky voice and quirky demeanor make him seem like the grandpa you've always wanted (as apposed to his turn as the evil Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life which makes him seem like the grandpa who kills kittens).  In any event, this film is a fun, Capracorn ride through small town America.  It's not his best, but it's definitely worth a look.

Capra editing You Can't Take It With You

The Plot
Mr. Anthony P. Kirby has everything he could want.  He has a thriving banking business and a son, Tony, who is vice president and ready to follow in his footsteps.  His latest business deal involves buying all the homes in a small town so he can build a plant.  Only one house now evades him, and he sends his man, Mr. Blakely, to bully Martin Vanderhof into selling "by any means necessary."

Mr. Anthony P. Kirby as played by Edward Arnold

Mr. Vanderhof, played by Lionel Barrymore, known to all as "Grandpa," has no interest in selling.  He once had a corporate job that brought him no joy, so he quit and went home to do the things that he loved.  He became a stamp collector, and from that moment on encouraged all his family to do the same.  His daughter, Penny Sycamore, writes plays, sculpts and paints.  His son-in-law, Paul Sycamore, makes fireworks in the basement along with the iceman, Poppins, who came in one day and never left.  His granddaughter Essie is a ballerina and makes candy, while her husband Ed plays the xylophone and sells her candy.  Her ex-Russian dance instructor, Boris Kolenkhov, is a frequent visitor.  Grandpa Vanderhof's most recent recruit is a teller at Mr. Kirby's bank who now helps out with the fireworks and makes his own masks and toys.  No one is particularly good at what they do, but all that matters is that everyone is having fun and enjoying life.

Alice and Grandpa Vanderhof

Alice Sycamore, Grandpa Vanderhof's other granddaughter, is the only remotely normal one of the bunch.  Alice, played by Jean Arthur, is Tony Kirby's secretary.  Tony, played by Jimmy Stewart, isn't very interested in a career in banking.  He is far more interested in Alice, and despite his mother's disapproval proposes marriage.  He meets her family when he picks her up for a date, and is drawn to their zany, fun-loving way of life.  He watches Grandpa refuse to pay a tax collector, as he is convinced the government has no need for his money.  Tony tells Alice he and a college classmate had been trying to invent a way to harness solar energy, but gave up their dreams to work stable jobs.

Alice Sycamore and Tony Kirby

Try as she might, Alice continually fails to fit in with Tony's parents.  Convinced that their marriage and families can fit, Tony has Alice invite his family over for dinner.  But to stop her from making her family into something they're not, he deliberately brings his parents over on the wrong day.  He finds the family in a more than usual state of craziness and the clash between the two families comes to a boil.  Distraught, Alice asks Tony and his family to leave.  Meanwhile, Blakely has been hard at work to corner Grandpa Vanderhof, and causes the police to raid the home in search of illegal fireworks and communist propaganda.  They arrest everyone in the house but inadvertently set off all the fireworks, forcing everyone into the street.

Poppins poses for Penny while Essie dances for Boris

Everyone is in jail, divided by the sexes.  Mr. Kirby treats everyone as though they are beneath him, and berates his son for causing so many problems.  Mrs. Kirby rebuffs all of Alice's attempts at a reconciliation.  Grandpa finally confronts Mr. Kirby and loses his temper, telling him that all the money in the world won't make him happy without friends.  He feels badly after, and offers his harmonica as a gift to make amends, knowing that Mr. Kirby was once a great harmonica player.  Mr. Blakely weasels up to the jail and starts to threaten Grandpa before realizing that his actions have also jailed Mr. Kirby.  He hurries to put it right by calling all of Mr. Kirby's lawyers.

The families at odds

Finally, they are all called into night court, where the seats are filled with the entire town (all of Grandpa's friends.)  The Vanderhofs are let off for disturbing the peace, but are charged $100 for making fireworks without a permit.  Mr. Kirby (through his lawyers) offers to pay the fine as a charitable donation, but instead the townspeople rush forward to pay the fine together.  Unless Mr. Kirby can explain why he was visiting the Vanderhofs, he will be charged with disturbing the peace.  Mrs. Kirby refuses to admit that her son was considering marrying someone as lowly as Alice, and Grandpa finally has to save them by suggesting that Mr. Kirby was visiting to consider buying his house.  Alice, however, marches up to Mrs. Kirby and proclaims the truth, adding that Mrs. Kirby need not worry, Alice would never marry into such snobs.  Reporters burst through the door, and Alice runs away.

Alice tries desperately to impress the Kirbys

Alice has gone to stay with an old friend to avoid the press, but cries herself to sleep every night.  Tony is desperate to fine her, but her family refuses to tell.  Grandpa Vanderhof decides to move to be close to her so Alice has her family and sells the house to Blakely.  Mr. Kirby's deal goes through, and everyone in the town is evicted.

Tony brings his family to dinner on the wrong day.

Mr. Kirby decides that his son will be in charge of the new deal, putting his friend Ramsey out of a job.  But Tony refuses the job and quits, knowing that this job will never make him happy and still grieving over Alice.  Ramsey dies of heart failure from the stress of losing his job.  Mr. Kirby is left with only his job, now having lost his son and his friend.  He rides the elevator up to the meeting, but lets the doors close again and rides down to the lobby.  He walks over to visit the Vanderhofs.

Grandpa and Mr. Kirby reunite Tony and Alice

The Vanderhofs are in the middle of moving, but Tony can't help but stop by.  He pleads for Alice's address and while Grandpa refuses he does let Tony go upstairs, knowing Alice would soon stop by for her things.  The two fight it out upstairs and suddenly Mr. Kirby appears downstairs.  While Mr. Kirby is at a loss for what to do, Grandpa convinces him that if he just stops focusing on money and plays his harmonica, everything will turn out alright.  He's skeptical at first, but agrees to play with Grandpa.  The family and townspeople begin to dance and laugh.  Alice and Tony, hearing the noise, come downstairs and see their families reconciled.  Alice agrees to marry Tony and falls into his arms while Mrs. Kirby faints in the background.  In the final scene, Mr. Kirby has sold back the Vanderhof house and the family is sitting down to dinner.

The entire family sits down to dinner.

The History
Harry Cohen, the head of Columbia Studios, paid $200,000 for the rights to George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, You Can't Take It With You, which was still enjoying a successful run on Broadway when Capra's film opened.  Cohen didn't have much choice.  Capra had sued him earlier in the year for trying to market Jean Arthur's latest film, If You Could Only Cook, as a Capra picture (though it wasn't) and part of the settlement included the proviso that Columbia both purchase the rights to the film and allow Capra to direct it.  Cohen grumbled, but he should have remembered that Frank Capra had as much star power on a marquee as a famous actor.  The movie was a hit with critics and audiences, and was the highest grossing film of the year.  This would be the first paring of Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra, as well as the first of several films with both Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart.  During filming, Lionel Barrymore's arthritis was so bad he had to walk on crutches (which Capra worked into the film) and receive injections every hour.  Ann Miller, who was only 15 years old, had her first leading role as Essie, Alice's sister.  But the point shoes she had to wear hurt her feet so badly that she would often run off between takes and cry where no one could see her.  She never complained to the crew, but Jimmy Stewart noticed her tears and started sending boxes of candy to her room to make her feel better.  The film would go on to win two out of its seven nominations: "Best Picture" and "Best Director."  Today this film is notable as another Capra classic, though not perhaps as well known as It Happened One Night or It's a Wonderful Life.  But the combination of a star cast and Capra charm makes this film a solid classic that is still enjoyed today.

Capra at a screening for his film.

As far as the Academy was concerned, however, Capra ironically almost managed to throw a wrench in his beloved ceremony.  Having seen his success as the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, the Director's Guild decided to elect him president as well.  When Joseph Schenck, head of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, refused to recognize the Directors Guild as representation for directors, Capra threatened to resign as president of the Academy, boycott the ceremony, and organize a directorial strike.  The Awards had become too important to producers; the AMPP backed down and the ceremony went on as usual--with Capra winning his third Oscar to date.

Capra directing You Can't Take It With You

The Academy refused to allow a radio broadcast of the event, but technician George Fisher hung an extra microphone with the PA system he had set up earlier and broadcast the Awards until Academy and Biltmore officials started to smash in his booth with axes in order to catch him.  Special awards were handed out to Mickey Rooney and Deanna Durbin as the year's two most profitable young actors, and to Walt Disney for his production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  Disney's Oscar was a little different, it included one large Oscar and seven smaller statues.  And though Hollywood was beginning to question the validity of winning multiple Oscars, Spencer Tracey had no such concern.  He was only concerned with the fact that his name was spelled "Dick Tracey" on his second Oscar (for his turn as Father Flanagan in the film Boys Town).  He sent the statue back to be redone, and some enterprising publicist spread rumors that he was having it engraved for the real life Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, a center for underprivileged young men.  Never a philanthropist, Tracey insisted that he then receive two statues, one for Flanagan and one for himself.  Even though the Academy capitulated, the next year's Awards ceremony would be the last he would attend.

Shirley Temple presents Walt Disney with his Special Oscar.

The Verdict?
This movie is best absorbed in parts, because as a whole you need to pause the movie several times to sort out your confusion.  An overabundance of characters and a desire to get as many moral messages out to the public as possible without real regard to the plot bogs down the film.  Just because something is funny or cute, doesn't mean it adds to the story.  The slower parts of the movie are made better by some truly bright spots, most of them including Jimmy Stewart.  He is so engaging that every moment he spends with Jean Arthur just makes me fall in love with him a little more.  Their scenes are by far the best part of the film, at least for me.  Come on, he bought Ann Miller chocolates!  How can you not fall in love?  Lionel Barrymore I can appreciate, but his role seems little more than an opportunity for Frank Capra to voice his views on the evils of big-city America.  Which brings me to...
 

The Anatomy of a Capra Film

As this is my last Oscar-winning Capra film, it's probably a good time to describe the basic structure of most Capra films.  This does not include It Happened One Night, but from the mid-thirties to the mid-forties, almost all of his films follow this basic pattern.  

Capra takes your humble good-guy hero and plunks him in good 'ole small-town America.  He usually has a loving family, or family substitute, and a town filled with supportive, fun-loving characters.  Capra's big on individualism, so every one of this characters has his own story, his own flaws, and his own unique traits (giving rise to some incredible scene-stealing performances by Capra's character actors).  No one is too rich or too poor, and every is happy just going about their business.  As the villain, Capra throws in a money-loving, heartless capitalist who views common people as peons to be stomped on his way to more money and glory.  Now take our hero and make him clash with the villain.  Let him be beaten down by corporate America, perhaps disillusioned by what he thought he wanted.  And then, right as we believe all his small town values have failed him, Capra will let all the family/townsfolk march in and prove that with a little love and a lot of friends anything is possible.  Take that, Goliath.

Go and watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and even my personal favorite, It's a Wonderful Life, and you'll find that all of these movies follow this basic pattern.  Capra's too good to ever slip into the formulaic, but you'll know where the film is headed by the end.  I always found it comforting.

You Can't Take It With You is no different.  It follows the same pattern, but I can't completely love it because it utterly fails in comparison to It's a Wonderful Life.  When the townspeople save Grandpa in the end, it feel comical rather than sincere.  And Grandpa's moralizing sermons on the dangers of living your life by rote lose their force because he repeats himself so many time.  It feels as though Capra has not evolved yet, and as this film is eight years before It's a Wonderful Life, he probably has not.  But I can find a place in my heart for this movie, as I can for any film by Frank Capra.  The Associated Press review of You Can't Take It With You encapsulates my feelings exactly: "You'll leave the movie house thinking it's pretty nice they have such things as movies, because movies have made you feel so very good."

Grand Hotel

"Grand Hotel... always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens." --Doctor Otternschlag, Grand Hotel

This film prescribes to the belief (still prevalent in films today) that if you pack enough stars into one film it will have to be a hit.  Although this is not always the case, with the amount of talent bursting at the seams of this movie, it is impossible for it to fail.  And it doesn't.  Through sometimes plodding in its pace, Grand Hotel weaves an interlocking collection of stories together in unexpected but ultimately satisfying ways.


The Plot

Joan Crawford as Flaemmchen

Greta Garbo as Grusinskaya

Flaemmchen and Preysing

Welcome to The Grand Hotel in Berlin, Germany, home to Europe's rich and famous, and full to bursting with interesting characters.  There is Baron Felix von Geigern, played by John Barrymore, a devil-may-care womanizer and war veteran, who has turned to gambling to increase his seriously depleted funds.  Grusinskaya, played by Greta Garbo, is a spoiled, perennially depressed prima ballerina who is still suffering from her defection from Russia.  Wallace Beery plays an industrial tycoon, General Director Preysing, who married his way into his job but is now trying to push a merger through just to stay afloat.  His newly hired stenographer, Flaemmchen, played by Joan Crawford, pines for the Baron while fending off the advances of Preysing.  Otto Kringelein, played by Lionel Barrymore, is a man who has just discovered he has a terminal disease, and has decided to quit his job as a bookkeeper in one of Preysing's factories and live the remainder of his life in the most extravagant way possible.  Lastly is Dr. Otternschlag, played by Lewis Stone, a disfigured war veteran who hangs around the Hotel, commenting on them all.  Hanging around the fringes are Grusinskaya's many attendants, the head porter whose wife is in labor, Preysing's laywer, and the other hotel guests.

Flaemmchen and the Baron

Preysing is worried.  If his merger doesn't go through, his company is sunk.  But the merger will only come through if "The Manchester Company" agrees to do business with him.  His lawyer hires Flaemmchen, a beautiful stenographer with aspirations to act, to assist him before the meeting.  Kringelein throws a fit because he wants a much better room than he has, and is finally accommodated.  The Baron befriends the hapless Kringelein, and the two of them meet Flaemmchen as she waits outside Preysing's room.  The Baron makes a date with Flaemmchen for the next night at 5pm, while waiting to see if he can catch a glimpse of Grusinskaya, to whom he has been sending frequent gifts.  Grusinskaya has been performing badly, and is suffering from bouts of melancholy that make her unable to sleep or dance, which in turn causes her staff to tear their hair out in frustration.  Returning from an incomplete dancing engagement, she turns everyone out of her room, uttering her famous line, "I want to be alone."  What she doesn't realize is that the Baron, up to his ears in gambling debts, has been coerced into stealing her priceless pearl necklace and is now trapped inside her room.  He reveals himself to her, while confessing that he has also fallen in love with her.  She tries again to send him away by repeating her famous line, but he stays and she finds herself falling for him as well.

Grusinskaya and the Baron

Grusinskaya and the Baron

Preysing stops Flaemmchen and Kringelein

Preysing and Flaemmchen

Preysing meanwhile has received a note that the Manchester deal is not going through.  At his meeting he tries to evade a straight answer, but finally is forced to lie and say he does have the Manchester deal to guarantee his merger.  Grusinskaya and the Baron spend the night together, and the next morning she invites him to travel with her.  The Baron refuses to take her money, but tells her he will find a way to make the money and get on the train with her the next morning.  Grusinskaya is happy once again, and her staff is relieved.  The Baron, however, is depressed.  He keeps his date with Flaemmchen, but tells her he loves another.  She is disappointed, but agrees to dance with the lovable Kringelein.  Preysing, witnessing this, becomes angry and tries to separate them.  Kringelein and Preysing exchange words, but after Flaemmchen finally dances with Kringelein she goes with Preysing up to his room.  She agrees to go with him to Manchester, and to stay with him in his suite at the hotel, though she is clearly repulsed by him.

Flaemmchen witnesses the Baron's death

Kringelein gambling with the Baron and Dr. Otternschlag

Flaemmchen and Kringelein

Increasingly desperate, the Baron tries a number of ways to pay off his debts.  He gets Kringelein to help run a gambling ring from his room, but he goes bust while a drunken Kringelein doubles his money.  Distraught, he tries to steal money from Preysing's room, only to get caught by Preysing himself as Flaemmchen is undressing in the next room.  They struggle, and Preysing hits the Baron over the head, inadvertently killing him.  Preysing tries to get a horrified Flaemmchen to cover for him, but she runs crying to Kringelein, who reports him.  Preysing is carried out in handcuffs and Kringelein and Flaemmchen run off to Paris together.  Fearing another bout of depression, Grusinskaya's staff hide the Baron's death from her, insisting that he will join her on the road.  As she leaves, finally happy, Dr. Otternschlag affirms his opening line, that nothing really happens at the Grand Hotel, although so much has.

The History
Irving Thalberg, "Boy Wonder" and creative mind behind MGM, purchased the rights to Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum and first produced a successful Broadway play before turning it into a film.  Before Grand Hotel, it was considered too costly to have more than one or two big stars per picture.  But Thalberg decided to launch the first "all star" film and choose five top MGM stars to play the major roles.  While both Barrymores agreed, Garbo, Beery, and Crawford all had their doubts.  Greta Garbo thought 27 was too old to play a ballerina, and only agreed after she was given control over who played her love interest in the film.  Beery thought the role would be too unsympathetic and damaging for his image, finally agreeing after Thalberg told him he would be the only one with a German accent.  Lastly, Crawford had to be persuaded into the role, as she thought that most of her scenes would be censored and she would lose screen time.  She wasn't completely wrong; theaters in more conservative states cut her racier scenes.

Flaemmchen and Preysing

When Thalberg eventually got everyone on set, things went a little more smoothly.  The famously reclusive Garbo surprisingly got along well with John Barrymore, even allowing the publicity department to take rare behind-the-scenes photos.  She requested that the love scenes in rehearsal be lit with red lighting so as to be more romantic.  Garbo and Crawford never appeared in the same scene together, so that one wouldn't upstage the other.  The director, Edmund Goulding, did decide to add more Garbo scenes after previewing the film, concerned that Crawford was stealing the show.  All the hard work and risk paid off; after a star-studded opening night, Grand Hotel would turn out to be one of biggest grossing MGM films of all time.  Grand Hotel has the dubious honor of being the only film to win "Best Picture" but not be nominated for any other category.  Incidentally, to prevent last year's disaster, the Academy made a rule that prohibited speech-making at the Awards.  This would also be the year that Walt Disney would win an "Special Award" for creating Mickey Mouse, and winners' names would be broadcast on a screen behind them with a small clip of their film.

Barrymore and Garbo backstage

Grand Hotel is still famous today.  Garbo's line, "I want to be alone," is ranked as #30 on AFI's List 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.  It is also the line that managed to sum up Garbo's attitude toward her fame for the rest of her life.  It was the first all-star drama in Hollywood and also the first film that followed characters in one large setting, their lives either overlapping or completely separate.  This is what is now known as a "Grand Hotel theme" and has since been used in movies that have since been set at airports, aboard ocean liners, in large department stores and so forth.  While it has been criticized as being overly dramatic and "largeish," Grand Hotel is usually remembered for its glamorous theatricality and star power.

Filming of Grand Hotel

The Verdict?
The best description I can come up with for this film is "luxurious."  The women vamp their way through the film with low, throaty voices, dressed in silk stockings and robes.  The men wear expensive suits and plow their way through the film with heavy, important dialogue.  It is a melodrama, and it is as though the director is attempting to pack as much action as he can into each scene while still muffling the whole thing with expensive decor.

I don't suppose I'm making much sense.  Put it this way: this movie has rich people fighting, falling in love, falling in lust, dying, and gambling.  We as the audience are both very aware of the humanity of the main characters while simultaneously marveling at how fabulous they all are.  It's fun!  It's like watching an old Hollywood soap opera with better acting but less overt sex.  The thing about movies like this, however, is that they cause the audience to focus on who the actors are rather than the parts they are playing.  The entire movie, I didn't think that Grusinskaya was doing something, but rather that Greta Garbo was.  Some parts were a little slow, and it was difficult to focus because the plot really didn't matter.  New characters kept popping up all the time, each with a new story or problem.

The best part was discovering these old Hollywood actors.  Isn't Greta Garbo gorgeous, in a surreal, otherworldly kind of way?  And looking through these pictures, don't you desperately wish you had Joan Crawford's legs?  And watching both Barrymores allowed me to compare them to the current famous Barrymore, John's granddaughter Drew.  The stars make the film, without them this film would be just another 1930s melodrama.  It is worth watching just for the thrill of seeing incredible actors waltz around a plush hotel, draping themselves over divans and uttering "I want to be alone."  Hell, it's worth it just to hear that one line.