I purchased bluray copies of Frank Capra movies a while ago, but only got around to watching You Can’t Take It With You today.
The movie received the Academy Award for Best Picture and Capra the Oscar for Best Director in 1938.
Capra had a theme of guileless optimism overcoming cynical self-interest in his movies and this one overlays that with elements of screwball comedy. Drama presents itself at the right time and while the outcome may be sentimental by modern tastes it is an appropriate ending point for this story.
Before watching this and other Capra movies I had not encountered Jean Arthur; she is a remarkable performer.
And the performances of Jimmy Steward and Lionel Barrymore give a stark contrast to their later performances in It’s A Wonderful Life in such a way that audiences of that film must have had their expectations subverted particularly by the unrelenting nature of Barrymore’s miserly character in the latter film.
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