You Can't Take It with You

UPC: 043396279773

Studio: Sony Pictures

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Suitable for Children]

Summary: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart). Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Awards: Best Cinematography – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 10 Best Films – Film Daily

Features: cc
Commentary by Frank Capra Jr. and author Catherine Kellison
Frank Capra Jr. Remembers... You Can't Take It With You

You Can't Take It with You

Format: DVD

Release Date: 12/09/2008

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 126 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English,French,Portuguese

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- You Can't Take It With You
1. Start [:56]
2. Kirby and Company [4:33]
3. Mr. Poppins [5:28]
4. A Free-Spirited Family [6:44]
5. Ism' Mama [1:29]
6. The VP & His Stenographer [7:27]
7. Neighborhood Meeting [3:36]
8. The Town Crier [2:07]
9. Alice & Grandpa [4:12]
10. Wilbur G. Henderson, IRS [8:04]
11. Kolenkhov [1:49]
12. Family History [6:21]
13. The Big Apple [4:26]
14. Feeling a Scream Coming On [8:01]
15. Right Hour, Wrong Day [10:14]
16. A Wrestler Never Forgets [1:55]
17. Disturbing the Peace [3:31]
18. In the Drunk Tank [4:29]
19. "You're An Idiot, Mr. Kirby." [2:52]
20. Night Court [3:33]
21. A Letter From Alice [9:12]
22. Grandpa Sells Out [1:51]
23. The Kirby Munitions Merger [3:04]
24. Tony Resigns [3:26]
25. Moving Day [5:35]
26. Alice Returns [2:01]
27. "Polly Wolly Doodle" [4:31]
28. A Family Dinner [2:40]

Richard Gilliam

You Can't Take It With You is a joyful celebration of good-natured people and unconventional lifestyles. In some ways, it presages the "do your own thing" philosophy of the 1960s, and it is easy to imagine free-spirited families of the '60s as creative descendants of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's Pulitzer Prize-winning characters. The cast features some of the finest comic actors of its era. While Lionel Barrymore and James Stewart were equally adept at drama, the film also features fine performances from such humor specialists as Spring Byington, Dub Taylor, and Mischa Auer. Of special note is the presence of comic legend Eddie Anderson, who, with his supporting performance in Gone With the Wind, became the first African-American actor to appear in more than one Oscar- winning Best Picture. ~ Richard Gilliam, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Frank Austin  Actor 
Joe Bordeaux  Actor 
Nick Copeland  Actor 
Edgar Dearing  Actor 
Eddie Fetherstone  Actor 
Joe "Corky" Geil  Actor 
Edward Hearn  Actor 
Edward Keane  Actor 
Blanche Payson  Actor 
Dick Rush  Actor 
Rosemary Theby  Actor 
Lawrence Wheat  Actor 
Frank Mills  Actor 
Florence Dudley  Actor 
C.L. Sherwood  Actor 
Bruce Sidney  Actor 
Harry Bailey  Actor 
James Burke  Actor 
Nell Craig  Actor 
Kay Deslys  Actor 
Bess Flowers  Actor 
Robert Greig  Actor 
Bob Kortman  Actor 
Clive Morgan  Actor 
Edward Peil Sr.  Actor 
Al Seymour  Actor 
John Tyrrell  Actor 
Ian Wolfe  Actor 
Carlie Taylor  Actor 
Dutch Hendrian  Actor 
Bessie Wade  Actor 
Jane Tallent  Actor 
Beatrice Blinn  Actor 
Wallis Clark  Actor 
Oliver Eckhardt  Actor 
Dick French  Actor 
John Hamilton  Actor 
Boyd Irwin  Actor 
Charles McMurphy  Actor 
Dagmar Oakland  Actor 
Frances Raymond  Actor 
Pierre Watkin  Actor 
Louis King  Actor 
Lou Davis  Actor 
Eva McKenzie  Actor 
Stella LeSaint  Actor 
Dorothy Babbs  Actor 
Stanley Andrews  Actor 
Joe Bernard  Actor 
Eddy Chandler  Actor 
Dick Curtis  Actor 
Lester Dorr  Actor 
Byron Foulger  Actor 
Kit Guard  Actor 
John Ince  Actor 
Edwin Maxwell  Actor 
Wedgewood Nowell  Actor 
Hilda Plowright  Actor 
Edwin Stanley  Actor 
Walter Walker  Actor 
William Arnold  Actor 
Ernie Shields  Actor 
Alice Keating  Actor 
Starrett Ford  Actor 
Bud Wiser  Actor 
Irving Bacon  Actor 
Charles Brinley  Actor 
Anne Cornwall  Actor 
Vernon Dent  Actor 
James Flavin  Actor 
Jesse Graves  Actor 
Russell Hicks  Actor 
Pert Kelton  Actor 
James Millican  Actor 
George C. Pearce  Actor 
Harry Semels  Actor 
Laura Treadwell  Actor 
Bruce Mitchell  Actor 
Betty Farrington  Actor 
Victor Travers  Actor 
Harry B. Stafford  Actor 
Ward Bond  Actor 
Chester Clute  Actor 
Howard Davies  Actor 
James Farley  Actor 
Jack Gardner  Actor 
Sam Harris  Actor 
Fred Parker  Actor 
Pat West  Actor 
Homer Dickinson  Actor 
Ed Randolph  Actor 
Tina Marshall  Actor 
Eddie Kane  Actor 
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson  Actor 
Beatrice Curtis  Actor 
Carlton Elliott Griffin  Actor 
Margaret Mann  Actor 
Gene Morgan  Actor 
Lee Phelps  Actor 
Frank Shannon  Actor 
Dorothy Vernon  Actor 
Jack Grant  Actor 
Harry Hollingsworth  Actor 
Eugene Anderson Jr.  Actor 
Pearl Varvell  Actor 
Gladys Blake  Actor 
Eddy Chandler  Actor 
Sidney D'Albrook  Actor 
Roland DuPree  Actor 
Almeda Fowler  Actor 
Chuck Hamilton  Actor 
Paul Irving  Actor 
Ralph McCullough  Actor 
Georgia O'Dell  Actor 
Doris Rankin  Actor 
Bill Dill  Actor 
Bert Starkey  Actor 
Bill Lally  Actor 
Belle Johnstone  Actor 
Alex Woloshin  Actor 
Frank Capra  Director 
Frank Capra  Producer 
Robert Riskin  Screenwriter 
Dimitri Tiomkin  Composer (Music Score) 
Jean Arthur  Actor 
Lionel Barrymore  Actor 
James Stewart  Actor 
Edward Arnold  Actor 
Mischa Auer  Actor 
Ann Miller  Actor 
Spring Byington  Actor 
Samuel S. Hinds  Actor 
Donald Meek  Actor 
H.B. Warner  Actor 
Halliwell Hobbes  Actor 
Dub Taylor  Actor 
Mary Forbes  Actor 
Lillian Yarbo  Actor 
Clarence H. Wilson  Actor 
Josef Swickard  Actor 
Ann Doran  Actor 
Christian Rub  Actor 
Charles Lane  Actor 
Harry Davenport  Actor 

Country: USA