You Can't Take it With You

You Can't Take it With You is one of those movies that I feel needs to be put in context of its time. So, I decided to find out what was going on in 1938 and headed over to History.com to see what I could learn. It was a very busy year with a lot going on.
In the world the events that would eventually lead to WWII and the Holocaust took place. In March Germany annexed Austria, then in November the Nazis launched "Kristallnacht" or "Night of the Broken Glass". That is when the Nazis raided Jewish settlements and imprisoned, killed , and stole from many Jews in Germany and Poland. With no real consequences from outside countries it lead Hitler to believe he could get away with anything.
In the United States we were still dealing with the effects of the Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal policies. The House of Un-American Activity Committee was formed to find communists and The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was passed that set a minimum wage and limited child labor. In 1937 after a little recovery the United States went into a recession. It was believed by many that this recession was caused by greedy corporations and monopolies.
It is the idea of greedy corporations being the cause for the recession and peoples money problems that is the back drop for the movie. The movie is about a business tycoon who is buying all the property from the people in a town. They never really say what he is going to do with the property except it will force one of his business competitors to go bankrupt and he will be rich. There is one family that refuses to sell. They are a family of odd balls. The grandfather played by Lionel Barrymore encourages his household to do whatever they like to do and even brings home strangers. He convinces a bank teller to leave his job and live at his house to follow his dream of making toys and masks. The one daughter who has a normal job is a secretary for the business mans son played by James Stewart. They fall in love and want to get married. But the differences between his rich parents and her poor and unusual family makes things difficult. Then added to the mix is the fact that its his father trying to buy the house. Basically its an odd ball comedy. The moral of the story is to follow your dreams, do what makes you happy, and if your greedy you will die rich but not happy, because money You Cant Take it With You when you die.
I enjoyed the movie. I love the quirky family and Jimmy Stewart is as good as always. This was his first movie with Frank Capra and while not considered his best it is still fun and enjoyale. Frank Capra had a knack for making light hearted films that were enjoyable yet seemed to have a moral. In this movie it was don't take life too seriously and have fun. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington it was even the little guy can make a change, and in It's a Wonderful Life the moral was we all have something to contribute to others life.
It seems in times like we are in now his stories never go out of date. We seem to be going through the same troubles with similar feeling about greedy corporations. Maybe everyone should watch this movie again and we can all learn something. People might argue that it was not the best movie of 1938 but it definitely meant something and spoke to the people of that time. And while some movies age poorly this one still has meaning today.

Also of interest:
Frank Capra was the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
(which gives out the Oscar)and he was host of the ceremony. And who thought
politics didn't play a role in winning Academy Awards back then.

Spencer Tracy won his second Best Actor award in a row for Boys Town making him the first actor to win back to back awards.

Walt Disney received an honorary awards for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and
was "recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and
pioneered a great new entertainment field" he received one regular size statuette
and 7 miniature ones.

The Grand Illusion was the first foreign language picture to be nominated for Best
Picture. No foreign language picture has ever won best picture. The First Award
For Best Foreign Language Film was given out in 1946.

It Happened One Night

Well my goal was to try and have a new post every Monday. I know I haven't really had a schedule but was going to try. Well didn't make it this week. The Lost Series finale took up four and a half hours of my time on Monday. That used up all my thinking for the day. So here it is a day late.

I decided to try something new this week. For the first time I watched a movie from netflix.com. I didn't realize that I could watch movies on the Internet and it didn't affect how many DVDs I would get a month. And it worked pretty well. I watched most of it at once but towards the end my dog was making a lot of noise and wanted to eat. I was hoping she would let me finish the last 15 minutes but she wouldn't wait. So I paused till the next day when I watched the last 15 minutes.

The movie is about a rich heiress(Claudette Colbert) who runs away from her father to meet up with a man she secretly married. She leaves her father in Florida and takes a bus up to New York. On the bus she meets up with a reporter(Clark Gable) looking for his next story. He promises to help her as long as he can have exclusive rights to the story. Of course as they travel together they fall in love and by the time she gets to New York she needs to make a decision as to stay married to her husband or have that marriage annulled and marry the man she just fell in love with.

This was the first romantic comedy to win Best Picture, and it was funny and entertaining. The playful banter between the two stars is great, and they get into some funny situations.
The end when she finally admits she loves him is a little over the top for my tastes but not horribly bad. The best line in the movie is at the end when the father asks Clark Gables character if he loves his daughter and Clark Gable says "YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!" Although one of the most famous scenes is probably the hitchhiking scene where Clark Gable is trying to show her how to hitchhike using his thumb and it isn't working. And she goes out there and shows a little leg and gets a car on the first try. He says "Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars." Then she replies "Well, ooo, I'll remember that when we need forty cars."

It was one of the first movies to go on to become a real classic. The American Film Institute had it listed as 35 on their Top 100 movies and 8 on the Top 100 Comedies and 38 on their Top 100 Romantic movies. And not only was it the first romantic comedy to win best picture but it was the first of only 3 movies all time to win all 5 of the top Academy Awards. Those are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. That wouldn't happen again for over 40 years. It was also the first of three wins in five years for Frank Capra for Best Director.

While the movie was good and went on to become a classic and probably deserved to win. I am personally liked The Thin Man better. The Thin Man is another comedy (ranked #32 on AFI List of Comedies) about at Nick and Nora Charles a private detective and his rich wife and cant forget their dog Asta who help the police solve a murder while on vacation in New York. This movie is very funny with a lot of good one liners. After watching It Happened One Night I decided to rewatch this one to compare the two. And while The Thin Man had some slow moments I still find it funnier. All Nick cares about is getting his next drink but he still solves the case. The dinner party at the end is hilarious when he invites all the suspects to dinner to reveal who the killer is. They ended up making 5 more Thin Man movies. Definitely one of my favorite movies of the 30's.

Its interesting that both movies were up for best picture. These days you hardly ever find any comedies nominated for best picture and here you had two really funny movies nominated. And they both have to do with rich heiress'. I think its because of when they were made. It was in the middle of the depression and people just needed an escape. And what is better then seeing rich people just enjoying themselves and getting into hilarious situations. And after saying that we will see how Sex and the City 2 does this weekend. Another movie about rich women in funny situations. Funny how history repeats itself. I just don't think Sex and the City 2 will be nominated for best picture. But you never know now that there are 10 movies nominated.