You Can't Take It With You

How true that is. And how revealing. Capra is at his most sentimental here, with James Stewart, the son of a munitions tycoon, falling for dizzy Jean Arthur, who comes from a poor but happy family of eccentrics. There are fireworks when the two fathers meet, but mostly the picture is a damp squib, trite, preachy, and desperately sincere. If the poor were a vocal minority, this would be denounced as the equivalent of Uncle Tom-ism. The cast is appealing, particularly Stewart and Arthur, but it's not enough. Polly Wolly Doodle indeed.