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April 29, 2008
Oscar Challenge: You Can't Take It With You
First, I apologize for the complete and utter lack of knitting content. It's just been to darned hot lately to knit, and the only thing I'm actively working on is the FBS, which is unbelievably, stultifyingly boring. Sorry about that.
Anyway, the movie. This should have been a great movie. It's based on one of the best plays ever written, and the casting (can I tell you how much I LOVE Lionel Barrymore?) and sets were fabulous. But I use the words "based on". I don't know what the hell Frank Capra was thinking. I don't know what the hell Kaufman and Hart were thinking.
There was all this ridiculous extra crap written in. WHY? My theory is that Capra wanted to cast Jimmy Stewart as Tony, and he's really a supporting character, so they re-wrote it to make the love story the main plot. The point of Tony as written is that he's of another world, and the play explores all the interesting things that happen when worlds collide. In this story, Tony starts out as an oddball who happens to live in that other world, so there's no journey.
We have to get up in like three hours to go to Disneyland, so I'm not going to rant about this. Just go see even a crappy community theatre production of this lovely play, and rent "It's a Wonderful Life". You'll be way better off.
p.s. I know everyone who's ever been in a play has done this one, but my mom and I both played Penny in high school, and Nathan played Paul.
Comments
Good old Penny. "Spiritualism? We all know that's a fake!"
George Kaufman was a genius, especially when writing for Groucho.
I dated Essie from our high school production.
I should see the movie, even though your review makes it sound awful... Have fun at Disneyland!
Posted by: Stephen at April 29, 2008 10:58 AM