You
Can't Take It With You
(1938/Sony Blu-ray + 1979 TV Adaptation/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B+/C Extras: B/D Main Programs: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The 1979 TV version of the You
Can't Take It With You
DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the links below.
Winner
of 2 Academy Awards in 1938, Director Frank Capra's version of You
Can't Take It With You
is brought to us in high definition in this exclusive Digi-Book
edition with pages of beautiful photographs from the film complete
with linear notes.
The
film stars Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Ann Miller,
Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Ann Doran, Charles Lane and Edward Arnold
and focuses on the zany Sycamore household.
At
the Sycamores, everyone does just what he or she pleases. The one
normal member of the household, Alice Sycamore, is in love with Tony
Kirby. Naturally, when the stuffy Kirbys come to the Sycamores for
dinner, the event is a disaster. It's your typical screwball comedy
with eccentric performances and feels very theatrical, which makes
sense as it was based on a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
Presented
in 1080p high definition with a black and white image and a full
frame aspect ratio of 1.37:1 and a glorious-for-its-age sounding
DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono lossless track from surviving materials
that were not always in the best of shape. Other language tracks are
on the disc in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. An Ultraviolet
Copy also comes with this edition. In all honestly, I found the
presentation to be a bit grainy, though I don't have other editions
to compare it to.
Special
Features include the built-in booklet in the DigiPak release, while
the Blu-ray adds a feature length commentary by Frank Capra, Jr. and
Author Cathrine Kellison, Frank
Capra, Jr. Remembers You Can't Take It With You
featurette and a Theatrical Trailer.
As
far as classic films go, I didn't complete fall in love with this
film. I found it to be a bit slow and a little emotionally gooey.
I'm honestly surprised a big budget hollywood remake hasn't happened
with this title yet. As far as Blu-ray editions go, this is a fine
release.
Four
decades later, Warner Television got very ambitious and decided to do
a TV remake (two had been made for TV in the 1940s in the U.S. and
U.K. respectively), managing to secure an extremely talented cast of
some of the top comedy talent alive and in the medium of the time
including Jean Stapleton (All
In The Family),
Art Carney (The
Honeymooners),
Beth Howland & Polly Holiday (Alice),
Marla Gibbs (The
Jeffersons),
Howard Hesseman & Tim Reid (WKRP
In Cincinnati),
Eugene Roche & Robert Mandan (Soap),
Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H),
plus
Blythe Danner, Barry Bostwick, Kenneth Mars, Mildred Natwick, Paul
Sand, Joyce Van Patten and Alan Oppenheimer. That is an insanely
excellent cast and can more than rival the Capra film (which says
something), but despite their best efforts, this Paul Bogart-directed
version is still limited and stagy.
That
seems to haunt both versions, yet this one stays as period as it can
and Director/Writer Bogart (Get
Smart,
All In
The Family,
the Alice
pilot, Golden
Girls,
Dean Martin theatrical police thriller Mr.
Ricco,
also issued by Warner Archive (see elsewhere on this site)) is more
than capable of handling the talent and even the set works to the
piece's advantage, but the results are uneven. Still, this
videotaped TV event (which we could technically call a telefilm) is
one of the most ambitious tapings of its type ever. It is worth a
good look, just the same.
The
NTSC analog videotaped 1.33 X 1 image is in color and has a
consistent appearance despite the many tape flaws and limits of the
time, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono could use some more work
and restoration being a little more compressed than expected. There
are sadly no extras.
To
order the You
Can't Take It With You
Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
James Lockhart
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
...and
Nicholas Sheffo
