Life artist (film)

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Movie
German title Life artist
Original title You can't take it with you
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1938
length 126 minutes
Rod
Director Frank Capra
script Robert Riskin
production Frank Capra for
Columbia Pictures
music Dimitri Tiomkin
camera Joseph Walker
cut Gene Havlick
occupation

Lebenskünstler (Original title: You Can't Take It with You ) is a US- produced comedy film by Frank Capra from 1938. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize- winning play of the same name and is about the meeting of two fundamentally different families, than want to marry their children. Like the play, the film was a success and won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director of the Year.

action

Successful New York banker Anthony P. Kirby has just returned from Washington, DC , where the government has given him a monopoly on certain types of ammunition that will make him very rich. Kirby also wants to buy up all the blocks of flats around a competitor's company and rebuild the land so that he no longer has any transport routes for his products. Only one family still doesn't want to sell their house, so Kirby instructs his real estate agent, John Blakely, to offer the family a large sum or otherwise cause them trouble. Meanwhile, Kirby's son Tony, the bank's vice president , has fallen in love with his secretary, shorthand typist Alice Sycamore. When Tony is about to become engaged to her, Alice fears that Tony's rich and well-known family will look down on her and her family. Alice is the only normal member of her extremely eccentric but lovable family, which is led by down-to-earth and lively grandfather Martin Vanderhof. What Tony and his family are not clear about is that Vanderhof owns the last house that he does not want to sell to Kirby.

When Kirby and his snobbish wife find out about their son's marriage plans with the simple employee, they are shocked and want to counteract it. Before Alice accepts Tony's marriage proposal, she insists that the two completely opposing families meet. Tony deliberately brings his parents to Alice's unprepared family on the wrong day so that the parents can get to know her for who she really is and so that the entire house is in disarray. When the Kirbys are shocked to leave the house after the disastrous meeting, the police arrest everyone in the house for disturbing the peace with unauthorized fireworks. While the arrested are waiting in the sobering cell for the night judge, Mrs. Kirby insults Alice as being unworthy of her son, which hurts Alice deeply. Ironically, it turns out that Kirby's real estate agent initiated the police operation. During the interrogation, the night judge asks why the Kirbys were at the Vanderhof's house. When Grandfather Martin explains - to protect the Kirbys - that it was because of the house sale, Alice reacts angrily and reveals that it was because of her engagement to Tony, in whom she was disappointed because of the evil behavior of his family towards her. This causes a sensation in the newspapers, whereupon Alice leaves town.

After Alice's departure, Vanderhof decides to sell the house, which puts an end to the last resistance against Kirby and now the entire district is to move out for Kirby's new development. This news causes great fluctuations on the stock exchanges, from which Kirby himself mainly benefits. Then Kirby's competitor Ramsey dies, who shortly before described him in a conversation as a ruthless and wrong person. Kirby realizes that he actually has no friends and only money, which Vanderhof told him before in the sobering cell. Before the crucial meeting of the board of directors, Tony resigns from his father's position and both - disappointed by the development in their lives - visit the Vanderhofs independently of one another when they move out of the house. There Kirby asks Vanderhof for advice based on his wisdom and Tony and Alice become a couple again. At the end of the film, both families gather for dinner in the Vanderhof's house, which like the entire district no longer needs to be cleared.

backgrounds

  • The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize- winning play in three acts Rejoice in Life (Original Title: You Can't Take It With You ) by George Simon Kaufman and Moss Hart . It was first performed on December 14, 1936 and reached 837 performances.
  • The film title You Can't Take It With You (in German: “You can't take it with you”) is spoken by Martin Vanderhof in an interview with Anthony Kirby in the prison cell. Vanderhof means that Kirby cannot "take" all of his riches with him after his death and that they are ultimately worthless.
  • In the film, Lionel Barrymore can only be seen as grandfather Martin Vanderhof with crutches, which was due to his increasing arthrithis. In the film, this is explained by Martin's accident while sliding down the banister. In later films, including his renewed collaboration with Frank Capra in Isn't Life Beautiful? (1946), Barrymore was already in a wheelchair because of his illness.
  • Ann Miller, who plays Ed Carmichael's wife, was only 15 years old at the time of filming.
  • The film particularly helped the career of James Stewart, who was to work with Frank Capra on two later films. Stewart had already made a few successful films up to Lebenskünstler , but only then became a star.

German version

Lebenskünstler first appeared in German cinemas in 1946 with a first dubbed version. The second dubbed version used today was made in 1979 in the Bavaria studio in Munich.

role actor German Dubbing voice (1979)
Alice Sycamore Jean Arthur Rose-Marie Kirstein
Tony Kirby James Stewart Hartmut Becker
Martin Vanderhof Lionel Barrymore Hans Paetsch
Anthony P. Kirby Edward Arnold Alf Marholm
Broker John Blakely Clarence Wilson Erich Ebert

Reviews

“It's a great film that will only disappoint the most superficial admirers of the play. Columbia, alongside the services of its famous script-directing team Capra and Riskin, chose its cast with wondrous wisdom. Lionel Barrymore's grandpa is perhaps a tiny bit disappointing after Henry Travers ' performance on Broadway, but we admit that our disappointment stems from the fact that Mr. Travers played the grandpa first. Along with this prejudicial doubt, we admire everyone and everything - Jean Arthur's Alice Sycamore, James Stewart's honest young Kirby, Edward Arnold's haunted tycoon, Spring Byingtons amusing Penny, Donald Meeks Mr. Poppins (a character added to the movie), and everyone else in the the long cast list. And, before we forget, "You Can't Take It With You" jumps into the list of the best films of the year. "

- Frank S. Nugent in the New York Times , September 2, 1938

"Intelligent, endlessly funny dialogues!"

- Cinema

"Disarming American social comedy with a socially critical aspect and amusing character drawings that come to full effect through excellent actors."

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

The film won two Academy Awards , for Best Picture and Best Director . This was, besides It Happened in One Night (1934) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Capra's third Academy Award in five years.

He received five other nominations for Best Supporting Actress , Best Adapted Screenplay , Best Cinematography , Best Editing and Best Sound .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life artist in the German dubbing index
  2. ↑ Life artist at the New York Times
  3. ↑ Life artist at Cinema
  4. ↑ Life artist at two thousand and one