Old, feel-good movies are often played this time of year; let's see how they relate to modern America. One favorite is "You Can't Take It with You." It was the 1938 Oscar winner for Best Picture and Best Director, Frank Capra. Here is a synopsis of the plot using the actor's names:
Stenographer Jean Arthur and her boss, Jimmy Stewart, are in love. He's the VP of big company owned by his greedy father. Stewart's dad needs to buy one last house to make a lot of money and, as luck would have it, Jean Arthur's grandpa, Lionel Barrymore, owns the house and is being pressured to sell. Nevertheless, grandpa is holding out which also saves his neighbors who love him.
Grandpa does not believe in paying taxes so he doesn't bother. He also heads a strange group of family and friends who do not care about money or convention. Everyone does whatever they like including making fireworks in the basement. When Stewart proposes, Arthur demands he introduce her simple and lunatic family to his snobbish parents, but the snobs decide to visit one day ahead of schedule. "There is a clash of classes and lifestyles," crazy things happen, they break up, there's an explosion, all are arrested, the lovers reunite and the greedy snob learns to just enjoy life, not money, like the crazy family. Cue the happy ending for all.
Roll the time machine to the present. There is no reason for Stewart's greedy father to force grandpa to sell the house; he'd just get the city to take it by eminent domain and turn it over for private development - that's legal now.
Grandpa's crazy group, who dance around the house, sing and play the xylophone whenever they feel like it, would not exist. They would have been diagnosed with ADD in childhood and drugged until they were just boring. Those who slipped through the system would be undergoing psychoanalysis for maladjustment.
Following the fireworks explosion, the ATF, Homeland Security and FBI would arrest everyone as terrorists. They would eventually talk their way out of that charge, but not before spending $20,000 for lawyers.
In the 1938 movie, the judge fined grandpa $100 - worth $1,500 today - for making the fireworks and accidentally blowing up the house. Grandpa did not have the money so the loving neighbors all chipped in to pay the fine; it was a great scene.
Today, the possession of illegal fireworks with a net weight exceeding one pound, can get you a $5,000 fine and a year in jail. The neighbors would surely sue for damages and the environmentalists for pollution. Everyone, including grandpa, would counter-sue the city, the county, the state and the company that made all the chemicals.
Grandpa would also sue the medics who treated him because his back still hurts. In the 1938 version, no one ever heard of health insurance; now everyone will blame their HMO for refusing to approve lifetime compensation for the "psychological trauma" they suffered.
What about grandpa's failure to pay taxes? In the 1938 version, the IRS agent gave up, moved into the house and joined the group. Now, Wall Street would hire grandpa as a tax adviser. Eventually he'd become an executive in the Treasury Department working with all the other folks who didn't pay their taxes. He'd be rich and powerful and he'd be telling the rest of us that we have to sacrifice to save the government. Cue the happy ending - but only for grandpa.
Things have certainly changed.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. Reach him at cwo4mgr@yahoo.com.
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