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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO
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1930
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1930s) You Can't Take It With You
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1930s Highlights
Theater
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
You Can't Take It With You
</hdr>
<body>
<p>(December 28, 1936)
</p>
<p> You Can't Take It With You demonstrates that a pair of showmen
can confect a magnificently funny show without bothering much
about the plot. The plot of You Can't Take It With You is
deliberately banal. Two young lovers are nearly parted because
of their families, a dramatic situation which has not grown any
younger since Pyramus & Thisbe. So theatrically threadbare is
this narrative scheme that it takes an ignited dish of red fire
to bring down the first act curtain, an off-stage explosion to
close Act II. These punctuations are, however, not really
necessary for in creating Grandpa Vanderhof (Henry Traver) and
his clan--the Girl's family which the Boy's family views with
alarm--the playwrights have conjured a species of dramatis
personae which transcends plot, bursts the bonds of the
established theatre and mounts into the stratosphere of great
literary lunacy.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>