When the family of munitions tycoon Anthony Kirby vists the free-spirited Sycamore family for dinner, what unusual event interrupts the meal?
A) A car accident in front of the house B) A fireworks explosion in the basement ü C) A piano falling through the ceiling D) The birth of a child in the kitchen
Frank Capra won his third and final Best Picture award for this film, a reworking by Robert Riskin of a hit play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The story is propelled by the collision between two contrasting households. The eccentric Sycamores, along with a bevy of equally loopy permanent house guests, are led by Lionel Barrymore as lovable Grandpa Vanderhof. The head of the Kirby household is a hard-nosed industrialist played by Edward Arnold. The families interact on two fronts. On the one hand, Kirby’s plan to build an enormous munitions plant depends on persuading the unworldly Sycamores to sell their house to him — an idea in which they have absolutely no interest. On the other, Kirby’s son Tony (James Stewart) and Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur) are in love. All difficulties are eventually resolved — after the arrest and trial of virtually the whole cast in the wake of the fireworks incident — in typical "Capra-corn" fashion with the conversion of the senior Kirby to the carefree Sycamore worldview.
