1938 – Spring Byington
You Can’t Take It With You
Spring Byington is one of those actresses who you don’t often think of, but who shows up everywhere in movies of all genres. Here she is in a screwball comedy, playing a rather ditsy woman, but playing her to perfection. She was not a caricature, she wasn’t over-the-top, and she wasn’t in your face. But neither was she subtle or understated. She was perfect. That’s what can happen when you have a skilled actor on the job.
Byington played the part of Penny Sycamore, mother of the film’s leading lady. She is sweet, kind-hearted, loving, slightly dotty, and altogether charming and wonderful. The kind of mom we all wish we could have. On the one hand, her head seems to be grounded in reality, though every once in a while, she’ll say something or do something that makes you question that. She, like the rest of her eccentric family, spends her time doing whatever makes her happy. She writes plays, though it is implied that she isn’t very good at it. She paints, though again, without much skill. But that is inconsequential. She enjoys her hobbies, and that’s all that matters. Sounds like a nice life to live, if you ask me.
But Byington also had to play a few scenes with some more serious emotion in them. For example, when Grandpa sells the house to Mr. Kirby, and she is being forced to move, she sheds a few tears. Or when she reads a letter from her daughter Alice, about how unhappy she is, and how she cries herself to sleep, Byington got to use her dramatic skills a little.
But I think that was the problem. As much as I liked Byington in this roll, I don’t think her performance was Oscar-worthy. But it wasn’t Spring’s fault. The roll just wasn’t that notable. There wasn’t much depth or weight to the character as it was written. Maybe if they’d kept the character’s more racy attributes from the original play, Penny might have been a more interesting supporting character. In the source material, the plays she was writing were adventure and sex-filled melodramas. And during the Kirby’s visit, she actually got them to talk about their sex lives. Now that would have been risqué for 1938!