Lesson: Money isn't everything. This Frank Capra classic tells the Depression-era story of two New York families: one rich, repressed and miserable; the other broke, bohemian and blissfully content. Their orbits collide when Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), a sweet working girl whose free-spirited family puts relationships and creativity above all else, falls in love with Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart), the son of a Wall Street wheeler-dealer whose life revolves around money, munitions and the occasional monopoly.

Hilarity ensues as the two families mix, mingle and hash out their disparate attitudes toward love, life and money. Not surprisingly, family, friends and joie de vivre win out over the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Can money buy happiness? Princeton researchers who surveyed nearly 1,000 people in 2004 found that people with above-average incomes were "barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience." They also tended to be more tense and spend less time enjoying themselves.

But a study presented in February found that when you spend money on experiences, such as travel or theater tickets, it satisfies "the need for social connectedness and vitality -- a feeling of being alive." That feeling -- not necessarily the money -- makes people happy. (See "7 smart ways to buy happiness.")

Either way, as Lionel Barrymore's character says in the movie, "You can't take it with you . . . so what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends."