It’s a Wonderful Life – Movie Review
TO MY BIG BROTHER GEORGE, THE RICHEST MAN IN TOWN.
Okay, I guess you’re wondering why I am writing about a 62 year old Christmas movie. Well, to put it quite simply, this is the best movie ever made. I don’t want to hear your bitching and whining. You can disagree with me all that you want. This is the movie that beats out all others for me.
It’s A Wonderful Life is directed by Frank Capra. A great American director. Possibly the best. His films include “It Happened One Night”, “Mr. Deeds Goes To Town”, “You Can’t Take It With You”, “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”, and “Meet John Doe”, among others. Capra’s movies have a quality all of their own. In fact, it is so recognizable, that any feel good, heart warming film is referred to as “Capra-esque”. But as close as other inspiring heart warming movies come, none of them match the brilliance of Capra’s work.
It’s A Wonderful Life was released in 1946 with very little fanfare. In fact, it was critically ignored and considered a flop on it’s initial release. But, due to a clerical error in 1974, it’s copyright was never renewed and it entered the public domain. Repeated screenings in America every holiday season in the 80s (on more than one channel) put this movie into the pop-culture lexicon. It still gets shown on TV every Christmas Eve in America and is considered to be one of the all time greatest movies. The American Film Institute placed it at the top of their 100 Most Inspiring Films list in 2007.
Here is the basic rundown of the film. Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey, the son of the manager of the Bedford Falls Buildings and Loan. With a mind for adventure, he plans to travel the world when he gets older. But due to bad timing and moral responsibility he never makes it out of his home town. First, with the death of this father, he is trusted to take over the company so it wont fall into the hands of the mean and corrupt Mr. Potter, then when a run at the bank makes him try and save the town from going under by using his honeymoon money to solve the towns money problems.
We see the life story of a seemingly simple man. His childhood, when he saves the life of his brother and stops his boss from almost poisoning a child. His teen years when he finds out about a crush a girl has on him, and years later when he finally falls in love with her. George Bailey is the man we wish we could be. We all have the power to be a George Bailey. Some people are closer to him than we realize.
When a friend and co-worker misplaces $8000 that was to be deposited in the bank, George frantically tries to save the Building and Loan and can’t. After all the things in his life that he has done for everyone else and never taken anything for himself, he comes to the realization that because of a life insurance policy he holds, he is worth more dead than alive. In a panicky and downtrodden mood he is planning on throwing himself off a bridge to his certain death.
Just as he is about to do this, an angel (well, an angel in training) named Clarence jumps off the bridge first. George, without hesitation, dives in and rescues him. George bitterly wishes he had never been born, stating that everyone would be better off without him. Clarence decides to show George what life in Bedford Falls would have been like without him. Suffice to say, he is given a very rude awakening from his doldrums and eventually is shown how much the town appreciates and respects him.
It is a touching story about how every person makes a difference in the world around them. I defy anybody to watch this movie and not feel good at the end of it. If you don’t cry tears of joy, then you have no soul.
You’ve heard all the quotes from it before. “Everytime a bell rings, an angel gets its wings”, “I wish I had a million dollars….HOT DOG!!!”, “George lassos the moon”, and also, this is the movie that made Buffalo Girls such a well known song.
I know I rant and slay movies pretty often, but I am a softy at heart…and stomach. This is my all time favourite movie. Go out and hire it, buy it, find it. Watch it, and enjoy.
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Have to say that i too have a soft spot for this movie. Having said that, i simply cannot remember a time when this movie was actually shown on TV on a Christmas Eve in Australia. i’m sure that it has been, but my family were always more of a Carols by Candlelight kinda group.
I do know that my first experience with this film was many many years ago. I was living in Sydney, by myself, a young guy without friends or family around me and kinda miserable. One of my co-workers took me aside one day and told me that i had to watch “Its a Wonderful Life”, she told me it changed her life and that i would be “good for me”.
So, off i trotted to the video store, rented out the most battered VHS copy you’ve ever seen and went home to watch.
About halfway through this film, i felt like throwing myself off the bridge with George, How on earth could watching this good decent guy get completely fracked over make me feel better.
But, by the time that George gets home and the angel gets its wings, I was in tears like a small schoolgirl whos lost her doll. At the time, i thought that i would never again watch a movie that moved me as much as this did at that very particular time of my life.
Sure, 20 yrs on and i now recognise that i was being manipulated and that the cheese is pretty thick towards the end, but to me, i will always remember being uplifted and inspired by this film and i put it in the same catagory as Henry Fonda’s “12 Angry Men” as one of the movies where i realised that i could like films that weren’t genre blockbusters and that black and white didn’t necessarily equate to boring
And to add to the films more “Geeky” cred, it is also Dave Lister’s favourite film in Red Dwarf. In the Novel of “Better Than Life” Dave Lister is trapped in the VR world of a fictional Bedford Falls in which it’s always christmas eve and Kochanski is his loving wife.
Of course Rimmer has to show up in a massive petrol rig to destroy it all. lol.
its such an emotional movie and it really does remind you that one man can be important to so many others…
its pure cheese at the end, yeah, but hey… its emotional…and sweet.
Q
I actually read that book around the same time that I first saw It’s A Wonderful Life. It was the first reference to the movie I noticed and not a week goes by that I don’t see more references to this great film.
Off the top of my head, I remember an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 based on it, Elbow has a song called George Lassos The Moon, in Home Alone they are watching a French dubbed version of it, there’s a character in Ford Fairlane named Zuzu Petals, the list goes on and on.
I know how you feel. I was not in a good place when I first saw this movie. Ididn’t have a lot of friends in high school. I had a lot of hopes for my life that never seemed to materialize. I felt that I would never be able to make a difference to anyone’s life, including my own. But then I saw this movie and I felt better about my life immediately.
Now, whenever I’m down, I just watch this movie and it brings back all the joy in life. This film makes me try to be a better person. It centers me in a way that no other film can. It is one of the reasons I enjoy film so much.