Today, It's a Wonderful Life is the most famous and successful film either directed by Frank Capra, or starring James Stewart. But it wasn't always that way. It originally lost money at the box office. Although it received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, the film was shut out by The Best Years of Our Lives, William Wyler's superior postwar drama.
It's a Wonderful Life was released on Christmas Day, 1946. This is fitting, as the film is identified with frequent television showings during the Christmas season. These began after the film's copyright expired in 1974. Only in recent years has its place on the Christmas movie pedestal has been threatened, by the nostalgic comedy A Christmas Story.
Why is It's a Wonderful Life so beloved? One has to begin with the cast. James Stewart was well suited for playing the folksy 'common man' hero George Bailey, who is similar to his character in Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Once Bailey makes a surprising late film manic-depressive character turn, Stewart's performance is outstanding. The supporting cast is loaded with excellent, famous character actors. Lionel Barrymore is perfect as the scheming, scroogelike banker Potter. The identify of Thomas Mitchell (Gone With the Wind, Stagecoach) is again buried in his character, as Bailey's good-hearted but bumbling assistant Uncle Billy. Add lovely 'perfect mom' Donna Reed as Bailey's wife, and lovable Henry Travers as guardian angel Clarence.
It's a Wonderful Life has a weakness chronic to many films directed by Frank Capra, namely his penchant for populist speeches and underdog heroes. (Compare with Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and You Can't Take it With You, with even the titles betraying the populist themes.) Bailey rails at Potter on several occasions, and the audience is expected to stand up and applaud every time. Bailey the hero saves or redeems the lives of the entire city of Bedford Falls. His brother adds to his heroics, becoming a second team All American football player, then shooting down fifteen Japanese warplanes, saving his ship, winning the Congressional Medal of Honor, etc.
What separates It's a Wonderful Life from these lesser Capra classics is the final third of the film. After Uncle Billy loses the eight grand in Potter's lap, the movie finally takes off. Bailey's towering ambitions (to make a fortune, to see the world, to accomplish greatness) have long been submerged in selfless devotion to Bedford Falls. With the sudden, catastrophic financial loss, those ambitions are finally and irretrievably lost. The love of his family and friends loses its value to him, and the resentful dark side of George Bailey surfaces. He finds his way back by discovering how cold, harsh and sinful Bedford Falls (now renamed Potterville) would have become in his absence. It's a wonderful story, based on Philip Van Doren Stern's "The Greatest Gift". It has been reworked repeatedly ever since, with the most entertaining version being a Beavis and Butt-head Christmas special (they learned how much better off everyone would have been without them). (80/100)
George Bailey has so many problems he is thinking about ending it all - and it s Christmas! As the angels discuss George, we see his life in flashback...More at Buy.com
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