.
My personal choice is a film which is over six decades old, the 1946 Frank Capra Film It’s A wonderful Life. Hailed as Christmas Classic and given five star reviews, without actually knowing anything about the story what so ever I sat down to see what all the fuss was about.
Set in the small fictional American town of Bedford
George's life has been one of shattered dreams and selfless sacrifices. At the start we see George at 12 years old, playing in snow with his younger brother Harry. However when Harry falls through the ice and starts drowning George saves him, but as a result becomes deaf in one ear.
Still a young boy and working in local drug store George realizes that the chemist has accidentally put the wrong medication in a child's prescription which would result in the child being poisoned. The chemist has been recently bereaved, hence making the terrible error and furthermore not listening to George's pleas, but instead gives him a mild beating (aimed rather cruelly in his death ear) before discovering George was in fact right and avoiding accidental poisoning a child.
With glorious dreams of traveling and seeing the world an older George has finished school and college awaits him.
George Bailey: I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy , Greece
With his family trying to urge George into the family business he indicates that his ambitions life lays elsewhere.
Pa Bailey: I know it's soon to talk about it.
George Bailey: Oh, now Pop, I couldn't. I couldn't face being cooped up for the rest of my life in a shabby little office... Oh, I'm sorry Pop, I didn't mean that, but this business of nickels and dimes and spending all your life trying to figure out how to save three cents on a length of pipe... I'd go crazy. I want to do something big and something important.
Pa Bailey: You know, George, I feel that in a small way we are doing something important. Satisfying a fundamental urge. It's deep in the race for a man to want his own roof and walls and fireplace, and we're helping him get those things in our shabby little office.
George Bailey: I know, Dad. I wish I felt... But I've been hoarding pennies like a miser in order to... Most of my friends have already finished college. I just feel like if I don't get away, I'd bust.
Pa Bailey: Yes... yes... You're right son.
George Bailey: You see what I mean, don't you, Pop?
Pa Bailey: This town is no place for any man unless he's willing to crawl to Potter. You've got talent, son. I've seen it. You get yourself an education. Then get out of here.
George Bailey: Pop, you want a shock? I think you're a great guy.
[to Annie, listening through the door]
[to Annie, listening through the door]
George Bailey: Oh, did you hear that, Annie?
Annie: I heard it. About time one of you lunkheads said it.
However with the sudden death of his Father, George has to stay and run the Family loans business, and gives his college money to his younger brother. Years later
when his brother returns, George fully expectant that he can hand the family business over to him, allowing himself a chance at life, discovers his brother now married and offered a great job already with prospectuses. Not forsaking his brother to the burden George remains in the home town and running the family business.
Happiness is short lived when after marrying his sweetheart and leaving for his honeymoon with his life's saving to travel extensively, there is a financial crisis at the family bank and he uses his all his savings to keep it in business, again unable to break free from the town.
George Bailey: [the staff celebrates closing the building and loan company with only two dollars remaining, to stay in business] Get a tray for these two great big important simoleans here.
Uncle Billy: We'll save 'em for seed.
George Bailey: A toast! A toast! A toast to Mama Dollar and to Papa Dollar, and if you want to keep this old Building and Loan in business, you better have a family real quick.
Cousin Tilly: I wish they were rabbits.
Some years later with World War Two breaking out, his brother Harry enlists and becomes national hero after shooting down record amounts of planes and saving the lives of countless people. George however due to his deaf ear cannot enroll and has to remain in Bedford Falls
Arriving at the beginning now we how George's uncle Billy accidentally misplaces $8000 deposit for the bank, which leaves George open to fraud and prosecution as he has no means to replace the money. drunk and with the police after him George gives into the fact due to his life insurance he is worth more dead than alive and prepares to kill himself.
Now watching this film for the first time having known nothing regarding the plot till the time of viewing, being called It's A Wonderful Life could have at this point been an act of cruel sarcasm, as there was nothing else visible in plot to justify the title at this point. The basis for the entire narrative at this point has been No good deed goes unpunished; at this breaking point of the film it now changes direction.
George’s Guardian Angel Clarence prevents him from killing himself. When George recalls his problems he summarizes his life by saying he wished he had never been born. Thanks to Clarence we then enter that alternative reality where he hadn’t been born and get the opportunity to see what a difference one life can make. As with the theory the Butterfly Effect we witness the changes and repercussions of that new reality.
Every good deed George had done, or in this reality hadn’t done, has lead to terrible consequences. His brother Harry drowned as young boy due to no one being able to save him, further to that chain reaction all the people he subsequently saved during the war years later then died.
[George has discovered his brother Harry's tombstone]
Clarence: [explaining] Your brother, Harry Bailey, broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine.
George Bailey: That's a lie! Harry Bailey went to war! He got the Congressional Medal of Honor! He saved the lives of every man on that transport!
Clarence: Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry.
Clarence: [explaining] Your brother, Harry Bailey, broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine.
George Bailey: That's a lie! Harry Bailey went to war! He got the Congressional Medal of Honor! He saved the lives of every man on that transport!
Clarence: Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry.
George’s family Loan business died with his Father as there was no one to run it, which further lead the town to bleaker future. His uncle had been put into an insane asylum, his mother was lonely and embittered and his wife was now an un-happy childless spinster.
Having returned to his own reality now with a new found respect for his life, he discovers all his friends he helped over the years have all come to help him and bail him out of the financial disaster he was heading towards.
The point is the story structure successfully manages to change your entire perception of the situation and look at his life in a different way. It changes the way you then interpret you own life with a fresh more positive perspective.
Clarence: Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?
Clarence: You've been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you.
In my opinion if you can come away from a film having had it change the way you examine your own life and meaning, then that does make it very influential, that’s the difference between entertainment and thought provocation.
The great irony of the film is it’s always taken a while to be a success or like George Bailey himself, to be recognized as one. The story first appeared in the form of a short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern. Unable to get the book published he decided to put his short into Christmas cards which he sent to two hundred friends. One of which arrived to Cary Grant’s agent where then it was bought by a studio in a hope to turn into a Cary Grant film vehicle.
When the film finally was made (Directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart) it didn’t boom to success straight away and regarded by many as a box office flop with numerous reasons suggested for this occurrence. Some say it was just the stiff competition from others films at the time or as James Stewart himself said at the time the country had just come out of a war, at the end of day it was a Christmas film featuring a suicide attempt. The film was nominated for a total of five Oscars including Best picture and Best Actor for James Stewart but it failed to win any.
The film’s fortunes really turned around in the 1974, over twenty years since it’s first release, when due to it’s copyright protection falling through the film slipped into the public domain. The results was TV stations could now air the film for free and for the rest of the 1970s and 1980s it became the firm Christmas Favorite film, introducing itself to a new audience and being thoroughly welcomed by them. This film is listed in the 100 Greatest American Films and Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey as one of the greatest roles. Stewart’sREVIEW EXTRACTS
BBC Film Reviews
Reviewed by
Updated 12 December 2000
Updated 12 December 2000
There's little room for sugary sweet answers to a near plausible life of decency that appears to end in failure. "It's a Wonderful Life" achieves a fine balancing act between pathos and feel-good that is delivered by an outstanding cast. Even the minor parts are populated by some of the finest character actors and it produces a movie of timeless quality and relevance.
Reviewed By Laurie Boeder, former About.com Guide
It’s a Wonderful Life is a beloved Christmas movie, but it’s so much more. A moving examination of the worth of a single man’s life, it’s dark and bright, full of passion, despair and joy. It's a little too sweet sometimes - but it has moments that can surprise you even after you’ve seen it dozens of times, whether it's Christmas Eve or the Fourth of July.
Clarence’s gift to George is the deeply disturbing vision of what idyllic Bedford Falls
Movie review
From Time Out London
Time Out London
Mapping his frustrations and joys onto the contours of recent US
