# It's a Wonderful Life - Do you like it or not?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [December 17, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638 "2009-12-17T14:56:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2010, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/181 "2010-03-01T02:59:57Z")
> [@CT\_Damsel](#):
>
> I am so glad you asked.
>
> Poor old Mary.
>
> Absolutely no chance she might have married some other guy, or moved out of town, or run away with the circus, or been “discovered” at the soda fountain and become a movie star. Oh no. Poor old Mary “one George away” from becoming a dried up bitter old virgin. Thank God for George!
>
> Seeing this movie can crank me up so badly that I want to start slaping any man I see upside of his head just for the insult to Mary.
Well, the way I see it, Sam could probably tell that Mary was the kind that would be an old maid, or ending up working at the library. I guess it was George that kept her so joyously youthful. Lucky girl!
hh
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### Author:  [@ajdebosco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ajdebosco)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2010, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/182 "2010-03-02T13:29:50Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#):
>
> There was an entirely different dynamic of money back then that can’t be accomodated for by inflation/CPI, and, as you point out, there were a lot of domestics back then… and you’ll find that some strange places could accomodate that, not just the uber rich. Additionally, paying Annie for her services could also be one reason that George didn’t make it to college.
> hh
“Little Orphan Annie’s come to my house to stay
To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.
To shoo the chickens from the porch and dust the hearth and sweep,
and make the fire and bake the bread to earn her board and keep…”
Right you are, hh. Lots of struggling families opened their doors to those less fortunate for a variety of reasons, and often required more than just petty chores to make the arraingement acceptable to all parties. In fact, I’d wager more lower middle class families had helpers of different employ in their homes than anyone except perhaps the Rockefellers and Astors class.
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### Author:  [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/183 "2010-06-07T17:08:17Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> It must be destroyed! Every copy shredded, all digital versions wiped, and all memories of it zapped with that MIB thingie. Gods how I hate that movie!
Seconded. James Stewart is really hamming it up with the glurge.
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### Author:  [@Solara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solara)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/184 "2013-07-02T17:45:41Z")
It’s a great honour to Jimmy Stewart and Capra that people are at least still talking about It’s A Wonderful Life into the next century. My favorite. Totally love the movie as well as Mr. Stewart who seems a rare being to me. I’m way too old to be posting but want to say to person who thinks the character is out of line to think suicide, (but the jump in was to save another as perfectly in character). Note: George doesn’t get to actually attempting his own end but he feels the total shame of letting down the many of family and town that he aids. Also true to the role is the oldest who sacrifices down to the younger brother and takes on the loan company job, just as there is no hesitation to save the younger brother when he fell into the ice. I’m struck by those who only found this pic to depress them. It super inspires me but hey, I’m Canadian and agree there is a message here bigger than the glory of cannibalistic capitalism. When my idiot box went on the fritz the only time those crooked diagonal lines would straighten into a picture is when I popped the vhs tape (yup that old) into the machine. The tv only played for this movie, no guff. I saw an old interview with Jimmy S. on the net where he said this movie was the fav of his career and for him the best scene was his prayer at his most desperate time. Spoken like a being that has truly lived adversity and knows the bad jams any one of us could get into. Total gratitude to the people that made this flick possible, sadly only Zuzu is still around and perhaps I should be telling her this as it seems she’s had some really tough luck.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/185 "2013-07-02T20:15:10Z")
Gosh, Mary, it’s a wonderful zombie life!
For my thoughts on the movie, see post #90.
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### Author:  [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/186 "2013-07-02T20:29:39Z")
Teacher says, “Whenever someone rings a bell, a zombie rises.”
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/187 "2013-07-02T20:43:27Z")
nm
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### Author:  [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/188 "2013-07-02T20:51:51Z")
Meh. I can take it or leave it.
Oh, wait! You mean the _movie!_
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/189 "2013-07-02T21:31:10Z")
I like the movie. I’m a sap when it comes to sentimental movies, and I like the dark tone it takes at times. My only problem with it is that it’s verging on too long for me, especially if you add in commercials. Or maybe my attention span is just too short.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/190 "2013-07-02T22:49:57Z")
> [@Solara](#):
>
> It’s a great honour to Jimmy Stewart and Capra that people are at least still talking about It’s A Wonderful Life into the next century.
Yeah, but the earlier discussion in this thread wasn’t really about film-making, but an increasingly acrimonious analysis of financial services management.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/191 "2013-07-02T23:00:32Z")
> [@koufax](#):
>
> I think this is a great movie, although thanks to NBC and corporate greed, I haven’t seen it in years now.
>
> And don’t forget, Bert and Ernie are in it.
I like the film in small doses, i.e. not more than once a year. But as **koufax** says it doesn’t seem to be on much anymore.
Whenever I see the “Nick’s” Bar scene, I have to wonder why the evil bizarro town gets the awesome piano boogie woogie music, while Martini’s Bar seems to have the lamest jukebox in the universe.
And I bet they don’t even serve martinis at all.
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### Author:  [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/192 "2013-07-02T23:05:06Z")
Late to the fray, but I think it’s a great movie.
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### Author:  [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/193 "2013-07-02T23:23:22Z")
have not read the previous posts - sorry! - but I love the movie and find it true: it IS a wonderful life!
I had an Aunt who recently died and she hated the movie: said it was the most depressing thing EVER…I think she mis-understood it.
it is uplifting, or should be.
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### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/194 "2013-07-03T00:39:35Z")
> [@Solara](#):
>
> … I’m way too old to be posting but want to say to person who thinks the character is out of line to think suicide, (but the jump in was to save another as perfectly in character). …
First, if you haven’t be welcomed here, let me to the first to do so.
This is a very special message board and I am certain that your contributions will be appreciated by others. And I just wanted to gently chastise you about this: “I’m way too old to be posting.” Phooey. You are never too old to post. I hope you stay around, **Solara**.
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/195 "2013-12-13T16:23:28Z")
I love this movie…! It’s gotten me through some hard Christmas seasons in my life. It helps me to remember people that I’ve known & places where I’ve been that are gone now.
I know that they never Say where Bedford Falls is, but steel plants? People thrown out of work? That bridge construction style? Jimmy Stewart? A town excited that its local good football player was “going to State”?
That’s the Delaware and there are 2-3 bridges which are spitting images of the one in the movie.
Sure, I’m older than most of you and maybe its because I grew up, traveled, visited lived all around there… but those characters were of a generation and in a region that was once very, very real. I was just a little boy and
I only saw the very end of the far edge of it… but once in America, there were small towns just like that. It was the where and the when that my parents grew up in. Its where all their friends settled and raised families.
When I saw that this thread had been bumped, I was originally afraid that it was because of the plans to make a sequel, something that I hope never gets serious thought. Sure, its fun to think about, but a lot of bad times
have happened since that golden generation handed off the keys to the town. There are a lot more Potter supporters now… deluded people who think that if they carry enough water that they’ll live in mansions when the
truth is that they’re as expendable to their heroes as the rabbits in Potter’s Field. The Potters have changed too… its like they’ve morphed into a combination of ‘Potter’ from “Its a Wonderful Life” and Jim Taylor from
“Mr Smith Goes to Washington”. They broadcast daily on all the media and it seems almost like there’s no one left to speak up for the good people who really do “most of the living and the dying” in that small corner of the world.
What would the movie focus on today? The problems? The foreclosures? The gang influences? The disintegration of neighborhood togetherness with the advent of telecom and internet? The local job losses due to point-and-click shopping?
The world today seems too empty of people willing to sit on front porches after work to enjoy their lives… and too filled with people more than willing to hide behind their locked front doors after they get home.
(If they still have a job to leave home for. And if they still have a home.) Who is left to address that? How do we even fix that?
One day at a time, I guess. ☹
What voices are left that people would be willing to listen to… to risk turning off that TV, that computer, that phone? Who’s left to remind people that they Are strong enough to be brave and that they don’t have to be afraid
as long as they are true to themselves up here… and in here…?
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### Author:  [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/196 "2013-12-13T17:54:27Z")
“I’ve never seen that movie. I could never get past the title.” - Batman, “Christmas with the Joker”
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### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/197 "2013-12-13T21:42:14Z")
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> Theoretically speaking, the Bailey B&L didn’t have money problems at that very moment because the depositors were supposed to wait 60 days to cash out. The depositors bought “shares” similar to share draft accounts at credit unions. (When I had credit union shares, it was a 30 day wait.) In the big picture, the Bailey B&L always had money problems but one can nitpick and say that on the day of the bank run, the B&L had every right to say, _“hey, we’d love to help you out but you need to wait 60 days. bye.”_.(snip)
But remember that guy that said Potter had bought his shares? I seem to recall he paid him something like 30 cents on the dollar. George had to pay out immediately to keep the rest of the shareholders from running out and giving Potter controlling interest. George’s honeymoon money went to keep Potter from getting (and presumably closing) Bailey Savings and Loan.
I remember the line “Potter’s not selling, Potter’s buying. And why? Because we’re panicking and he’s not”. It’s saved me a lot of money during market fluctuations. It’s kind of echoed in the Warren Buffet axiom, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful”.
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/198 "2014-12-25T16:35:27Z")
See how Potter gets his at:
[Https://www.youtube.com.watch?v168GuF2dhww](Https://www.youtube.com.watch?v168GuF2dhww)
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/199 "2014-12-25T17:29:33Z")
I like it because I enjoy alternate history, and it’s the first film example I can think of that illustrates the concept.
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/200 "2014-12-25T18:29:23Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#):
>
> See how Potter gets his at:
> [Https://www.youtube.com.watch?v168GuF2dhww](Https://www.youtube.com.watch?v168GuF2dhww)
In that URL there should be an equal sign (=) after the “v”.:o :o
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