# 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:** 2
### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/21 "2009-12-17T16:05:23Z")
I LOVE it. It’s one of the few movies I make sure to watch every Christmas. Love Jimmy Stewart, love the story. It’s just very cool.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/22 "2009-12-17T16:18:17Z")
I did enjoy it. It isn’t something I can watch over and over again.
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### Author:  [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/23 "2009-12-17T16:24:54Z")
I like it - I love the little details. Like how the record player is used to turn the turkey on the spit in the honeymoon sequence. I’ve used the “house blessing” that Mary does as part of any housewarming gift I’ve given in the past several years (based on a Russian tradition, but I learned it from the movie). I love when the dance floor turns in to a swimming pool and everyone falls/jumps in, I love the bathrobe scene that **Sauron** mentions, I like when George gets mad at Mary and tries to tell her why he won’t fall in love with her and she’s nodding and crying and then how they are listening in on the phone and he feels her hair and . . .
yup, i love it.
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### Author:  [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/24 "2009-12-17T16:41:10Z")
> [@Snickers](#):
>
> Like it. I’m a sucker for Jimmy Stewart - he’s genius.
I also will watch anything with Jimmy Stewart in it. But overall, I don’t care for _It’s a Wonderful Life_. Frankly, I find it too depressing. Virtually the entire movie, with the exception of the last five minutes or so, is things getting worse and worse, and then just when you think they couldn’t get any worse, they get worse.
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### Author:  [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/25 "2009-12-17T17:01:56Z")
I like it a lot, especially when I can show it to people who’ve never seen it before.
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### Author:  [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/26 "2009-12-17T17:06:55Z")
I’m another one who loves it. The scene Sauron quoted is definitely my favorite, and I also like watching it for all the unintentionally funny parts, like the policeman firing his gun wildly at George as he runs away, despite all the random people standing around, or the fact that Mary’s horrible fate is to _gasp_ be an _old maid librarian_! The horror!
I like the sappy bits, too, though. Poor Mr. Gower’s alternate fate always makes me want to cry, and I get warm fuzzies when George is running through the town yelling “Merry Christmas!” like a madman. Always puts me in the Christmas mood.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/27 "2009-12-17T17:11:14Z")
We watch it every year along with other favorites. I think I read that the movie was panned by critics when it was released. I read a review of it that referred to its message of alcoholism, abuse and suicide once.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/28 "2009-12-17T17:14:36Z")
Hate it. Too schmaltzy. I like unintentionally funny stuff, but lighter fare–like the Rankin Bass ones. This just feels like enforced sentimentality.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/29 "2009-12-17T17:47:03Z")
> [@cjepson](#):
>
> I also will watch anything with Jimmy Stewart in it. But overall, I don’t care for _It’s a Wonderful Life_. Frankly, I find it too depressing. Virtually the entire movie, with the exception of the last five minutes or so, is things getting worse and worse, and then just when you think they couldn’t get any worse, they get worse.
You should have seen the original ending before the studio tacked on the Hollywood Happy Ending. Clarance admits that he’s been rigging George Bailey’s life in a Job-esque fashion, George slaughters him with a fire axe, then realizes that Clarance was not an angel but actually just some random but harmless lunatic, and then goes insane in remorse and burns down his rickety old house with Mary, Little George, and Zuzu inside while Bert and Ernie stand outside ineffectually in the melting snow. I guess it didn’t test well.
What I hate about this movie is how obviously button-pushing it is. It just keeps slapping poor George down with one thing after another, and then wants the viewer to accept that it’s all okay because his neighbors throw money in the pot to bail him out. Also, Uncle Billy needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot.
For Christmas movies, I avoid this one, and similar films. I prefer movies that portray Christmas more realistically, like _Ronin_, _The Ref_, _Die Hard_, and the trifecta of Shane Black films, _Lethal Weapon_, _The Long Kiss Goodnight_, and _Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_, which better reflect my Christmas experience. “I once removed a guy’s appendix with a grapefruit spoon.”
Stranger
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### Author:  [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/30 "2009-12-17T18:01:40Z")
I love it. To me it’s a great analogy of what it should mean to be American: Do business to make your corner of the world a better place, while making a good living for yourself and your family. When you get in trouble, turn to your family and friends for assistance, and when you’re part of someone’s family and friends, help them out when they need it.
It’s the best example of, “Tend to your own because they’re yours (rather than, say, relying on the government)” in film.
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### Author:  [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/31 "2009-12-17T18:17:15Z")
I like old movies. I like Christmas movies. (How is this \*not \*a Christmas movie?). I like sentimental movies with uplifting endings. I hate _It’s a Wonderful Life_.
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Also, the movie made George so good and so wonderful that it’s impossible to believe he was in any particular trouble with the lost money. And things had been so good (and he had accomplished so much in his life) that it’s out of character that he’d contemplate suicide.
>
> The story is much superior in many ways, most notably because George was not the head of the bank; he was just a clerk who never did anything of importance at all. Yes _still_ the community would have been much worse off if he hadn’t ever lived.
This touches on what has always been my main beef with the movie, and I wasn’t even aware of the short story.
George has lived an unambiguously wonderful life. He saved his brother from drowning, prevented the local pharmacist from accidentally killing a customer, married an absolutely beautiful domestic goddess and had two beautiful children, and clearly had a positive effect on many people’s lives. I can accept that things looked pretty for a while there and I can even except that he considered suicide. But I don’t find the fact that divine intervention managed to convince him that his life was worth living says anything comforting about the masses of ordinary people living lives of quiet desparation. Rather the opposite, actually.
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### Author:  [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/32 "2009-12-17T18:17:27Z")
> [@Wheelz](#):
>
> **Ruminator** , I am sorry.
> I was attempting to make a joke. You were not intended to be the butt of it, but I can see it kind of reads that way.
>
> For the record: I do _not_ consider **Ruminator** to be a right-wing wacko birther.
>
> Sorry for the hijack. We now return to your regularly scheduled IAWL discussion.
Is any discussion of the politics of _It’s A Wonderful Life_ a hijack? If not, I’d like to say that I disagree that it has a socialist message, considering that Bailey Bros. Building and Loan is very much a capitalist institution, just a really, really compassionate one. You could just as well argue the opposite, that the message is “Capitalism isn’t so bad, because we can always rely on the innate humanity of the ruling class to give the proletariat a hand when things get tough.”
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/33 "2009-12-17T18:17:38Z")
> [@joebuck20](#):
>
> I’d probably rank it in my top 5 favorite Christmas movies of all time. Anyway what do you think of it?
Hell, I’d rank it up there with my top… say, 15 movies of all time, Christmas or no.
It’s a little schmaltzy and watching it in 2009, it’s full of cliches. But it’s the movie that invented (or popularized) many of those cliches. It’s funny, sad, dramatic, romantic, uplifting.
And Donna Reed is a major _babe_.
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### Author:  [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/34 "2009-12-17T18:23:19Z")
> [@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!
But think about what the world would be like if the movie had never existed! We might all end up as librarians!
I think it could have been better than what it is; it’s got a decent story at heart, but the flaws are kind of glaring if you shine a light on them. On the other hand, if you just accept it as ‘not such a bad little film after all’ it’s sentimentally entertaining.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/35 "2009-12-17T18:48:13Z")
I wish it had been written a bit better. I agree that George just takes too long to clue in on the change in reality – he doesn’t really spend much time appreciating how much worse the place is – instead he’s just obsessing that it’s different.
And Potter never gets caught with the money he stole. That’s a loose thread that’s always bugged me. It would have been easy for his flunky to show up at the house at the end of the movie and drop a dime on Potter in the spirit of Christmas. Was it Robot Chicken that had the missing scene from it’s a Wonderful Life where Potter has the bejeesus beaten out of him? That was satisfying.
And dude, if the broken newel post bothers you so much, invest in five cents of glue and fix it. How long did you live in that house anyway?
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### Author:  [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/36 "2009-12-17T18:51:16Z")
God, I LOVE it. It’s a family tradition that it must be watched every Christmas, ideally on Christmas Eve, and the past few years I’ve insisted my husband watch it with me. He still resolutely claims he doesn’t like it, yet somehow, every year, in the last few minutes, he “gets something in his eye”…
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### Author:  [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/37 "2009-12-17T18:52:50Z")
> [@Sauron](#):
>
> One of my favorite scenes occurs early in the movie, when George is walking Mary home after they fell into the swimming pool at the dance. A man startles them, and Mary runs into the bushes, losing the robe she was wearing. George starts to toss it to her, then stops.
>
> George (with a smile spreading over his face): This is a very interesting situation!
>
> Mary: Throw me my robe!
>
> George: A man doesn’t find himself in a situation like this every day …
>
> Mary: Shame on you! I’ll tell your mother!
>
> George (thoughtfully): My mother’s way up on the corner there …
>
> Mary: I’ll call the police!
>
> George (still thoughtfully): They’re way downtown … anyway, they’d be on my side.
>
> That exchange just tickles me no end.
That’s my favorite part. I love Jimmy Stewart.
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### Author:  [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/38 "2009-12-17T18:59:16Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#):
>
> If not, I’d like to say that I disagree that it has a socialist message, considering that Bailey Bros. Building and Loan is very much a capitalist institution, just a really, really compassionate one.
Bailey Bros was a charity organization thinly disguised as a “business.” George had to drain his personal honeymoon money to hold off the depositors from a bank run. His so-called “business” was undercapitalized.
Don’t get fooled by what things are labeled. Look at what they _actually are_. If a church sells indulgences, it’s really a “business” disguised as a “holy institution.” If a “business” doesn’t try to make money but barely breaks even or even loses money, it’s really a disguised “charity.”
> [@](#):
>
> You could just as well argue the opposite, that the message is “Capitalism isn’t so bad, because we can always rely on the innate humanity of the ruling class to give the proletariat a hand when things get tough.”
Well yes, I _could_ do that if wanted to teach my children to grow up and be helpless, and therefore depend on a Christ-like savior such as “George Bailey” to help from from unemployment or bankruptcy. In this complex modern age of globalism, I doubt there’s a George Baily out there that could fend off the aggregated whims of 6 billion people trying to improve their standard-of-living.
Capra created a file where George was the only one with a brain in that town. The rest of the residents were depicted as dim-witted children who can’t understand what a “time deposit” is in a savings & loan.
I’ve seen IAWL dozens of times. I enjoy the scenes between George and Mary. It’s one of my top-5 favorite movies and I don’t even associate it in my mind as Christmas film. It’s a great movie but unfortunately, it has a message (quasi-political, quasi-religious, quasi-philosophical, quasi-whatever-you-want-to-call-it) that can be detrimental.
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### Author:  [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/39 "2009-12-17T19:07:37Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> And Potter never gets caught with the money he stole. That’s a loose thread that’s always bugged me. It would have been easy for his flunky to show up at the house at the end of the movie and drop a dime on Potter in the spirit of Christmas. Was it Robot Chicken that had the missing scene from it’s a Wonderful Life where Potter has the bejeesus beaten out of him? That was satisfying.
I don’t know if Robot Chicken did it also but [there’s the classic SNL “lost ending” sketch.](http://www.hulu.com/watch/4267/saturday-night-live-its-a-wonderful-life-lost-ending)
It’s a little long but an interesting period piece I think. Imagine if an adult assaulted a teenage boy and deafened his ear? He’d be in jail. And who keeps the poison pills right next to the medicine pills? It’s not perfect but I do like it.
Someday I’ll take a drive up the street to the [Jimmy Stewart museum](http://www.jimmy.org/event) to see it in their theater with my daughters.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/40 "2009-12-17T19:32:25Z")
I saw it in a bar in the early '80s, before it had become a “Christmas classic”. I think we saw it in September.
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