# 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:** 7
### Author:  [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2009, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/121 "2009-12-21T07:48:55Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#):
>
> Small business owners seldom lead lives of luxury. Small businesses vacuum up capital and every dollar of earnings–when there are any–tends to get plowed back into the business. It doesn’t mean they are run as charities.
Right. I don’t get why it’s so hard to understand that a business can be struggling without it being considered a charity.
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> If the business was run for profit, they could have withered the chain reaction.
You mean if it was a more successful business.
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> At the beginning of the movie, Peter Bailey pleads with Mr. Potter to accept a delay on $5000 because Peter’s mortgage holders were out of a job. This is charity, not business.
Businesses, even ones trying to make a profit, will sometimes perform a charitable act. And sometimes a charitable act will turn out to be a good business move.
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> Would Bank of America, or Chase, or Citi plead with their investors to wait for their money because General Motors auto workers with mortgages lost their job?
No. But I’d be surprised if any of these companies didn’t give regularly to charities.
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> During the bank run, George used his personal savings to tide his depositors over. Does Wells Fargo, or any bank do that?
Plenty of small business owners will use personal money in order to save a business. My dad is doing this right now.
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> Why is it so hard to accept that the B&L was run as charity when that very fact is what adds to the charm of the movie?
Why is it so hard to accept that the B&L was a small business that occasionally struggles and also occupationally performs “charitable” acts (acts that can be considered good customer service).
---
### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/122 "2009-12-23T02:21:18Z")
> [@Walloon](#):
>
> I haven’t found any evidence that the ending almost kept the movie from being released.
I also don’t think that Potter committed a crime. The old drunk, Uncle Billy, just handed the old boy 8K. What was Potter to do, punish him???
hh
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/123 "2009-12-23T02:46:19Z")
No, but an honest person would realize the mistake and immediately return the money.
---
### Author:  [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/124 "2009-12-23T08:51:04Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#):
>
> I also don’t think that Potter committed a crime. The old drunk, Uncle Billy, just handed the old boy 8K. What was Potter to do, punish him???
>
> hh
It’s a crime in California:
[QUOTE=California Penal Code]
485. One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him
knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who
appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another
person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just
efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is
guilty of theft.
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/125 "2009-12-23T09:23:22Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#):
>
> I also don’t think that Potter committed a crime. The old drunk, Uncle Billy, just handed the old boy 8K. What was Potter to do, punish him???
>
> hh
For $8K I’d expect some kind of Bank-Job. He did, after all, offer one to George. Right after teasing him with that great big cigar. Whose your daddy?
---
### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/126 "2009-12-23T13:05:51Z")
> [@Ruminator](#):
>
> To claim that George was needed along with Peter and Uncle Billy is to dismiss the fact that both George & Harry were NOT employees at B&L when little George was a kid working part-time at Gower’s drugstore. It was _just_ Peter & Uncle Billy running the B&L when little George saved Gower’s reputation from his negligence. And it could have continued to be _just_ Peter & Uncle Billy if George went to college immediately (at least until Peter’s unforseen stroke.)
Maybe I’m remembering it wrong; that was actually my point.
Yes, it was just Peter & Uncle Billy running the place back when (by which I mean “Peter”, since Billy is useless). George graduates from high school. Harry graduates from high school. There’s enough money, at that point, for either Harry or George to go to college while Peter is healthy; upon graduation, there will be enough money for the other brother to go to college. That’s the initial plan _ **before** _ Peter has the stroke, whereupon George needs to fill in for Peter – at which point the plan remains completely _ **unchanged,** _ since there’s still enough money coming in to put George through college upon Harry’s graduation, if Harry can now swap in for George, who’d swapped in for Peter.
It’s the exact same flow of cash they’d anticipated when Peter was running things with no stroke in sight; the same tuition money comes in, at precisely the expected rate, throughout Harry’s college years – and everything is still right on schedule at the moment when George could take his turn while Harry swaps in for Peter.
So I _ **don’t** _ want to “dismiss the fact that George & Harry were NOT employees at B&L” back when; it’s my whole point. With or without Peter’s stroke, there’s enough money coming in to put Harry through college once he graduates from high school; with or without Peter’s stroke, there’s enough money coming in to put George through college once Harry graduates from college. Peter’s stroke only adds the wrinkle of needing George or Harry to swap in for Peter (which they plan to do consecutively).
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### Author:  [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/127 "2009-12-23T15:11:11Z")
> [@Antigen](#):
>
> I love it. It’s not really a _good_ movie, but it’s not Christmas to me unless I’ve seen it. That and the Grinch.
I’m with **Antigen**. It’s just not Christmas unless I’ve watched _It’s a Wonderful Life_. My family used to get together on Christmas Eve and watch it while drinking Southern Comfort on the rocks. (Well, once we were old enough – or close to being old enough.) Now that my family lives in IL and my fiance, brother and I have to drive 5.5 hours to get there, we’re not at their place until it’s almost time to open gifts Christmas morning!
Maybe we’ll revive the tradition… perhaps watching it Christmas Day night instead.
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### Author:  [@ajdebosco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ajdebosco)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/128 "2009-12-23T15:35:18Z")
> [@melodyharmonius](#):
>
> 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.
Yes indeed, the beauty is in the details. Capra is a master storyteller, and James Stewart is dead solid perfect in his role as George. Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) steals many of the scenes he appears in, and the reparte throughout is beyond compare. For the last eight years or so, though, I can’t get over the frightening similarity between Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) and the real life Dick Cheney…:eek:
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### Author:  [@pricciar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pricciar)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/129 "2009-12-23T16:46:23Z")
> [@Walloon](#):
>
> The word “Claymation” is a trademark owned by filmmaker Will Vinton (_Chicken Run_, etc.). The generic term is “clay animation”.
Off topic, of course, but Will Vinton was not involved in the production of Chicken Run. That was made by Nick Park and Peter Lord of Aardman Animation.
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### Author:  [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/130 "2009-12-23T19:47:36Z")
By something of a coincidence, the local Dryden Theatre\* plays it tonight @ 8, and today is the first day I have started reading the thread. I won’t be seeing it myself, because that would make it the umpteenth time. If I go out tonight at all I will be attending a weekly philosophy club, Flower City Philosophy Club, named after one of the nicknames for [Rochester](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester,_New_York). Dryden has shown it before and will no doubt show it again. But the main thing is that I probably have seen it at least five times.
Overall, I’d say it’s a good movie, in its own quirky way. It has to be considered mainly within the era that produced it. I’ve noticed what may be deliberate foreshadowing and symbolism, and I may get into that in a later post.
\*Stupidest possible hubby’s question, especially in an era before sex determination follows: \*
George: \* Is it going to be a boy or a girl? \*
Mary: (smiling and nodding) _Uh huh._
* * *
- BTW, the [Dryden Theatre](http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryden_Theatre) is a part of the [George Eastman House](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eastman_House), a theater with an independent slant. Many films selected for showing are indie films, including some first-run there. And there have been a share of controversial ones, politically and religiously, such as “Jesus Camp” and “Hell House” and one taking on the governments’ (mis)handling of Katrina. But they also show many old favorites: Ghost Busters and Gremlins in the New Year countdown, for example. And some _very_ old ones. Recently: _Gigi_, \*An American in Paris \*(which I saw last night for the 1st time), _Bells are Ringing_, _Meet Me in St. Louis_, et al. There are also flicks from the 30’s and 40’s, some restored on site.
Disclaimer: I hope this doesn’t come across as some kind of spam. For the record, I am neither an employee of the George Eastman House, nor do I have anything to do with publicity.
ETA: Oh, and about parts of it being chilling, I’ve always thought that the sudden, strange wind that blows after Clarence recommends that the Power-that-Be actually grant George’s wish is just right for a creepy touch.
– Oh, and just in case I don’t get back to this thread, I’ve always thought it great that George is convinced that life is worth living (as per the title) _before_ he is financially rescued.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/131 "2009-12-23T21:08:45Z")
I tend to ridicule it, quoting in an exaggerated “Merry Christmas, Mr Potter”. But it is well-crafted, for what it is,
Anyone ever see the 1977 TV-movie adaption “It’s a Wonderful Christmas” with Marlo Thomas, Wayne Rogers and Orson Welles? That did wee when it was shown on TV but has faded from sight.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/132 "2009-12-23T21:15:45Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#):
>
> …Anyone ever see the 1977 TV-movie adaption “It’s a Wonderful Christmas” with Marlo Thomas, Wayne Rogers and Orson Welles? That did wee when it was shown on TV but has faded from sight.
I remember it being on, but I didn’t watch it, and doubt that it can measure up to the original.
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### Author:  [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/133 "2009-12-23T21:57:22Z")
> [@ajdebosco](#):
>
> Yes indeed, the beauty is in the details. Capra is a master storyteller, and James Stewart is dead solid perfect in his role as George. Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) steals many of the scenes he appears in, and the reparte throughout is beyond compare. For the last eight years or so, though, I can’t get over the frightening similarity between Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) and the real life Dick Cheney…:eek:
Nah, Mr. Potter has more personality…
I’m sure this is just movie storytelling shorthand, but anyone else think it’s weird that nobody knows about Harry getting married until they get off the train? What, he doesn’t want his family and friends to share in his wedding day? :dubious: And apparently Mary Hatch goes off to college and is not seen again in Bedford Falls until she has graduated. Sure, she’s working and all that, but she doesn’t come home for Christmas? :dubious:
“I want to live again! I want to live again!”
Yup, it’s a classic, and I’ll be watching it tomorrow night.
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/134 "2009-12-24T00:20:35Z")
One of my all-time favorites. I watch it every year, and am AMAZED at how quickly I get pulled in to this 60+ year old movie.
I am equally shocked when I hear criticisms of it similar to in this thread. I once had a boss who attacked it as being ‘socialist’, and I told him he was the first person I’d known who thought that Christmas wasn’t commercial _enough._
I think the movie’s enduring theme is that when we try to do good in the world, (not just do _well_), we’re ultimately happier, and the world becomes a better place. That is NOT saying there’s anything inherently wrong with trying to do well. Pitting the Baliey B&L against Potter is a statement that money isn’t the _only_ thing people should strive for. To recall the exchange between Potter and his assistant (played by Charles Lane), George Bailey was going to be a success one day, just not as fast as if he’d discarded his father’s altruism. And he’d enjoy that success in a better place (Bedford Falls vice Potterville\*).
If you find this point of view distasteful, you’re out there in objectivist territory, rejecting altrusim itself. By which standard, Harry Bailey was a chump too. I bet his pay as a fighter pilot was a lot less than Sam Wainwright was making.
I think that if you don’t like IaWL as being too ‘socialist’, you may be taking the movie as a politcal manifesto, as opposed to a story with a general moral about life.
And lots of great movies require a small suspension of disbelief. Remember in Casablanca, where we’re asked to believe that the letters of transit will be honored be the Nazis because the letters are signed by DeGaulle? Absolute baloney. But it doesn’t reduce my enjoyment of that great story.
Capra once said he made the movie to combat the rising incidence of atheism. This always puzzled me. I’m a confirmed lifelong atheist, and the religious trappings have never detracted from my enjoyment. They’re too light-hearted and irreverent for that. You don’t have to believe in a supreme being to believe in altruism.
- Although I have to admit that I’d probably enjoy the music scene in Potterville MUCH more than what there’d be in Bedford Falls.
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### Author:  [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/135 "2009-12-24T01:21:36Z")
I watched it a few times as kid, and always ended up badly depressed at the end.
First, I disliked George’s silly (typical American fiction hero) exaggeration of “I wish I had never been born!” when he couldn’t cope with his difficulties. He had had good times as child and adult, though his big dreams never came true, so wishing for all the good to be gone along with the bad is just stupid. Real people who are depressed because life overwhelms them want to stop it now - they wish to be dead now, not erase their existence.
But worse is the message (one of the messages) of the film. George is true hero, starting with saving his little brother, then preventing the chemist’s mistake, and later sacrificing his plans of travel, college etc. for the greater good. That is, in the end, the reason he decides to undo his “wish” and asks Clarence to have his existence back.
This means that anybody who isn’t a proper hero, anybody who didn’t save a live or sacrifice himself, therefore has no reason to exist.
I consider that a slap in the face of any person already feeling a bit down on Christmas (which is easily a trying time, for various reasons).
Added to that the misogyny in the depiction of Alt-Mary as frightened spinster, as the worst possible fate without George the saviour, I think it sends a terrible message.
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### Author:  [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/136 "2009-12-24T01:35:46Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#):
>
> I tend to ridicule it, quoting in an exaggerated “Merry Christmas, Mr Potter”. But it is well-crafted, for what it is,
>
> Anyone ever see the 1977 TV-movie adaption “It’s a Wonderful Christmas” with Marlo Thomas, Wayne Rogers and Orson Welles? That did wee when it was shown on TV but has faded from sight.
I remember watching it and being totally unimpressed by it. For some reason I couldn’t get as “emotionally involved” (for lack of a better phrase) in the idea of a woman thinking that she was better off dead, or that her life hadn’t affected anyone else’s.
---
### Author:  [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/137 "2009-12-24T15:19:42Z")
> [@a35362](#):
>
> , but anyone else think it’s weird that nobody knows about Harry getting married until they get off the train? What, he doesn’t want his family and friends to share in his wedding day? :dubious:
You have to remember that Harry is away at college using the money the George saved up. Harry’s wife-to-be and father-in-law expect that he will make a new life with them away from Bedford Falls. Understandably, Harry would feel guilty about all this while George stuck at Bedford “holding the fort” so he would be reluctant being open with his life’s plans. It’s not the life he and George had in mind when their father died. It’s basically an elopement – get married first and sort out the repercussions (if any) later.
> [@](#):
>
> And apparently Mary Hatch goes off to college and is not seen again in Bedford Falls until she has graduated. Sure, she’s working and all that, but she doesn’t come home for Christmas? :dubious:
Mary _is_ seen again. The dialogue between George and his mother at Harry’s homecoming party explain this. George’s mother says, _“she lights up like a firefly whenever you’re around.”_ She’s referring to the various times that Mary was home from college.
George _has_ crossed paths with Mary during those 4 years but he’s kept his distance because his self-worth has gone down because of his “jail sentence” in Bedford. He had a totally different outlook the night 4 years ago that he and Mary were dancing. Back then, he was about to travel the world, go to college, and make a million dollars. It was the kind of future that enabled to him to have big genitals in other words. On that night, he didn’t think of himself as inferior to Sam Wainwright.
But during the 4 years of while Mary and Harry are in college, he builds an inferiority complex. Mary has been flirting with George during the times she was home but she wasn’t forward enough (understandably since she’s not the same type of personality as Violet). After 4 years (and with the convenience of being done with college), Mary realizes she has to kick it up a notch. Her method is to replay their song and to show George a picture of him throwing a lasso around the moon. George is too self-centered to notice that Mary is giving signals that she’s ovulating and ready to mate – with him and not Sam.
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### Author:  [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/138 "2009-12-24T15:32:36Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Maybe I’m remembering it wrong;
You’re remembering it wrong. 🙂
> [@](#):
>
> George graduates from high school. Harry graduates from high school. There’s enough money, at that point, for either Harry or George to go to college while Peter is healthy; upon graduation, there will be enough money for the other brother to go to college.
The key part you’ve overlooked in all your analysis is that it was George (not Peter) was the one who saved up the college for 4 years.
Consider the possible financial arrangements for college from best to worst:
[ul]
[li]parents have enough money to pay for college free and clear[/li][li]the child works his way through college which enables him to start immediately[/li][li]the child first saves for college for 4 years which delays his schooling[/li][/ul]
The Bailey family was so poor (because they sacrificed so much for the community), they had to do the last option. In contrast, neither Mary’s or Sam’s family had to resort to the last option.
> [@](#):
>
> That’s the initial plan _ **before** _ Peter has the stroke, whereupon George needs to fill in for Peter – at which point the plan remains completely _ **unchanged,** _ since there’s still enough money coming in to put George through college upon Harry’s graduation, if Harry can now swap in for George, who’d swapped in for Peter.
>
> It’s the exact same flow of cash they’d anticipated when Peter was running things with no stroke in sight; the same tuition money comes in, at precisely the expected rate, throughout Harry’s college years – and everything is still right on schedule at the moment when George could take his turn while Harry swaps in for Peter.
>
> So I _ **don’t** _ want to “dismiss the fact that George & Harry were NOT employees at B&L” back when; it’s my whole point. With or without Peter’s stroke, there’s enough money coming in to put Harry through college once he graduates from high school;
You need to reread your [post #109](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11907505&postcount=109). You were under the impression the Peter had enough money to send one of them to college. He did not. The movie makes it very clear that George was the one who accumulated the college money.
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### Author:  [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/139 "2009-12-24T15:48:39Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#):
>
> He wasn’t just tiding his depositors over, he was saving his business.
> [@Yookeroo](#):
>
> Plenty of small business owners will use personal money in order to save a business. My dad is doing this right now.
George isn’t saving his business. What business? There’s no need for him to save his “business” because he has the talent to be anywhere else but Bedford Falls. He’s actually saving the residents from themselves.
You guys have lost sight of big picture context of why the Bailey B&L came into existence and the circumstances of George stepping in to manage it. It is a community service to the poor. If he was really saving his “business”, he’d let the Bailey institution fold up so he could pursue his dreams.
I get the feeling that people don’t watch the whole movie. They just see bits and pieces of it every year during the holidays when it’s broadcast. Therefore, when the bank run scene is viewed in isolation, it might look like George is saving himself when in reality, he’s actually saving the residents from their own short-sightedness. He sacrifices his honeymoon money to save the residents from their short-term thinking.
> [@](#):
>
> He’s campaigning against Potter. Allow him a bit of exaggerated martyrdom.
It’s not exaggeration. Even Potter privately remarks that Bailey “haven’t made a dime” off their loans. Potter has no need to exaggerate because he’s just making the comment to his accountant during a private meeting. Watch the whole movie.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-wonderful-life-do-you-like-it-or-not/521638/140 "2009-12-24T15:53:11Z")
The Marlo Thomas version was titled “It Happened One Christmas” and by some fluke I am sure I saw it a couple of years before I saw “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Probably as a result of that, I have fond memories of it as my first exposure to the story. Of course, IaWL is genius, but I would like to see IHOC again.
It’s not “officially” available on DVD, but DVDs of it DO exist.
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