Without going through the previous 200+ posts in case it has been said previously - anything with Jimmy Stewart is going to be a good movie to watch.
I think it’s a great movie. It’s all I can do not to cry at the ending.
Even Airport 77? 
This movie was on constantly during Christmas when I was a kid, but I can’t recall the last time I actually sat down and watched it. Before this I didn’t have a strong opinion one way or another about it.
Inspired by the most recent episode of the “Unspooled” podcast, I decided to give it a go. I watched it on Amazon in both original black and white and colorized versions.
Guess what? It’s an amazing movie. I have to say, the acting performances are just top notch. Jimmy Stewart and Lionel Barrymore and Donna Reed and all the rest are just a pleasure to watch every second they’re on the screen.
It’s a real exercise in humanism, and Jimmy Stewart’s character is someone we can really relate to—someone who started out with lofty dreams as a child but has had to compromise them over and over to do right for the people around him. Yes, he goes through a short phase of despair, but don’t we all sometimes?
Just finished my annual view.
Why did Violet have to leave so quickly? What was she running from?
Her reputation. I got the impression she wanted to start over someplace else.
I’ve always thought she was in a family way and needed to deal with the problem. Knowing George/Jimmy, I’d assume this would involve taking a trip to visit relatives and coming back six months later as a new aunt. I doubt he’d go for the more unsavory alternative.
More food for gossip and slander that would ruin George’s reputation, of course.
Violet changed her mind and came back in the final scene and contributes the money George had given her to the find to save the Building and Loan.
So she can’t have been pregnant or subject to some other dire emergency. She just wanted a fresh start in New York.
After my rewatch a couple of days ago, I got the suspicion that George is/was banging Violet. Has there ever been a definitive explanation of that? He hands her $20 as a “loan” off the books and cash out of pocket (about $300 in today’s money); not something a respectable married man would do even in this day and time.
To follow up, maybe I am jaded as I get older. I think George was a great guy, but a flawed guy, and the loss of $8,000 was critical because it would expose some bad things.
I mean, first, why would the loss of the $8k send George, Uncle Billy, or anyone to prison? You trace back where that $8k came from, show through testimony that he was on the way to the bank to make the deposit in cash, IN THAT EXACT AMOUNT, and it just disappeared. Yes, there is an $8k discrepancy in the books, but that is the only one, the lost single deposit. That should earn an admonishment at the most.
But to be so afraid, it seems that the further examination of the books would be the problem. Loans to Violet Bick, skimming from the till, credits to Martini’s mortgage for booze. I’m making those up, but that’s the kind of shit that gets you sent to prison, not a simple misplacement of money.
The movie’s point survives even if George is not true blue: he has helped enough people to erase that ticky tack stuff. The movie’s point cannot be that any small business owner is one single lost deposit away from suicide or prison.
I love this film. The wife too. It’s not only our favorite Christmas movie, although Die Hard is a close second, but also one of our favorite movies period. Roger Ebert wrote this essay detailing what makes it so great.
Wife and I watched it tonight. I love it, she tolerates it for my sake. I love the story, the dialogue, the visuals. I can watch it year after year because, to me, it’s just a pleasure to watch, like listening to a favorite song over and over. Sure it’s corny, it’s got some bad parts, but I’m willing to overlook those for the larger work. ETA: And actually this time of year I welcome a bit of corniness in my life.
Favorite line: “Out you two pixies go, t’rough the door or out the window!”
I loved it way back when they first started showing it every year. I’ve seen it, or parts of it, so many times now that I don’t know if I like it or not. If I can go for, oh, twenty years without seeing it, and then watch it again, I’ll get back to this thread and let you know.
According to the Essential It’s A Wonderful Life book (basically, a DVD commentary in text–you can get it on Kindle), there was a deleted bit where Violet asks George for a letter of recommendation for her job search in New York. She sarcastically suggests he mention that “the good city mothers boycotted my beauty shop and practically ran me out of town.”
So it does seem that her reputation in town is causing her trouble, but that line did reveal a rather unpleasant side to Bedford Falls that Capra may have decided not to emphasize.
(The scene went on to show George writing the letter, claiming that Violet had been a Building and Loan employee and that he would vouch for her character. That’s what leads to Violet’s line in the movie as it stands: “Character? If I had any character…”)
There’s your problem—George doesn’t aspire to be “respectable” — he aspires to do what’s right and help others
I take George’s giving money to Violet as another example of his good character. He does the right thing without caring (or possibly even understanding) how it looks. Violet was always the “bad girl” (Mary: “You like every boy.” Violet: “What’s wrong with that?”). George doesn’t care about her reputation and doesn’t think about his own.
One interesting thing about old movies is how often plot points center on a woman’s reputation. In The Awful Truth, when the two main characters decide to get divorced, they agree that she would be the one to file. Why? If he filed, people might think she had cheated on him. We have no-fault divorce now, but people today would be less judgmental towards a woman who had cheated on her husband.
Nice essay - thanks for the link!
That would be a tough sell today let alone under 1940s morality. Imagine telling your wife, “Honey, yes, I am loaning money to that girl that chases all of the guys, but I am not doing it because I am banging her. I am doing so as an example of my good character.”
He may not give a shit about what others think about him, and that is fine if you are a bachelor, but he should not expose his wife, his children, the employees at the B&L, and others who depend on him to allegations of impropriety. Especially in the 1940s. It almost came back to bite him. Remember, Potter said that the word was all over town that he was giving her money.
I can very well see George wanting to do the right thing for an old friend and not even realizing at the time how it might look to the citizenry.
My take exactly. George is kind-hearted and a bit naive…it’s completely in character.