It's a Wonderful Life - Do you like it or not?

Cafe Society
401

It’s a Wonderful Life arrived at a watershed moment in Hollywood filmmaking IRT portrayals of African Americans, and takes its place among them not one bit. (There’s a lingering myth that Frank Capra was politically liberal, which doesn’t match the biographical record).

Pinkie, Intruder in the Dust, A Member of the Wedding, even a small part in Portrait of Jenny described onscreen as “Those people know a lot about suffering” signaled a postwar shift in attitudes toward African Americans. Which would be stomped out swiftly by HUAC.

402

Good article about race and music in the movie.

403

Potter called them 'garlic eaters". As I noted. Martini no longer owns the bar in Pottersville. Once he was in charge, good by Italians.

404

It’s true that Harry was just a pilot and a lieutenant, but he couldn’t have got a buck each from a few other flyers? Everyone else is scraping up spare change to help George. I mean, he was partially responsible for his brother being deaf in one ear and used his college funds while George “minded the store.” I would have thought that a MOH winner could have collected even more than a few bucks once he learned of the situation.

405

Harry just returned home from one of—scratch that—from the most devastating war in human history. He killed men to save others. He faced death and became its avatar. It’s a wonder he made it home at all.

And now, after journeying halfway around the world and back while saving as many men in the process as dollars that his brother and Uncle between them couldn’t seem to walk safely to the bank, he’s expected to show up all smiles and, serendipitously, with a pocket full of cash on top?

If I were Harry, it would take all my effort to keep from screaming and running to jump off that bridge myself.

Again, one of the central conceits of this movie is that somehow, in this most devastating war in human history, the nearest this nation has come to a clear cut war between the armies of light and darkness as since the Union defeated the traitorous south in the Civil War and effectively brought about the end of chattel slavery in the US on top of that, the real heroes are the guys who stayed home and got to raise families and run businesses (albeit into the ground)?

No. Just no.

It’d be like if in The Best Years of Our Lives we were expected to side with that lying, cheating wife (who ironically comes the closest to uttering the title phrase) of the recently returned bombardier and main protagonist. Instead of, you know, the people who actually gave the best years of their lives to save the world from fascism and genocide.

406

I still have to disagree. Harry was likely making over $200/month (compared to the average GI probably making $50). As far as I can tell, he had no ownership interest in the B&L, so Uncle Billy and George weren’t losing HIS money. George has given up a lot for him and I don’t really think that he would have an attitude of, “Well, my crazy Uncle and my brother really screwed things up. Let them take all the consequences.” And why even come to town earlier than planned? He just sort of walks in at the end saying, “I’m here! Took some doing, but I’m here!”

407

Because he just spent four-ish years at war and wants the nightmares to finally end. No doubt he imagines that, now that his long journey, his years of war and wandering, his odyssey is over, he might finally be able to sleep at night without all the nightmares. I am sorry to say, he is almost certain to be disappointed.

I predict that, not long after the credits role, Harry finds that the high of returning home will fade with the light. He will come to realize that a return to civilian life—where the men who stayed home, raised families, and advanced their careers have two legs up on the schlubs who went to war and gave everything—isn’t all he imagined it would be. That the best he will be able to manage now that he is home is to get a job (a) through the charity of his older brother or (b) doing something comparatively menial, like a soda jerk working under some punk kid shift manager a la The Best Years of Our Lives.

So really, it will be two nightmares for Harry. The one he has when he goes to sleep, reliving all his worst moments and fears from years of intense combat operations, and the waking nightmare he must endure each day as he realizes that somehow things have actually gotten worse for him now that he’s home and the war is over (except that for him, like too many veterans, I suspect it will never really be over—I still have nightmares about my time in the Navy). Anyway, I recon that by New Years Harry will be fixated on the idea that things would have been better if he had taken a bullet in his moment of triumph and ended on a high note somewhere over the western Pacific ocean, died a hero knowing he’d done a great thing without ever having to come down from that high and think about the true horror of what he’s seen and done. Never have to endure the long twilight that comes as glory fades and the post-war dream turns stale. Thinking of that watery grave he somehow avoided, his own thoughts might just turn to that bridge on the edge of town. If he finds himself there, looking on down from the bridge, do you suppose some guardian angel will save him? And if by chance one should try, would he even believe it? After all, seeing so many promising young lives snuffed out in bloody agony, how could he possibly conceive of such a thing as a loving god? Surely a loving god would have stopped the whole war from starting…

408

As I posted upthread, Capra said many years later that people always asked him about Potter and the missing money, and he just said something like, “Yes, Potter still has that money, but it doesn’t make his life even one tiny bit better than George Bailey’s.”

409

More likely a good job in the factory Sam Wainwright built in Bedford Falls, or possibly a job with his father-in-law’s company where he worked in research before the war.

I always thought that Harry came back early because he’d heard George was in trouble and wanted to be available to help in any way he could. (Flying through a blizzard underscored this). As did all of George’s friends. Which is kind of the punchline to the whole movie, via Clarence’s note.

410

I do like the movie, all the old slangs and witty expressions, it’s a classic

Mother he’s making violent love to me -
Slip you my left for a convincer
Youth is wasted on the wrong people
No man is a failure who has friends

411

Saw it for the first time yesterday (was playing on E! in a continuous loop the whole day). Didn’t give a rip about lifeless Hays Code gruel 40 years ago and don’t give a rip now. Refuse to make allowances for “that’s how things were back then”. Had trouble paying attention, so I missed out on a lot of plot details, but got the overall gist. Thoughts, no particular order.

The opening with everyone’s childhoods completely turned me off because it showed people acting like rude, disgusting jerks with zero pushback from anyone. I categorically do not accept this. Any era, any style, any writer, any excuse, HARD PASS. (I’m not going to sidetrack this with links to my Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Turning Red threads, but feel free to look them up if you like.)

The school dance, particularly after George and Mary fell into the pool, was on the skeevy side but at least seemed in character for George. He’s not a filthy punk, he just has some weird small-town beliefs.

Someone mention way upthead that Franz Kafka wasn’t against becoming filthy rich, he was against sitting on all that money and doing nothing to boost the economy; that’s why you were supposed to hate Mr. Potter. Seeing the lives of people like Leona Helmsley, Ross Perot, and the Bush family, I find that a pretty powerful message, and I regret that it wasn’t driven harder. Instead, we see that the consequences of a self-absorbed miser taking over a town is that…it gets a bustling nightlife scene. :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Yeahhh, doesn’t have quite the same impact.

I don’t see anything particularly tragic, or even unusual, about how George was nearly driven to suicide. Oftentimes all it takes is one really awful thing to send the dominoes tumbling. (I again recall how the death of one person at Nintendo turned it from an honorable, beloved consumer-friendly corporation to an open sewer of greed, abysmal quality, and ridiculous lawsuits practically overnight.) He had next to no control over any of the events of his life, his finances were never secure, and he had four children to feed (very likely all unplanned). That’s a powder keg if I ever saw one.

Do agree that it took way too long for George to catch on to Clarence showing him a world where he never existed. That level of obtuseness can’t be explained by small-town simplicity or naivete. I strongly suspect this part was padded. Which I’m not usually against in principle, but I would’ve preferred the WW2 part have gotten this treatment. The movie glossed over that way too quickly.

Also agree that there should’ve been a little more effort to explain why Mary becoming an old maid would’ve been such a bad thing. We see her walking home from work and justifiably freaking out at being accosted by a frantic stranger. That’s it? At least show a bunch of cats or something.

And of course, my big big problem is that Mr. Potter not only gets away with stealing $8,000 (I always thought Clarence’s final act should’ve been, had to have been, getting that cash back to its rightful owner [with interest, of course! :wink:], and it was a huge letdown when that didn’t happen), he learns nothing, loses nothing, and still has an iron grip on his bank. Which is extremely problematic not just because the villain got away with it (itself all but unthinkable in the Hays Code era), but…well, when you think about it, it makes the whole movie pointless. Bailey’s S&L is still teetering on the brink, one mishap away from total collapse, and Mr. Potter is still looming in the background waiting to snap everything up. Even if he dies without realizing his ambitions, someone is going to take over his enormous assets and move in, maybe an old rival, maybe an opportunistic industry. Or maybe multiple rivals move in and it turns into a turf war. All the townsfolks’ show of generosity did was delay the inevitable.

I understand that this season is all about traditions, but this was never a good movie, it absolutely doesn’t hold up now, and I have no idea how it became THE thing to play over Christmas. Will not be watching again.

412

I don’t think the situation was as dire as that. The Savings & Loan wasn’t “teetering on the brink”; but the completely inexplicable disappearance of $8000 from the S&L’s books was something no regulator could overlook. Especially after Potter insinuated that Bailey embezzled the money to pay off a mistress and swore out a criminal complaint. The Savings & Loan might have survived but George was facing prison.

Even the loss of the S&L at that point wouldn’t have ruined the town, it was that George had single-handedly kept the townsfolk from having to sell out to Potter for pennies on the dollar after the Great Crash.

The alternate reality scenes show that the inhabitants of “Pottersville” were miserable and bitter. “Night life” my fundament.

And yes, evil people get away with wrongdoing. Hell, half of Disney’s classic animated cartoons revolved around how unfair life is. But no one demands and gets Utopia, and George was saved in the end. Arguably Bedford Falls is Utopia compared to Pottersville, because one man steadfastly did right rather than follow the path of least resistance; and wasn’t simply thrown to the wolves for his trouble.

413

Commander. (O5) Not only is it in the dialog, you can see the three stripes on his epaulette. $4-500/month plus combat /hazardous duty pay.

414

Possibly the confusion is over the alternate ending, in which he was only a Lieutenant.

415

Promoted after (as a lieutenant) he saved the ship, maybe? I didn’t notice in the movie. Definitely made more than a GI or other grunt.

And what’s Mr. Welch doing drinking at Martini’s so soon after George made his wife cry? “Oh, honey! I’m so sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. You’re a great teacher! You OK? Great! I’m off to the bar.”

416

That was my WAG, since someone had mentioned he was an army captain. So Commander. I was wrong.

Right. sorry.

417

Yes, Harry was definitely in the Navy. And awarded the Medal of Honor by a President with whom he shared a first name!

418

I’m not going to get into a big argument over a blipping Hays Code movie, so I’ll just say my final piece and you can make of it what you will.

While a lot of people George knew would’ve inarguably been much worse off if he’d never existed (Nick was the exception, of course, and the movie could’ve spent a tad more time on Mary), it’s never clear what harm Mr. Potter taking over would’ve done. So now there are a bunch of jazz clubs and a strip joint…and? It was highly likely that his taking over would be terrible, we just never got to see it. At least show a run-down slum or a homeless shelter or a mass grave or something.

And I wouldn’t have a problem with Mr. Potter getting off completely scot-free if this was meant to be a bleak cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked evil. (For the record, Grave of the Fireflies was really good even if I’d rather not watch it again. :grin:) I mean, I wouldn’t be happy with the outcome, but I’d understand why the movie took that route. But this is supposed to be a feel-good holiday story, and it’s blatant lack of that one extremely key component bugs me. Way I see it, if we’re going to elevate one vintage movie to the status of The Christmas Movie, to the point where it gets played on multiple channels every single year, it should live up to the billing. C’mon, one little scene of Clarence getting the money back and letting Mr. Potter know it! That’s a no-brainer!

419

I think was @madmonk28 's point. The bad outcome was BLACK MUSIC.

420

Quick fix: Potter’s chauffeur narcs.