That part almost kept the movie from being released. I believe it was the Hayes Code that said a criminal couldn’t be allowed to ‘get away’ with his crime in the end, which Potter did. Not sure how they got the Hayes people to allow it to be released.
Also, at least one ‘alternate ending’ with everybody going from the Bailey house to beat up old man Potter was done on Saturday Night Live. I think it was with Jim Carrey playing George Bailey. It was very funny.
In answer to the OP, I love this movie very much. It has it’s flaws and slow spots, but it’s still a very good movie.
ETA Curse you LateComer and my slow typing. Thanks for the link!
I love the guy’s expressions in the office on the snowy bridge listening to Clarence tell George his story as they dry their clothes. That’s me sometimes as I’m reading through a thread.
This is precisely the point of the original story: even living an ordinary life in a job you’re not fond of, you can make a difference merely by showing up.
In the story, George is a bank clerk. No management, no loans, etc. But he when he got the job, he was one of two people in consideration for it. If he never was born, the other guy got the job – and eventually embezzled nearly all the money from the bank, causing it to go under and the community untold harm. And, BTW, Mary was married to an abusive husband.
Then the old man on the porch says: “Go on and kiss her. Aww, youth is wasted on the young.” THAT’s my favorite part.
Didn’t see it for the first time until I was about 30. The schmaltz is laddled on a little thick and I find the religious message to be odd and heavy handed but it is still a great movie. Who can dislike Jimmy?
While “populism” has no agreed definition, to me the movie doesn’t seem to match up with with that label since the town’s residents are not the equal of George (intellectually) and don’t have the ability to empower themselves against Mr. Potter. The idea is that George is the defacto community leader and that he takes care of his residents.
If Capra had written the movie to portray several random citizens that could go toe-to-toe with Mr. Potter, that would be closer to populism.
I’m not claiming “socialist” is the best label either. Capra was making a film and not a video that formalized a dissertation of a thesis.
Nitpick: George had already lost his hearing when he jumped in the freezing pond to save Harry. He pleads to Gower, “Don’t hurt my sore ear again!”
But, yeah, that was pretty extreme. I suppose the point was to show how large George’s capacity for forgiveness was, or something. I mean, Gower later bought him a suitcase so it’s all good, right?
I think it showed his compassion and empathy. He knew that Gower was distraught because he had just learned that his son had died, so he felt sorry for him. And never told anyone about the poison or the beating.
“You put something bad in those pills. It’s poison, I tell ya! It’s poison!”
Unless it maintains 100% reserves, any bank is vulnerable to a run. The fact that there was a run on the bank doesn’t mean it was undercapitalized.
There’s no suggestion in the movie that the bank was chronically losing money. Perfectly profitable banks can be subject to runs, due to factors beyond their control, such as a Great Depression leading to a plunge in public confidence.
He didn’t have even $1 dollar left to satisfy even one customer’s withdrawal. George underpaid himself enough that he was temporarily tantalized by Mr. Potters job offer with a high salary.
At the beginning of the film, George’s father is pleading with Mr. Potter for 30 more days to pay loans back because the late-paying mortgage holders were out
of job. This was not happening during a bank run.
At best, the Bailey Bros was run as a break-even charity. The bank was so low on liquidity that it was threatened by the misplacement of a single deposit by his absent-minded brother. Again, this also happened separately from a bank run.
I think it would be better described as “communitarian”. To call it socialistic implies that it advocates some form of state enterprise or assistance, which it doesn’t. The community voluntarily comes to George’s assistance.
I like it for that very reason. Before I watched IAWL, I had heard that it was all schmaltzy and feel-good, and I was prepared for two hours of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney-style corn.
Instead I got two hours of melancholy, and convincing melancholy at that. You feel along with him that George’s life isn’t working out like he hoped, and then he has the last day when everybody dumps on him. Only then does it become schmaltzy, but by then you’re ready for it.
The danger wasn’t that the bank would go insolvent because of the missed deposit; it was that the missing money would be discovered by the auditor and George would get in trouble.
Politically, Capra was a right-wing conservative idealist, not a socialist or populist (He was a strong supporter of Barry Goldwater in 1964, for instance). He both revered bankers and reviled them; but George’s explanation of how a bank works during the run is pure capitalism (e.g., “the money’s not in the vault, but in loans.”).
Capra, however, thought that capitalism should be more than just a bottom line. Earning money was never an end to itself. The purpose of a bank was to benefit the common good by making loans – at a profit – that would help the community. This is even more obvious in Capra’s American Madness – a movie about a bank president who’s beloved in his community and, when there’s a run on the bank, is almost put out of business until his friends showed up to give him the money he needed (i.e., Capra plagiarized from Robert Riskin, who wrote the script).
What Capra didn’t like was people who were solely interested in making money. Potter’s was condemned not because he made money, nor because he was rich (Capra’s greatest hero, Mr. Deeds, was rich and wins the battle to stay rich at the end), but because he was focused solely on the money. Capra thought people with money should spread it around – not necessarily by charity (Mr. Deeds, for instance, had little patience with charities), but rather by buying things (i.e., trickle-down economics).
The reason why Potter was a villain was because he didn’t do anything but count his money. Compare him to the banker in You Can’t Take it With You, who starts out that way, but is redeemed by learning that there’s more to life than money.
This is true, but it always made me wonder – why would George be the one in trouble? Because he was the President of the S&L? I mean, Uncle Billy was the last person to have documented control of the money. I can see Billy getting arrested for theft or fraud, but George’s fear of imprisonment seemed a little unfounded.
Of course, he was also worried about scandal, which was probably a legitimate fear.
Yes, the bank examiner was standing around but the whereabouts of a single deposit could have been covered by excess funds (if there were any) in retained profits or any shareholder/director (if he made enough money from the institution) of Bailey Bros could have stepped forward to cover the lost deposit until it was found. That George had to make a desperation call on Mr. Potter (of all people) and possibly cash in his life insurance shows the Bailey savings & loan had no money.
The point was that the bank was going to be found short a considerable amount of money. Yes, people could make it up, but that wouldn’t have changed the fact that the bank lost money that was under its care. The question wasn’t replacing the money; it was why they were short in the first place. And amount lost was no inconsequential at the time the movie was made.
So the auditors would note the shortage, even if the bank makes good. George needed the money so that the auditors would not notice the shortage.
But you’re reading much too much into this. Capra was finding a way to make it seems plausible that George would contemplate suicide. The other options you raise were left out for the sake of dramatic license and are not supposed to be any statement about the liquidity of the bank.
Clearly, any movie about a bank will not torture its audience to a line-by-line reading of its balance sheet. Therefore, it seems reasonable to infer how the bank is run based on George’s fathers comments and how George conducted himself (the bank run, his salary, resorting to begging Mr. Potter.)
Let’s try to think of the reverse situation. If we were to pretend that the bank was very profitable, the lost deposit scene would not have the tension it did. A bank where any of Bailey’s directors could come forward would not have the same drama. I’m not a professional screenwriter but to me, it seems like the scene doesn’t really work unless the audience is led to believe the bank is teetering on break-even.
Also, this is inaccurate. It wasn’t just the fact of losing money, it was the replacement of it.
At the end of the movie, the bank examiner and the sherrif with the arrest warrant are in the same room as the line of people forming to help “make up” the missing deposit.
If covering the misplaced funds wasn’t really the issue, it means George still goes to jail even though the neighborhood chipped in to cover it at the end. George still goes to jail because the missing deposit is never explained or recovered.
Earlier in the movie, Mr. Potter’s assistant warns him that “your Potter’s Field is turning out to be just that”, because people are buying better homes with Bailey mortgages. Potter is concerned enough to offer George a job, and compliments him that “you and I were the only ones who kept our heads above water during the Depression”. He wouldn’t do that if Bailey Brothers was failing.
Of course Potter offers him more money–in the short run, a big corporation can always pay more than a struggling entrepreneur. But in the long run, the entrepreneur builds equity and has the satisfaction of being his own boss.
Yes, other people could cover the missing money–and in the end, that’s exactly what happens. But in the heat of the moment, neither George nor the viewers are thinking that way–all we know is that a bunch of money is missing, George is under suspicion for flirting with Violet, and a cranky examiner is sitting there just waiting to pounce on any mistake.
I just don’t agree that the B&L is being run as a charity. It’s being run more humanely than Potter would do, but the message is that capitalism and humanity aren’t incompatible.
