I’ve only seen it once in recent memory (though I probably saw it as a kid). I liked it, though I could probably get tired of it easily.
I got it on DVD in the dollar bin. It’s not under copyright anymore, so it’s easy.
I also have most of the claymation specials. We don’t have cable, but it’s been a tradition to watch them. Picking up IaWL was just a bonus.
If you’re talking about specials like Rudolph, the Red-Nose Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, those were not clay animation (nor Claymation).
While the film It’s a Wonderful Life is not under copyright, it is an adaptation of a story (“The Greatest Gift”) that is still under copyright and to which the filmmakers own the film rights. Thus, in effect, IaWL is not available as a public domain work any more.
Who says she’s a virgin? Maybe without George around, she went on an ill-considered date with “some other guy” who “discovered” her: a too-aggressive suitor who left her abused and embittered.
I used to watch it several times a Christmas season. You’d find it running on all the cable channels. It’s disappeared now and only airs once. I usually miss it. My favorite part is the Christmas scene at the end when George rediscovers the joy of life.
My favorite Christmas film is the Bishops Wife with Loretta Young. I love the ice skating scene. The scene with the bishop stuck to a chair always keeps me laughing.
Mary Hatch, the “Sadder but Wiser Girl”? :eek:
Well, hello Mary Sunshine! 
I believe you’re wrong on this, although I may not be quite understanding what you’re saying. IIRC, my friend who wrote the adaptation consulted with a copyright lawyer and was told that, since IAWL was not under copyright, he could write an adaptation of the movie–but not of the short story or of any other adaptation of the movie–without infringing on anyone’s copyright.
Violet wanted George before she even knew what that meant,
but there’s no way anything ever happened between them,
CMC fnord!
That’s right. All their cash was STILL LESS than they owe. He had no reserves ANYWHERE in ANY ACCOUNT to pay out ONE depositor. This happened because ALL their capital was locked up in HOUSES. No prudent for-profit business does that but in the fiction they do. In fiction, their’s no penalty for mismanaging the company’s treasury because ultimately, an angel (channeled through George’s wife) will round up the town’s residents to bail it out. In real life, a company goes bankrupt and liquidated (e.g. S&L crisis 1990s).
Re-read the script again (or watch the movie carefully)… line-by-line… including all the words by Peter Bailey (George’s father), all the words by George (especially the board meeting after Peter’s death), and you’ll see that the Bailey B&L was run as a charity. Peter Bailey was so poor that he had no money to send even one son to college. George also explains his frustration to his father about penny-pinching 3 cents on pipe in their “shabby office.” The entire screenplay sets up the B&L as barely scraping by. It has to do this so the audience feels the gravity of the situation during the climax of the missing deposit.
If the film was based around JP Morgan instead of Peter Bailey, that missing deposit scene has no teeth. JP Morgan could just say to to the bank examiner, “one of my employees lost $8k but let me run home and get some money. I’m sure I’ve got at least $8k in loose change in between my sofa cushions.”
IIRC, he did send one son to college. And then there was enough money on hand to put George through college, if Harry had stuck to the deal upon graduating; all they needed was someone handling day-to-day operations at the Bailey Building & Loan during George’s college years. That would’ve been Peter, if he’d still been alive; it could be George, it could be Harry; it just couldn’t be Uncle Billy.
This is a long thread, so I’m not sure if anyone corrected you. You’re thinking of Rosebud, the name of a particular sled in some other (non-holiday) classic. There. I didn’t spoil it for anyone. 
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If they were not claymation, what were they? Maybe “fuzzmation” (to coin a term)? While Rudolph et al do not look like clay forms, the only thing I’ve experienced close to this was a toy chick my pediatrician had. It was two styrofoam balls placed into a yellow sock-like tube and sewn shut (with face and feet glued on). The two styrofoam balls allowed one to pose the chick in various positions. Maybe this is what Rudolph really was?
Incorrect. If there was enough money, then George would have gone to college immediately after his high-school graduation.
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.)
I watched it once and became very depressed.
The word “Claymation” is a trademark owned by filmmaker Will Vinton (Chicken Run, etc.). The generic term is “clay animation”. In any case, the figures in the Rankin/Bass specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were not clay, they were carved from wood, with several different heads used to make the characters “talk” or change expression. Stop motion animation, but not clay animation. I saw the figures on display at NBC in New York many years ago. In 2006, two of the figures were shown on Antiques Roadshow.
This is totally normal for any bank or savings & loan, anywhere, at any time. Deposits are liabilities, and cash is less than liabilities.
Yes, after the large outside bank “called its loan”–in effect, withdrew its deposit–and demanded cash. There was no cash left for other depositors. This could happen easily during the Great Depression, when bank failures precipitated chain reactions.
No, there capital was locked up in houses, with a cash reserve, which had to be paid out when the outside bank unexpectedly “called its loan”.
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.
Even if the Bailey B&L had gone insolvent, and everybody involved had lost every dime, that still wouldn’t make it a charity. For-profit business go bankrupt every day, despite the best efforts of their owners and managers.
If the business was run for profit, they could have withered the chain reaction. Many banks did. On the other hand, if you’re running the business to help satisfy a “fundamental urge” and to have a “decent room with a bath.”
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. 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?
During the bank run, George used his personal savings to tide his depositors over. Does Wells Fargo, or any bank do that? This is charity, not business.
Gee whiz, what does George have to do to finally be considered a charity? Pimp out his daughter for free blowjobs?!?!
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? If it wasn’t run as a “charity” why would the audience care that the town pooled their money at the end and rescued George’s bank?
In George’s Bailey speech to the board after Peter’s death, he says,
*"Why he ever started this cheap penny-ante Building and Loan, I’ll never know.
"Why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn’t that right, Uncle Billy?
“He didn’t save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me.”
“But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter.”
“Well, in my book, he died a much richer man than you’ll ever be.”*
If that’s not Mother-Theresa-Jesus-Christ masquerading as a banker, what is it? Did you watch a different movie than I did?
In the last year, several businesses closed down such as Circuit City, Linens N’ Things, Saturn cars. Did any residents get together to rescue any of those businesses? Why not? Why would they care? Did Circuit City suspend payment on the Circuit City credit-cards for the plasma TV when some of their customers were out of work?
No, they didn’t, the bastards, and that’s why there’ll never be a heartwarming movie about them!
Sure, sometimes. Credit card companies and mortgage lenders will sometimes agree on stretched-out payment schedules rather than foreclosing or suing over the first missed payment. And these are impersonal multinational corporations–I would expect more from a locally-based building and loan association.
After all, the building and loan depended on the prosperity of its community and the reputation of its proprietor for its long-term health. That was one reason by American governments in decades past encouraged the growth of small, local savings institutions rather than huge national banks. Experience proved this preferefence was misguided, as small institutions fail more readily than large, but nevertheless this was the guiding principle behind the savings & loan industry, and it’s hardly appropriate to dismiss the Baileys as aid donors (as Potter did) for following it.
He wasn’t just tiding his depositors over, he was saving his business.
Nope. But small business owners do it every day of the week.
Because capitalism isn’t a zero-sum game! Both sides benefit in any non-coercive trade, or the trade would not take place.
If George is a charity worker, the movie loses its charm. Of course charity workers are noble. George is a capitalist. He does good by building a business for the mutual benefit of himself and his community. As a capitalist myself I endorse this premise.
Clearly, there are elements of self-sacrifice in George’s story. (Arguably the self-sacrifice is exaggerated beyond the point of diminishing returns, but Frank Capra was never known for subtlety.) Like most small business owners, George could make more money working for another (Potter). Instead he chooses the long-term approach of pouring his body and soul into his business, investing in relationships and in his community. And when he really needs it, the community is there for him and pays him back in a way that Potter never could.
He’s campaigning against Potter. Allow him a bit of exaggerated martyrdom.
The technique sounds something like George Pal’s Puppetoons.
CMC, where’d you get that? Do you have a copy of the script somewhere?
Or have you memorized the whole thing, like Wheelz?
Hmm, funny how this thread makes me want to see IAWL yet again. Geez.