That is…when Clarence arranges for George to have never existed…all we know is that instead of Martini, Nick owns the bar and never heard of a guy named Martini.
We know from earlier in the movie that Martini moved into his own house in Bailey Park, but of course in the Georgeless world there’s no Bailey Park, but…was it ever explained what became of Martini and I just missed it the dozens of times I’ve seen the film???
I haven’t seen this movie in years, but I assumed Martini couldn’t get a business loan from Potter in the alternative reality and thus couldn’t start a business.
Martini was drunk.
He became really short and fat and ended up in an insane asylum and playing poker with Jack Nicholson.
I just searched through the script online and he’s not mentioned between “What happened to Martini?” “You want a martini?” (George is in Nick’s Place) and “Martini enters with a bowl of cash” (at the end when everyone is giving George money).
Since he was unable to establish a business in Potterville, he moved to Las Vegas and later made a fortune with his self-named cocktail lounge franchises. Not everyone was materially better for having known George Bailey, just those unwilling or unable to move out of town.
Well, heck, in George’s absence, Potter made out like a bandit.
A bandit with a town named after him.
On a related note, why is Nick not an asshole in the universe in which George exists?
Or, is he just as big an asshole, but kept down as barroom assistant by George’s/Martini’s machinations?
Mr. Gower the druggist was the drunk in the alternate future.
“Out you two pxies go, through the door or out the window!”
Because in Pottersville, Nick’s is the kind of place where “we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast.” But Bedford Falls is a happy place where honest working men content with their lives stop into Martini’s for a chance to relax in a convivial atmosphere.
::watches as a martini glass flies over Skammer’s head::
In the real world of It’s a Wonderful Life, Nick is just an assistant bartender at Martini’s place. In the world without George Bailey, Nick owns the bar.
So, George really screws over Nick by simply existing.
Nobody ever mentions this.
In the ‘real world’, Nick is a tough guy, but also friendly to anybody who doesn’t cause trouble. In the ‘alternate’, life sucks in Potterville, and Nick’s natural tough guy personality translates to surly bitterness. Also, Nick in the ‘real world’ knows the regular customers, as customers and also just folks he saw around town. He knows they’re not causing any trouble, so there’s no reason to be rough with them.
This. Since he couldn’t get a house in Bailey Park, he didn’t establish ties to the community and either moved elsewhere or lived in a “shack in Potter’s field.” Either way, without the generous lending policies (no jokes about the 2008 mortgage meltdown!) of George Bailey, Martini couldn’t get on his feet to think about opening a business.
Could be either. One man’s life touches so many others. Perhaps Nick was tired of working with a clientele of a bunch of hookers and drunks in Pottersville instead of the nice clientele that Martini brought in from the peaceful town of Bedford Falls.
Perhaps Nick was an asshole at heart, but Martini told him to cool it or else he would be out of a job. Hell, everyone was different in the alternate universe.
You’re partially right. I’ve got a couple of books on the making of the movie, and there was a deleted line from Clarence in one of the early shooting scripts about Martini’s fate. Apparently, the Martinis were still in one of those firetrap shacks in Potter’s Field, where a fire did indeed break out. Martini saved his family but died of his burns.
Sheldon Leonard played Nick. Sheldon usually played tough guys, mobsters and so on.
Much later he was the executive producer on some of the 60’s biggest hits. Dick Van Dyke show, Andy Griffith Show, I Spy, Gomer Pyle, Make Room for Daddy and others.
There was a lot of really good talent cast in It’s a Wonderful Life.
I have a three year old Bichon Frise named Martini. My girlfriend named him after the drink. But when people comment on his name, I always tell them that he is named after the bartender in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” not the cocktail.
Not more than one in a dozen people get the reference. It’s a sad, sad world that we live in!
Now I know why, when I first saw the Big Bang Theory, I thought Sheldon and Leonard just seemed like names that went together.
I think that Nick garotted Martini. When George asks ‘What happened to Martini?’ he was taking his life in his own hands. Nick, being savvy, and not trying to stir things up, and perhaps being weary of killing, at least during the Christmas season, has to to change the subject: "You want a martini?’
So, not only Clarence, but Nick also, saved George’s life.