# Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 15, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074 "2007-12-15T04:04:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/21 "2007-12-16T01:47:28Z")
**BrainGlutton** , that was a fascinating snippet from Clusterfuck Nation. Thanks!
[QUOTE=Bayard]
She was _Donna Reed_ for Pete’s sake! Did George’s departure leave the rest of the men in Bedford Falls blind? George was a good catch and all, but I’d bet there were others willing to take his place.
[/QUOTE]
No kidding! Small town, beautiful woman…she would have had men from miles around falling all over themselves wanting to marry her. Even if she were uber-picky AND a lesbian, if she wanted kids she would have picked one of them.
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
You do know this is a logical fallacy, don’t you?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=jjimm]
Nonsense. It doesn’t exclude being “not a failure” for other reasons.
[/QUOTE]
Ok ok, I didn’t say it was a scientific fact, that’s just how it strikes me emotionally.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Ah, and here I thought it was stupid because I’ve known a few total failures and wastes of oxygen who did have friends. Spouses, even. Getting someone to put up with abusive shit is depressingly easy.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, there’s that too. Even Hitler had friends. And he loved his dog.
---
### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/22 "2007-12-16T01:51:54Z")
[QUOTE=Will Repair]
[What’s so good about it?](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/opinion/orl-wunnerful1207dec12,0,1156484.story)
[/QUOTE]
I just read that. I like it!
---
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/23 "2007-12-16T02:16:57Z")
From memory:
The movie, when originally made, was a flop. It wasn’t until around the early 1980’s that it became a hit. I remember seeing for the first time on PBS? around 1982 or so? Then it got repeated every frickin’ year. But, I still like(d) it.
Shedon Leonard played the bartender in the bar scene where George and Clarence get thrown out. He later went on to be the successful producer of The Dick Van Dyke Show and probably many more things.
---
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/24 "2007-12-16T02:33:30Z")
[QUOTE=samclem]
From memory:
The movie, when originally made, was a flop. It wasn’t until around the early 1980’s that it became a hit. I remember seeing for the first time on PBS? around 1982 or so? Then it got repeated every frickin’ year. But, I still like(d) it.
Shedon Leonard played the bartender in the bar scene where George and Clarence get thrown out. He later went on to be the successful producer of The Dick Van Dyke Show and probably many more things.
[/QUOTE]
He produced many popular shows. A list is [here](http://imdb.com/name/nm0502766/). I could have sworn he produced _The Monkees_, too, but it’s not listed.
I recall reading that the movie entered the public domain or something like that about 1980 and so could be shown without having to pay royalties and that that was the spark behind its resurgence.
[Here](http://imdb.com/title/tt0038650/trivia) is some great trivia about the movie. Possibly my favorite: “The movie drew fierce criticism for its political statements about post-WWII society when it was released in 1946. Even the FBI labeled it a ‘subversive’ movie and charged that its use of a nasty, Scrooge-like businessman ‘was a common trick used by communists’.”
But the link confirms what Tom Bosley said, that it was Beverly Hills High in the film. I was sure my father said it was his school, Hollywood High.
---
### Author:  [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/25 "2007-12-16T03:34:44Z")
I really don’t like the movie. I don’t walk away thinking George Bailey is a success or rich in friends. He sacrificed his entire life for his family, and his friends, and that stupid town. He put his dreams on hold again and again and again until they utterly disappeared. He was completely taken advantage of, and throughout the entire film, it’s never clear that the people around him understand or appreciate what they’re doing to him. And yeah, he’s to blame for some of this. But he is inherently a good guy, and the people who knew him knew that, and so they thought there was nothing wrong with taking advantage of him.
Then at the end of the movie, for one night in his entire life, _they_ finally come through for him, and I’m supposed to cry? Where were they when he wanted to go to college? Where were they when he wanted to take pictures for the National Geographic? Where were they when he wanted to go on his _own honeymoon_?
And you know, the next morning, everybody is going to go back to their usual ways. Uncle Billy is still going to be barely functional. Old Man Potter is still going to be looking for ways to fuck him over. George is still going to be stuck in that damned town until the _day he dies_.
And this is a cheerful Christmas story? It makes ME suicidal. The “this is what the world would be like without you” was completely manipulative, and let’s face it, just a reminder of how co-dependent everybody in George Bailey’s life is.
---
### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/26 "2007-12-16T09:03:19Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
[hijack]
Has it occurred to you that one of the reasons we feel nostalgic for that film is that Bedford Falls is the kind of community that hardly exists in America any more? And that’s not because of cultural changes, it’s because of **material** changes.
From James Howard Kunstler’s online column [“Clusterfuck Nation,”](http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary20.html) December 18, 2006:
> [@](#):
>
> Here’s the weird part though. The main business of Bailey Building and Loan was financing the first new suburban subdivisions of the automobile age. In one of the movie’s major set pieces, George Bailey opens Bailey Park, a tract of car-dependent cookie-cutter bungalows, and turns over the keys to the first house to the Italian immigrant Martini family. Had the story continued beyond 1946 into, say, the 1980s, (with George Bailey now a doddering Florida golfer), we would have seen the American landscape ravaged by suburban development, and the main street towns like Bedford Falls gutted and left for dead. That was the perverse outcome of George Bailey’s good intentions…
>
> At a crucial point in the story, Clarence the guardian angel takes George Bailey on a tour of Bedford Falls as-if-George-had-never-been-born. Only the town is named Pottersville now. Main Street is lined with gin mills, strip clubs, and dance halls instead of wholesome banks, groceries, and pharmacies. (Oddly, casinos are absent, because in 1946 we lacked the vision to see how truly demoralized our nation could get.) Prostitutes ply the busy sidewalks. Now the weirdest thing is that Pottersville is depicted as a busy, bustling, lively place – the exact opposite of what main streets all over America really became, thanks to George Bailey’s efforts – a wilderness of surface parking, from sea to shining sea, with WalMart waiting on the edge of every town like Moloch poised to inhale the last remaining vapors of America’s morale. Frank Capra could imagine vibrant small towns turning their vibrancy in the direction of vice – but he couldn’t imagine them forsaken and abandoned, with the shop fronts boarded up and the sidewalks empty, which was the true tragic destiny of all the Bedford Falls in our nation.
[/hijack]
[/QUOTE]
Kunstler isn’t the first one aware of this. His picture of latter-day Bedford Falls (and it’s alternate-universe alter ego, Pottersville) is actually not too far removed from Robert Zemekis’ depiction of Hill Valley in the **Back to the Future** movies. Like Kunstler’s contemporary Bedford Falls, the 1985 Hill Valley is a community “ravaged by suburban development” with its “main street towns … gutted and left for dead” since commercial business moved out to the mall on the edge of town. This is in stark contrast to the 1955 Hill Valley Marty McFly goes back to with its vibrant main street with busy merchants and eager-to-please service station attendants. The alternate 1985 Hill Valley is, of course, Pottersville on steroids–an inherently corrupt open city with “gin mills, strip clubs” and Biff Tanner’s massively tacky hotel-casino at its center.
---
### Author:  [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/27 "2007-12-16T22:26:11Z")
Well said, **pepperlandgirl**.
---
### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/28 "2007-12-16T22:55:11Z")
If you live a long life you will bury wives, children and your friends. Nice to know you become a failure too.
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/29 "2007-12-17T00:34:26Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax]
If you live a long life you will bury wives, children and your friends. Nice to know you become a failure too.
[/QUOTE]
It’s every father’s dream to outlive his child.
-Homer Simpson
---
### Author:  [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/30 "2007-12-17T00:51:39Z")
[QUOTE=pepperlandgirl]
I really don’t like the movie. I don’t walk away thinking George Bailey is a success or rich in friends. He sacrificed his entire life for his family, and his friends, and that stupid town. He put his dreams on hold again and again and again until they utterly disappeared. He was completely taken advantage of, and throughout the entire film, it’s never clear that the people around him understand or appreciate what they’re doing to him. And yeah, he’s to blame for some of this. But he is inherently a good guy, and the people who knew him knew that, and so they thought there was nothing wrong with taking advantage of him.
Then at the end of the movie, for one night in his entire life, _they_ finally come through for him, and I’m supposed to cry? Where were they when he wanted to go to college? Where were they when he wanted to take pictures for the National Geographic? Where were they when he wanted to go on his _own honeymoon_?
And you know, the next morning, everybody is going to go back to their usual ways. Uncle Billy is still going to be barely functional. Old Man Potter is still going to be looking for ways to fuck him over. George is still going to be stuck in that damned town until the _day he dies_.
And this is a cheerful Christmas story? It makes ME suicidal. The “this is what the world would be like without you” was completely manipulative, and let’s face it, just a reminder of how co-dependent everybody in George Bailey’s life is.
[/QUOTE]
I’m of two minds about this. Yes, I totally see what you’re saying. But part of me buys into the whole sappy, emotionally manipulative thing. ::sigh::
---
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/31 "2007-12-17T03:02:11Z")
[QUOTE=pepperlandgirl]
Then at the end of the movie, for one night in his entire life, _they_ finally come through for him, and I’m supposed to cry? Where were they when he wanted to go to college? Where were they when he wanted to take pictures for the National Geographic? Where were they when he wanted to go on his _own honeymoon_?
[/QUOTE]
They did what they could, didn’t they? But most of them were mighty poor themselves, and George was too proud (apparently) to ask for a leg up from, say, Sam Wainwright. When George put down his whole honeymoon fund to keep the building & loan afloat in a financial crisis, his friends – just on the edge of destitution themselves, like most Americans on that day – **arranged** for him to have a honeymoon of sorts.
---
### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/32 "2007-12-17T04:44:24Z")
The post by **pepperlandgirl** (who I’m going to guess is under 35, perhaps much younger) illustrates the difference between people today and the generation that survived the depression and fought WWII.
I think 1946 audiences would say that George acted out of a sense of duty when he postponed or even sacrificed his dreams for the sake of the Building and Loan and the town of Bedford Falls. Carrying out your duty is not the same as being taken advantage of, and frankly, I think 1946 viewers would be puzzled, if not horrified, by the idea that anyone could confuse them.
If the people around him don’t constantly praise George and thank him for doing the right thing, that may be because they are also going about doing their duties, which may call for some sacrifice on their part. Individualism is all very fine, but there’s something to be said for altruism and a sense of community. And I think it’s clear that the people of Bedford falls hold George in high esteem and appreciate what he does for them. As **BrainGlutton** points out, Bert and Ernie go beyond the call of duty to give George and Mary a honeymoon, as one example.
The message of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ is that doing the right thing and helping other people can yield greater rewards than pursuing our own selfish ends. That the apparently small efforts of a single person can have grand results. And that even if you don’t always see it, the people around you do love and appreciate you.
Some of these themes are not as popular – or even as obvious – today as they were in previous decades, unfortunately.
---
### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/33 "2007-12-17T05:23:06Z")
I… have never seen this movie, that I remember.
[QUOTE=dropzone]
Okay, not WILLINGLY, since I’m a hopeless romantic hiding (poorly) in my (not as) cynical (as I’d like) shell and hate to show the (mile-wide) chinks in my (oh yeah, you’re a Canuck) armour, but I love the movie and this is the time of year to wallow in sentimentality or you’ll find yourself doing it at inappropriate times, like during “A Charlie Brown Christmas” or a “Dukes of Hazard” Christmas episode. Better to cry for the classy stuff than to cry for shit–it’s less embarassing.
[/QUOTE]
Are you me?
---
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/34 "2007-12-17T05:25:01Z")
My question about the movie has to do with the ending. George Bailey is short $8000. Sam Wainwright telegrams that he can make $25,000 available. And people are STILL throwing money at him! I do find that odd.
---
### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/35 "2007-12-17T06:52:13Z")
[QUOTE=samclem]
From memory: The movie, when originally made, was a flop.
[/QUOTE]
Yes and no. Its box office gross was 26th out of more than 400 features released that year, i.e., it was in the top 7%. And it was nominated for [five Academy Awards](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/awards), including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.
On the other hand, it was released during a general box office slump, and after six months it had not made back its expensive $2.3 million cost to Liberty Films, much less made a profit. On the verge of bankruptcy, Capra and his partners sold Liberty Film’s assets to Paramount.
---
### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/36 "2007-12-17T07:07:11Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
I recall reading that the movie entered the public domain or something like that about 1980 and so could be shown without having to pay royalties and that that was the spark behind its resurgence.
[/QUOTE]
The film’s _images_ entered the public domain in 1975 due to clerical oversight by the copyright owner. However, because the film was derived from the published story “The Greatest Gift”, whose copyright was duly renewed in 1971, the film’s story was still under copyright.
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
[Here](http://imdb.com/title/tt0038650/trivia) is some great trivia about the movie. Possibly my favorite: “The movie drew fierce criticism for its political statements about post-WWII society when it was released in 1946. Even the FBI labeled it a ‘subversive’ movie and charged that its use of a nasty, Scrooge-like businessman ‘was a common trick used by communists’.”
[/QUOTE]
Not so. An FBI analyst wrote and submitted [a memo, without comment,](http://www.wisebread.com/fbi-considered-its-a-wonderful-life-communist-propaganda#memo1) recording an FBI source in the movie industry who said that about the film.
---
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/37 "2007-12-17T11:51:58Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon]
Yes and no. Its box office gross was 26th out of more than 400 features released that year, i.e., it was in the top 7%. And it was nominated for [five Academy Awards](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/awards), including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.
On the other hand, it was released during a general box office slump, and after six months it had not made back its expensive $2.3 million cost to Liberty Films, much less made a profit. On the verge of bankruptcy, Capra and his partners sold Liberty Film’s assets to Paramount.
[/QUOTE]
Interesting stats **Walloon**. Like \*\*samclem \*\*I had always heard it was a flop. This brings a little more clarity.
---
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/38 "2007-12-17T14:54:02Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
My question about the movie has to do with the ending. George Bailey is short $8000. Sam Wainwright telegrams that he can make $25,000 available. And people are STILL throwing money at him! I do find that odd.
[/QUOTE]
I liked the SNL skit with the “deleted ending” – somebody figures out what happened to the $8,000, and George and all his friends run over to Potter’s house and beat him to death.
---
### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/39 "2007-12-17T14:54:29Z")
**Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.**
Sounds like a slogan for recruiting gang members.
---
### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-no-man-is-a-failure-who-has-friends/430074/40 "2007-12-17T15:20:10Z")
[QUOTE=commasense]
The post by **pepperlandgirl** (who I’m going to guess is under 35, perhaps much younger) illustrates the difference between people today and the generation that survived the depression and fought WWII.
I think 1946 audiences would say that George acted out of a sense of duty when he postponed or even sacrificed his dreams for the sake of the Building and Loan and the town of Bedford Falls. Carrying out your duty is not the same as being taken advantage of, and frankly, I think 1946 viewers would be puzzled, if not horrified, by the idea that anyone could confuse them.
If the people around him don’t constantly praise George and thank him for doing the right thing, that may be because they are also going about doing their duties, which may call for some sacrifice on their part. Individualism is all very fine, but there’s something to be said for altruism and a sense of community. And I think it’s clear that the people of Bedford falls hold George in high esteem and appreciate what he does for them. As **BrainGlutton** points out, Bert and Ernie go beyond the call of duty to give George and Mary a honeymoon, as one example.
The message of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ is that doing the right thing and helping other people can yield greater rewards than pursuing our own selfish ends. That the apparently small efforts of a single person can have grand results. And that even if you don’t always see it, the people around you do love and appreciate you.
Some of these themes are not as popular – or even as obvious – today as they were in previous decades, unfortunately.
[/QUOTE]
Well, not only that, but George didn’t put his “honeymoon” money into the bank so that everybody could withdraw it, he put _his own money_ into _his own business_ to keep it afloat.
His choice was to go on a vacation or to keep the family business a going concern. What good is a “vacation” if you know that the act of taking it is going to cost you your job? How relaxing is that?
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