The only part that really bugs me is the cop shooting at George as he runs away.
But other than that, it’s a great movie. I’ve seen it dozens of times, yet the ending makes me teary eyed every time.
“Nobody is a failure who has friends.”
Hell, Captain Amazing’s recap just made me teary! Damn you CA! I’m at work! People will wonder why my eyes are watery!
I really can’t stand this movie. Like many others, it’s Mary the librarian that was the last nail in the coffin.
It wouldn’t even be so bad, except the buildup and revelation of the thing makes it sound like they’re going to reveal that Mary turned out to be a rape victim crackwhore who got her limbs bitten off by dinosaurs.
I-I can’t say! It’s too horrible! She’s… DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNNN… a librarian!!!
I’ve always liked this movie…
but…
I like the nightlife scene in Potterville better! I want to go hoist a few at the Indian Club, then go finish up the evening at Nick’s and dig that crazy piano player.
I hate Zuzu’s voice, and wish to kill her everytime I hear the “Bell rings/angel wings” line.
Other than that, I don’t try to analyze the silly thing too much.
Sir Rhosis
I saw this movie before it became a Timeless Christmas Classic ™. It was at Old Movie Night at a local bar when I was in grad school. In September or so.
The swimming pool under the dance floor actually existed. The dance scene was filmed at Hollywood High School.
I always thought it was a bit odd that George is contemplating how much better life would be for Mary and the chirren if he were DEAD (he just attempted suicide, after all), but Clarence shows him what life would have been like if he had never LIVED. Shouldn’t Clarence show him instead the grief and horrors that would happen if he (George) committed suicide?
Or perhaps that future would have had Mary coming into tons of life insurance, then earning millions in a wrongful death suit against Potter once Uncle Billy remembered what happened, and pretty much forgetting George altogether after she meets and marries that nice Mr. Bormann who moves to town after the war. Together with her new hubby and her new immense wealth, Mary rebuilds the city into “Maryville- a Perfect Town that will Last for Thousand Years!”, with Bert receiving a Senate seat after killing more communists than any other policemen in America. With the kids away at Swiss boarding schools and the town all now living in the shadow of Mary (their own Evita),George is forgotten by all. Strangely, although Mary becomes America’s richest and most powerful business woman, more than glad to have traded her subsistence level life for one of jet-setting sybarism and power-brokering, she often finds herself gazing at the library as if some part of her is there that she doesn’t quite conceive, and though she has dozens of servants she still finds herself vacuuming her own floor while wearing pearls and designer dresses.
OK I’ve always had a different take on this. I’ve never seen anything bad about Pottersville being BadTown or BadMary being a librarian, because they were just delusions. Think about this for a second:
Everything from when George is on the bridge and it stops snowing (Clarence jumps into the water) and when George comes back to the same spot on the bridge (after the visit to Pottersville) and it starts snowing again only happen in George’s head. Kinda like “An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge”. Everything is so bad and dire in Pottersville because George needs it to be. Very delusional, but the guy’s suicidal. He’s quite obviously not in his right mind. He wasn’t shown a reality without him - he wasn’t able to handle this reality, there’s no way he could handle a different one. George would have gone insane, seeing everyone happy and well-adjusted without him having been born. He needs to feel like the moral anchor of the town. He needs to be the only shining light in Mary’s life. By being important in the lives of Mary and his friends, he has a purpose. He’s made a difference and life is worth living.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
Violet (Gloria Grahame) went on to play Ado Annie in “Oklahoma”. Seems the bad girl persona suited her just fine.
Oh yeah, those who don’t like the film are in good company. It lost money in its initial release because people thought it was denigrating small town life. The film didn’t really get any legs until it was released to public domain in 1973, and is now considered a “classic”.
They didn’t have to show it because George had already realized that suicide wasn’t the answer. When they’re clothes are drying off, Clarence asks George if he still thinks of killing himself and George’s reply is no. That’s when he says things would’ve been better if he’d never been born. George already realized that he would’ve put his family through something horrible by killing himself so he wishes that he’d never been born. And that comment is what Clarence acts on when he grants him the wish.
George’s problem in the movie is that he always thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. He grew to hate Bedford Falls because he felt like he was stuck there. Instead of seeing how great his life was, he took it for granted and it took seeing the town and his family in an alternate reality for him to realize that he had “a wonderful life.” Everything that he’d ever really wanted - respect, get rich, and to build things - had already come true. He never got to travel, but he journeyed farther than any man in Bedford Falls had ever done. He wasn’t rich like Mr. Potter, but he was rich in friends and when he needed money they provided. He didn’t build skyscrapers, but he built affordable homes and allowed people to move out of Potter’s slums. So, the George in the movie didn’t see how good he had it until it was all taken away and he was allowed to see how much his life was important to those around him.
Can you tell I just love the movie? I didn’t mean to ramble.
On an entirely peripheral note, one scene that really bugs me about The Wizard of Oz happens early in the film, after Dorothy has landed in Munchkinland. The Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that once she starts her yellow-brick road hike, the Munchkins will escort “to the border” of Munchkinland. Dorothy promptly begins at the very start of the YBR, which spirals outward from the town square, while the Munchkins musically tell her she’s “off to see the Wizard”.
A mere three verses later, Dorothy and Toto waltz off while the Munchkins wave goodbye and in the background, you can still see the beginning of the YBL, a mere fifty feet away! Now I realize that to Munchkins, the distance might have seemed impressive, but I still have to ask what the hell kinda lame-ass escort was that?! Geez! Considering that Dorothy’s arrival smushed the Wicked Witch of the East, who had been terrorizing the Munchkins, the least the little creeps could do would be to escort Dorothy for more than twenty seconds! Yeah, thanks, guys. Thanks a lot!
Plus there’s that isosceles triangle thing.
The whole Surrender Dorothy debate still bugs me.
And don’t even get me started on Rear Window !!!