What should George Bailey have done with the surplus money?

Cafe Society
1

I was at the in-laws for T-Day yesterday, and after the Lions loss I guess nobody was in the mood for more football, so somebody switched to a channel playing ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

At the heartwarming end I wondered, as I have in the past, what did they do with all that surplus donated money? Bailey clearly got tens of thousands more than the $8,000 shortfall they needed. I looked up what 8K in 1945 would be in today’s dollars and it’s almost $135K. So they may have easily hauled in today’s equivalent to a half million dollars or more; no chump change that.

So what do you do with all that surplus? The obvious answer might be “give back what they didn’t need” but that doesn’t seem like it would be so easy. There were dozens, if not hundreds of townfolk throwing money in baskets. Even if they had somehow kept a close accounting of who donated what, people want to think their generous donation was much needed. After Sam Wainright covered the loss on his own, Bailey could have given everybody else their money back, but “here, we don’t need your money” probably wouldn’t have gone over so well.

Keep it for themselves, then? That would certainly be understandable on some level; the Baileys struggled and sacrificed for years while helping the town. And their old house certainly must have needed some major structural work. They showed Mary diligently working on the house wallpapering and stuff in-between raising 4 kids, but I doubt she was hauling pallets of shingles up on the roof or replacing rotted attic support beams. And clearly George Bailey had neither the time nor inclination to do any DIY home repairs. He couldn’t even be arsed to take 5 minutes to glue the loose stairway newel cap down.

But keeping all the money to enrich themselves could have easily gone south. He’d already pissed off the schoolteacher’s husband and the guy whose tree he drunk-drove into. All he’d need to undo the years of goodwill he had built up with the town would be for people to start disgruntledly gossiping about how the Baileys kept the money to fancy their house up, or buy a new car, or whatever. That plus Potter continuing to spread rumors about George embezzling the original 8K and an affair with Violet, and even with the authorities having decided not to prosecute, the town could very easily have turned against the Baileys. Plus, it wouldn’t be in George’s character to keep the surplus anyway.

The best I can come up with is, they started some sort of charitable foundation or other thing with the money, or invested it back into the town in some way.

Just random over analyzing to death a 70 year old movie holiday movie musings on a lazy Black Friday.

2

I expect he would put it into the building and loan, so that it could build and sell more houses at cost, and invest further in the community. Or maybe open a cut-rate grocery store to compete with Potter’s store.

I think Bailey’s family would be fine economically if he could just draw his salary reliably. Maybe he could give himself a raise from $45 to $50 a week. I think the house must have been made livable already, from their honeymoon when water was leaking all the way through the 2nd story down into the 1st, and with the goodwill he has undoubtedly built up in the blue collar community he probably got offered volunteer labor for home improvements all the time. He might accept one or two now and then.

3

They skip town with the money, dump Zu-Zu and the pack off at the nearest orphanage, go on the globe-trotting tour they were planning before the flailing Savings & Loan dragged them down, take on the unlikely aliases “Port and Kit Moresby”, and end up destitute and alienated in Morroco.

Stranger

4

Ha, good answer, and nice “Sheltering Sky” reference.

5

George adopts an invisible friend. A big white rabbit.

Mary is disgusted and moves on. Taking the children out west where she got a TV sitcom and was by all accounts, successful.
The money was deposited in the Baily building and loan as college funds for the children.

6

Yep, after that fateful night, the visits to Martini’s (then Nick’s, then Martini’s again) become increasingly frequent. Perhaps there’s a family alcoholic gene he shares with Uncle Billy. No one is surprised then, when after months or years of chronic public inebriation George starts seeing 6 foot tall white rabbits.

But she eventually also leaves her sitcom family and briefly becomes the matriarch of a rich Texas oil family before her death.

7

George uses the money to hire Richard Widmark to push Potter in his wheelchair down a flight of stairs

8

Or the town gangs up to beat the crap out of Potter themselves…

9

C. M. Burns: “Does anyone have change for a button?”

10

Holy crap! Not even I am that cynical! Phoo!

11

Well, I just recently learned you’re Canadian, and not to stereotype, but Canadians in general seem much nicer, more positive, and less cynical than us Americans (at least speaking for me; not sure about SOAT’s country of origin, or current country of residence. Morocco, perhaps? :slightly_smiling_face:).

12

Sorry to disillusion you, but I’m originally from Minnesota. I’m living in Canada now because the only family I have is here.

13

Meanwhile George uses the remaining money to buy a bunch of photographic equipment and sets himself up as an itinerant photographer traveling the globe and selling his photos to magazines. Eventually he breaks his leg trying to get a photo of a race car accident, and has to spend weeks in a wheelchair, spending his days watching Perry Mason.

14

I’m surprised that nobody has said ‘hookers and blow’.

What is the Dope coming to?

15

Well, clearly the prevailing pleasant attitude and lack of cynicism in your current country of residence have rubbed off on you, though.

16

I lived in the UK, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, and Russia before I wound up in Canada. So I guess a lot of things have rubbed off on me. :slight_smile:

17

…getting waited on hand and foot by 25 year old Grace Kelly. Ol’ George Bailey sure could pull the women in his day. First Donna Reed, then Kelly. Hee-haw!

Haha…anyone else watch the ‘downtown Pottersville’ reveal scene in the Bailey-free alt-universe in IAWL and think “damn, that place looks WAY more fun than sleepy Bedford Falls!”.

18

I was goin’ there, but you got here six minutes before me.

19

Well I’ve never liked this movie to begin with. It takes George Bailey, an exuberant young man with ambition, creativity, and intelligence, and forces him into a struggling life of doldrum and duty before setting him up to take the fall for a bumbling relative’s mistake at the hand of a cartoonishly evil villain. Then, in the depths of his despair, it brings in an ‘angel’ who, instead of using his powers to make everything right creates this hypothetical alternate timeline where everything goes to pieces if George hadn’t have existed (including Mary, horror of horrors, being a spinster librarian instead of being brood mare to a passel of children). Essentially what the movie portrays is that the success of this entirely reality lays upon George’s narrow shoulders and that he doesn’t have any right to make choices in life for himself that don’t serve everyone else. The moral of the film, such that it has one, is that George should just suck it up and find whatever transitory happiness he can while Potter continues to exploit the masses who should be grateful for what little wealth trickles down to them. It feels like a Twilight Zone episode without the ironic twist, cloyingly sweet but with an unsatisfying aftertaste.

Stranger

20

I knew there was a reason I liked you! (besides your taste in Scotch.) :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: