But…there’s the magic of the thing.
I wish someone would lasso me a moon, or at least promise to.
In my 20s I had a long term girlfriend who loved this movie and made me watch it with her every year. I thought it was the worst, treacly, glurgey crap ever, and I hated the movie with a passion. I’d watch it with her but make fun of it all the while.
In the years since though, maybe I’ve gotten more sentimental or more soft-headed, but I’ve come to appreciate the movie, while still keeping some cynicism about it.
George could have walked away at any time; when Harry came home with his shotgun bride he could have told Harry to stuff the Father-in-law job offer and take his turn running the S&L; after his dad died; on the way to their honeymoon with a fistful of wedding cash, blowing off the bank run; and other key points in the movie. But he made the choice at every turn to suck it up and keep the S&L going.
Not that I believe in divine powers such as guardian angels, but if they were to exist I think they would act more like Clarence; not magically fixing everything up like a Genie in a bottle, but giving him a different perspective, showing him how all the good he’s done over the years were like ripples in a pond, spreading out and positively affecting many others. And it was the good will he had built up over the years that saved him, not some lame Deux Ex Machina ending arranged by Clarence.
Yeah, she would have settled for being the financially pampered but neglected and cheated-upon wife of Sam Wainright, most likely. I did like the cute librarian look, though. She really pulled off glasses and a fedora.
I take the moral of the film as everything we do, good and bad, affects many others in a domino effect of ways we don’t even realize. Our lives do have meaning and purpose, however much we may sometimes think they don’t.
But again, I think I’m growing sentimental and soft-headed in my old age 
Didn’t he really want to go to South America and build bridges? They could have shown him turned into something out of Joseph Conrad.
Hey, it could work. In all his Anthony Mann westerns, there’s always a scene where they’ve finally pushed Jimmy too far, and he goes berserk better than anything Klaus Kinski ever did.
That’s no way to talk about Violet Bick sir!
Invest it in soybeans.
You’ve been promised better, I imagine. Hell, I bet you got a list!
While that’s a valid point for the movie as a whole, I think the point of the ending is more “the things you do for others do matter. And they ultimately will leave your happier than if you only wanted to accumulate wealth.”
I think @Stranger_On_A_Train misses why George was in such despair. It wasn’t because he didn’t get to do those things he wanted to do. At every point in the story where he has an opportunity to go see the world, he chooses to instead stick around and use the Savings and Loan to help the town. He chooses helping people.
The reason he’s despondent is that it seems like it’s all coming crashing down. That all he did is going to amount to nothing, since the Building and Loan will be closed. Not only that, but he’s going to go to jail, the ultimate confinement. He forgets about all the good he’s already done, which is why Clarence shows up to show him. Clarence’s reminder helps in feel better, just in time for us to see all the people he helped being willing to return the favor.
Because he helped others, that his mistake with Uncle George didn’t matter. Because he helped others, he has the happiness of being part of a community of people who care about him. Unlike Potter, who has all that wealth but is always unhappy. He can’t be happy with everything else in the town–he has to own it completely. Hence his desire to defeat the Bailey Savings and Loan.
I don’t think the point I was trying to make is really any different than yours, except that you stated it more eloquently.
All that money comes between George and Mary - he wants to set up Zuzu with her own florist shop; she wants to send pianist Janie to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. They eventually amicably split after setting up a charitable foundation for the town.
George moves west, changes his name and becomes a cop in San Francisco. He has a promising career before being overwhelmed by his fear of heights. Mary goes to Hollywood and soars to stardom, eventually hosting her own TV show under her stage name, “Donna Reed.”
Double guitars, obviously
Hire some out-of-town bruiser to take care of the Potter problem once and for all.
We also watched it last night (holiday tradition in our family), and the question I had for our legal Dopers is, could Potter be charged with a crime for keeping and not returning the $8,000? @Northern_Piper? @Atamasama? Anyone?
There is this,
(Which seems to be less than what Potter did/knew.)
Right, Potter knew exactly whose money it was. But what would he have been charged with, and what kind of case could his defense lawyers (the best in Bedford Falls) have made?
Unless you end up shot by a stray bullet some yayhoo cop fires into a crowd. Eh, what’s one life, more or less?
And if it such a fun happening spot, why are the cops rounding up the goodtime girls?
It occurred to me watching the movie yesterday, that if George had simply accepted Potter’s job offer and hired some clean-cut youngun to manage the building and loan, he could have pushed Potter out of the way and used the Potter empire to rebuild Bedford Falls the way he had always dreamed.
Well, he is guilted into ‘choosing’ these things. He’s clearly not very satisfied with his lot and resentful about it, which is what all the business about Clarance showing him how much his life has meant and everybody donating to get him out of hock is supposed to counterbalance. However, this is really just manipulation of both George and the audience; Clarance shows him a possible alternative, but what about one where he goes off to college and adventure while Harry lives up to his obligation and runs the B&L as a real going concern that pushes Potter’s bank into irrelevance, or Mary gets hitched to “Hee-Haw” and discovers that below his clownish exterior he’s actually a deeply intellectual person whose philanthropy raises the standard of living for the residents in Bedford Falls far above just scraping along in the ticky-tack houses they can afford with measly mortgages from the struggling Business & Loan?
I am not a lawyer but Potter clearly knew where the money came from and made no effort to return it, thus establishing mens rea (intent) to take money without legitimate transaction even though he did not overtly commit an act of theft or robbery. Furthermore, because the money was actually the collective property of depositors in the Bailey Building & Loan which was en route to being deposited in his bank (presumably to cover bank loans keeping the B&L solvent) he is actually committing bank fraud by “accepting” the funds and not applying them to the B&L account. That Uncle Billy doesn’t hand him the deposit slip is irrelevant; as a principal of the bank he has a fiduciary responsibility to his clients to handle their money ethically and not steal or hide it even if it didn’t go through the formal deposit process.
Or he gets corrupted by free access to so much money and power (we already know that he’s a creep who toys with a girl who lost her robe in public) and becomes the next Gordon Gekko. In this version, Al Pacino becomes his ‘guardian angel’ and gives impassioned speeches at excessive volume compelling him to give into the darkness.
Stranger
Sorry, I’m not in any way a lawyer, I just took one semester of Business Law in college and have access to Google (and read/watch legal stuff for fun).
Unless being a rules lawyer during tabletop games counts.
(If I ever gave the impression that I have any legal expertise I apologize, I’m a total amateur and you should take anything I say in regards to legal issues with a grain of salt.)
Sorry, I must have confused you with someone else. I was trying to remember the handles of legal Dopers, and couldn’t come up with as many as I hoped for.
Yeah, that scene was nutballs. I know it’s just a movie, but I imagine that firing on an unarmed man with presumed mental issues running down a busy street was not standard police protocol, even for the time. Plus, I would have expected better judgement from Bert the cop, even in the Georgeless alt-verse.
Good question, Just_Asking_Questions. I’m sure Potter had the cops in his pocket, and wouldn’t want his revenue stream interrupted. I can only presume that Violet was being arrested because she wasn’t playing her part properly. Maybe she was being harassed by the cops because she decided she didn’t want to be a goodtime girl anymore?