I first saw “It’s A Wonderful Life” when I was a student in film school at UNCG. That was in a time long ago before cablevision ruled the earth and nearly every spare second of a 24-hour TV day needed to be filled with some kind of programming or another. If you remember test patterns after midnight on TV then you probably watched “The Andy Griffith Show” on TV before it went into reruns.
Anyway, since that day I’ve probably seen the classic Frank Capra film starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore at least a hundred times. Before NBC got control of the rights it simply played on an endless loop on about every other cable station throughout December. I know what’s going to happen. I can mouth the words. And it still gets me every time.
I’m not proud of this.
Yes, my favorite Christmas movies are likely “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story.” Call them No. 1 and No. 1A. Others trail — one by a narrow margin. But we’ll save those for down the road a piece.
In fact, I was going to write about “It’s a Wonderful Life” right around Christmas Day. But I found myself Saturday night watching it once more, though this time I took it in while reading “Holidays on Ice,” a compilation of Christmas-related essays witten by humorist David Sedaris who grew up in Raleigh. This is quite the double-bill. George Bailey fighting to save Bedford Falls from loathsome “Old Man Potter” while Sedaris is deconstructing the holiday letter to friends with his typically sardonic observations.
Let’s just say I enjoyed the yin and yang of the two tremendously. Note to folks out there, if you get a chance, read “Holidays on Ice.” The Santaland Diaries about working as an elf in a major department store is worth the price of admission alone.
Now when “It’s a Wonderful Life” was first released in 1946 it was certainly a product of its time. America was still close enough to The Great Depression for the memory to be strong. World War II was over and America was ready to turn the page and move on to more pleasurable diversions. Capra’s film, with its uplifting message at the end, seemed a natural. Still, its box office appeal was limited and in release didn’t make back the more than $6 million it took to produce.
But it has since become beloved.
For those who might not know because they have spent the last several years actually accomplishing interesting things over the holidays instead of watching TV, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the heart-warming tale of George Bailey, the owner of a family S&L guided to the brink of ruin by shoddy but extremely folksy banking practices very similar to those that got Bert Lance in big trouble during the Carter administration.
Bailey, who in the movie has done a good deed for everyone he ever met, however, becomes desperate when he faces possible criminal charges because the sinister and wealthy Mr. Potter helps himself to $8,000 from Bailey’s S&L when the money is mistakenly given to him by Bailey’s feeble-minded Uncle Billy.
As Bailey stands on the precipice of the kind of scandal usually found at companies like Enron, he ponders why he was ever born. An angel trying to earn his wings then proceeds to show him what life would have been like if he were not there. Basically, the sweet town of fictional Bedford Falls would have become Potterville, a rather fun-appearing place that looks like old Vegas.
The day is saved when all of Bailey’s friends show up with enough loot to bail him out of the jam, and the angel, named Clarence, earns his wings.
There’s not a dry eye in the house.
It would be difficult not to see some parallels between circumstances in “It’s A Wonderful Life” and those in place today with financial markets in turmoil, banks on the verge of ruin and a population on the edge of panic.
The lessons, then, from ”It’s a Wonderful Life” are still timely. We could use a few George Baileys these days.
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