It's A Wonderful Life

George is a banker, but he runs a Savings & Loan, which is a non- profit institution. He is not particularly wealthy. Not sure if this matters or not.

But It's A Wonderful Life does a nice job of avoiding the "emotional pornography" Mamet branded Schindler's List with (I love that term, if he coined it) by making George a complex character who is, at times, quite an asshole. Sure, he was pushed to the brink by bad fortune, but he gets mean there about 3/4 of the way into the film. Makes hi seem more whole.

The ending is a bit too sweet to swallow, but it's still a great movie.

*NB - apologies for gratuitous use of critic-speak ("we") in the above, couldn't think of any better way of saying it*

I think this version works better. And the songs will be great.

IAWL is a fantastic example of how genre film-making need not follow genre rules - and is all the better for it.

They don't call it 'Capracorn' for nothing...

I'm not saying IAWL is sentimental and icky, but a Hollywood remake undoubtedly would be. A Bollywood remake sounds ace, if it's anything like Ptee described.

Anyone remember Blue Peter competition to invent fake snow for BBC Christmas station idents circa 1978? Winner was Self Rasing Flour mixed with something. What What?

spray paint!! unless this was not invented in 1940-whenever.

Is this is case of media frenzy leading to false memory syndrome. with people imagining they used to watch years ago when they clearly didn't? Or did i just miss it when it was on TV before 97 and people have been laughing at me behind my back for years?

I love the film by the way but have no interesting or new reasons for so doing.

This would make Josh evil incarnate, no?

(Cure response - "You mean he *has* a taste in films...")

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no2/sorrentino.html

You're supposed to write 'Dickens's', aren't you? Can someone tell me?

As for the movie, of course it's a holiday classic, though it also seems a bit black-and-white in its approach. Maybe I'm a perverse bastard, but I'd be more inclined to give people copies of Kurosawa's "Ikiru" as a gift during the holidays than IaWL...

I saw the blu-ray of the colorised version in a local carboot sale, £3 or so. WOuld have bought it, but we never sit down to watch a movie at home, specially a 2 hours plus one. We start to get tired, or someone phones, or we need to phone someone, or eating, or etc. So I put it back.

Anyway, was discussing w/fam about how DVDs and Blu-rays are so cheap now, people who have spent fortunes on them now can't shift them. I mentioned IAWF, I'd seen it ooh 40 years ago maybe (probably closer to 45), then my wife mentioned it was on at the local indi-cinema in town, so we went to see it last night.

Yeah! It was actually better than i remembered, the kid who played young George was great but he didn't really do anything too starry after that (became a behindscreen/producer) and lots of other stuff already mentioned upthread.

Oh, and it was b&w - The characters had shade, certainly...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw89o0afb2A

#onethread

Ha I just watched IAWF for first time in a decade or so and thought of that SNL skit. Meant to see if it was on YouTube but then forgot. So thanks for that.
My uncle would, tongue in cheek, make the case that uncle Billy was the real villain.
As with everything else from that era, I got a kick out of how young yet mature all the characters are. Like " old moss back George" has given up his dreams yet he's like what, 23? Sam Wainwright seems like he's in his 40s but is supposed to be late 20s?
Took me like 20 viewings to understand some of the old timey expressions used. "A pox upon me for a clumsy pout" or "I don't know you from Adams off ox" were indecipherable.

i crack up at the idea she stays single longer than ten minutes

Donna reed - famously homely

"Boys don't make passes..."

she lives independently with a steady job and has glasses.

Poor dowdy thing, she lost all fashion sense, too.

Truth be told, Pottersville looked more fun.

Late to this but $8000 = $130,000 in today's money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IpQUqCS1Pw

i love this rant

“I beg you to WATCH THE MOVIE”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk-65JS8Qik

tapped out at “I know”

ok I resist dude-talkin-at-screen stuff but this is great

i cannot tell if ppl are arguing against my point or not that god couldnt find 8 large to help out george bailey

tbh god as usual comes out poorly, needing a high volume of calls to draw his supposed ominpresent attention to our boy's plight in the first place while running heaven as (at best) a studio-era hierarchical corporation structure protection scam and at worst a private military structure salvation service financed by cash for prayers clientelism

dont get me wrong im still a sucker to an absurd extent for our martyr to the system and his drab supermodel squeeze but the intervention mechanisms would fail any audit worth the name and id like to see some evidence of the underwriting/success rate stats of the entire enterprise before i can get with the whole message

course the alternative message is

messiah/martyr complex white man refuses to seek help at any stage of his travails in saving an entire community in an inherited role as governor of the fates of vulnerable and minority masses whilst congratulating himself on his moral superiority in not taking up the options available to him to otherwise direct the fortunes of the same masses in a slightly different capitalistic format, mainly down to an egotistical need to control directly the personal moral conduct of those who rely upon him for housing.

the antihero of this parable would literally rather die than relinquish this power but is ok with his unappreciated wife begging around town on his behalf

no doubt this has all been covered upthread ofc but hee haw

sidebar: sam wainwright can go fuck himself imo

also i love the horseface guy mary is talking to at the dance when george first sees her - he tries to keep telling his boring story to Mary after George cuts in & George is all OH WHY DONT YOU STOP ANNOYING PEOPLE

lol came here to say

HEEHAW & MERRY CHRISTMAS —Sam Wainwright

the thing about this movie is having takes on it is just utterly misunderstanding the entire thing. everything you need to know or say about it is in the movie itself. res ipsa loquitur in extremis.

I find the ending just plain cringey. So a bank deposit goes missing and the answer is to give the guy a bucket of money, so now he's just got... a bowl of money? Most of which he is just gonna basically... keep?

There is nothing like vindication or justice in that. What about the initial crime which will, one presumes, go unpunished? And what prevents Billy from just forgetting another deposit?

I dunno, maybe George just folds the money back into his housing development - presented as a decently noble business, but not a charity.

Still, the idea that a bowlful of money is the ultimate redemption for a suicidally depressed person does not sit well with me as an uber-American fairy tale. I would prefer the wrongs being set right, not simply obliterated by a shower of cash.

no money missing equals no crime

sam does nothing wrong we see him through the lens of George's resentment

the real gifts of Christmas movies are the takes we have along the way

ts

heres your hat wheres your hurry

vs

old mother old pal

Still, the idea that a bowlful of money is the ultimate redemption for a suicidally depressed person does not sit well with me as an uber-American fairy tale. I would prefer the wrongs being set right, not simply obliterated by a shower of cash.

xpost
heres your hat wheres your hurry <3

'See ya in the funny papers!'

Still, the idea that a bowlful of money is the ultimate redemption for a suicidally depressed person does not sit well with me...

YMP, yes he was suicidal, but I'd say he wasn't depressed. That very morning he was jubilant about his brother's Medal of Honor. Later on, when the eight thousand disappeared he was desperate, then still more desperate, then he was drunk, then he was suicidal.

Bc of his life insurance he’s worth more dead than alive

If the film is meant as a critique of predatory capitalism it fails, because the solution to his problems is a big bowl of cash and a promise of a wire transfer from a wealthy industrialist.

A better lefty narrative would involve Mr. Potter being thoroughly exposed and humiliated, and possibly repenting and atoning in a Scrooge-ish stylee. (Personally, I would stop short of having him carved into tiny bits - it's supposed to be a feel-good holiday movie for the whole family, after all.)

As it happens, I feel the same way
about the ending of Mr. Smith
Goes to Washington. All that gaslighting of Stewart's character is supposed to be undone by Claude Raines saying like maybe five words? "It's all true, expel me!"

How 'bout we get to see some motherfucking consequences for the villains in these films? Are we just supposed to imagine them? How about some recompense for the harm they've done? Scrooge worked at it; Scrooge repented and atoned. Why not Poetter?

*Potter

it’s meant as a character study of a person at their lowest point. i mean. it’s fucking capra. whatever you want the lefty narrative to be doing it’s far less of a movie if we going down the road of burning potter in the town square

can it not be what it is and be a simple sad beautiful story

mr potter should fall off a cliff like a disney villain

How 'bout we get to see some motherfucking consequences for the villains in these films?

I wonder if these films are saying something about the likelihood of punishment for their cuntacular villains by not showing us the villains being punished, and whether this conveys any message about the real world

OTM. Guys like Potter will continue existing; don't see how it'd be in any way a better lefty narrative to have a wish fulfilment narrative where they don't. "Capitalism is savage but perhaps we can still survive through community" resonates much more.

We could also end it with Bailey leading a socialist revolution that results in the abolition of money altogether but sadly I don't think lifelong republican Frank Capra would have been interested in making that film.

The entire point and the best decision the story makes is to leave the idea of punishment for potter aside imo.

I love every single second of this movie and it makes me sob every time I watch it and it's a good, cleansing sob that makes me feel amazing.

But, they do go to the Clarence and his wings well far too many times. A mention in the beginning, an explanation of the bell in Nick's bar, and Zuzu's explanation of the bell at the end would've been just right.

Capitalism is savage but perhaps we can still survive through community" resonates much more.

this exactly, but we're now in a very accelerated age where messages like that are hard to hear, will get you some PEOPLE NEED RESULTS NOW responses, etc. the movie is a general statement told through a good story.

it's amazing that Jimmy can (just about) plausibly play an 18-year-old at the age of 38

ah he cant tbf

i will restate how much i love every single second and facet of this movie btw seeing as im in the position of pointing out the odd flaw (nb the flaws are endearing and perfect)

he looks like a freakishly mature, prematury-middle-aged 18-year-old, sure, but I've met a few of those over the years

the idea that a bowlful of money is the ultimate redemption for a suicidally depressed person

I don't think that's the idea. It's more the realization of how much his life has meant to him, despite his bitching about being stuck in Bedford Falls, and that its meaning comes largely from how he has impacted the lives of others and how important those relationships are to him.

How a Copyright Glitch Created a Christmas Cult Classic

Zuzu: What's that smell, Daddy? It hurts my nose.
George: That's the righteous smell of justice, sweetheart.
Zuzu: I thought justice was a good thing. Why does it make me feel so nauseous?
George: It's a common reaction to the scent of burning flesh, it will pass.
Zuzu: Daddy, what?
George: Now sweetheart, you remember mean old Mr. Potter, right?
Zuzu: Uh...yes
George: Well, he made Daddy feel very, very small. So early this morning, Daddy rounded up some of his friends and we paid Mr Potter a visit
Zuzu: what does that have to do with....oh. oh Daddy, no! Please say it isn't so!
George: Capitalists get the wall, my dear. they say "to the riches go the spoils", so now Mr Potter is out there spoiling in the hot sun
Zuzu: it's snowing, Daddy!
George: It's a metaphor, sweetheart, you'll understand when you get older.
Clarence: GEORGE
George: Clarence, good buddy, I didn't expect to see you back h...
Clarence: My wings got revoked, ASSHOLE! What in the f-
George: Excuse me, we don't use language like that
Clarence: I don't give a fuck, Clarence! The big man is pissed! He took my wings and he has bigger, much worse things in store for you.
George: (chuckles) It's a wonderful life...
Clarence: What the fuck is wrong with you?

THE END

https://i.postimg.cc/59QzbCqG/4a45368d-c302-4470-9c31-536f2abed888.jpg

lol

This movie gets better every time I watch it.

didn't realize that It's a Wonderful Life was a box office bomb upon release

The film recorded a loss of $525,000 at the box office for RKO.

A few critics weren't crazy about it either

Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, complimented some of the actors, including Stewart and Reed, but concluded, "the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer's point of view, is the sentimentality of it—its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra's nice people are charming, his small town is a quite beguiling place and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow, they all resemble theatrical attitudes, rather than average realities."

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 23 December 2025 23:57 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah critics thought it was sappy and oversentimental, and audiences didn't take to it either. It was marketed a bit strangely too, as a tentative return to cinema for a lot of the key players after the war. So it only really picked up a wider audience because the copyright expired i. The 1970s and started getting distributed and shown on TV etc.

― Jonk Raven (dog latin), Wednesday, 24 December 2025 00:04 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Anyway we should migrate here... although something somehow keeps pulling me back...

It's A Wonderful Life

― Jonk Raven (dog latin), Wednesday, 24 December 2025 00:06 (0 seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^^^ love the Apes NFT reference just upthread!

I had completely forgotten about all that NFT bullshit, people collecting fucking jpegs

I like Wonderful Life a lot, but one of Kael's greatest lines: "No one else can balance the ups and downs of wistful sentiment and corny humor the way Capra can — but if anyone else should learn to, kill him." (Writing about Mr. Smith....)

otm

https://open.substack.com/pub/profadamroberts/p/the-tintinnabulation-at-the-end-of