Gcotton2154’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Look, Daddy. Teacher says that every time a bell rings, and angel gets his wings."
Ah, the perfect movie for me to watch on Christmas Eve! Frank Capra's beloved timeless classic, It's a Wonderful Life!
It's a Wonderful Life is a Christmas supernatural drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet "The Greatest Gift" by Phillip Van Doren Stern, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. The film was produced by Liberty Films and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures for a limited theatrical release in December 1946 then a wide release in January 1947. It initially received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box-office, failing to reach its break-even point of $6.3 million. Despite that, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Frank Capra. It became a Christmas classic ever since its copyright in the U.S. expired in 1974 following a lack of renewal and entering the public domain, which allowed it to be broadcast without royalty fees or licensing. It is now considered one of the best Christmas movies and one of the greatest movies of all time.
It's a Wonderful Life is about George Bailey (James Stewart), who contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve. After his family prays for him, the angels of Heaven hear these prayers and send George's guardian angel named Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers) to go down and save George. First, Clarence is shown flashbacks of George Bailey's life leading up to that point, from the beginning where George rescuing his younger brother at age 12 resulting in him losing his hearing in his left ear, as well as him saving pharmacist Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner) from accidentally poisoning a customer. As George grows up, he plans his life of traveling the world and becoming an architect, but ends up staying in Bedford Falls after being reintroduced to his childhood friend Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) and settling his own family bank business after his father dies of a stroke.
Whenever the opportunity for George to pursue his life dreams comes, his plans are always postponed by conflicts of his bank business, including having to deal with the avaricious board member Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore) and keep him from closing his bank building. George also marries Mary and has four kids with her. Years later, on Christmas Eve, his uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) goes to deposit $8,000 at Potter's bank, but accidentally misplaces the money, which would result in bankruptcy and jailtime. Frustrated by this, George lashes out at his family and resents all the sacrifices he made over the years, then visits Potter begging for help. Potter tells him he's worth more dead than alive. George gets drunk then goes to the town bridge, preparing to end his life by jumping off. Clarence Odbody visits him just in time, and after George expressed his wish of never being born, Clarence grants that wish showing him what life at Bedford Falls would be like if he'd never existed.
There was no way I was going to go without reviewing this masterpiece of a Christmas movie this December, because it's just too iconic and one of my all-time favorite movies. My introduction to It's a Wonderful Life was through footage of it being shown in the Home Alone movies as well as the VeggieTales episode "It's a Meaningful Life." It was several years ago when I first watched this movie, and since then, it has become a yearly tradition for my family and I to save it as one of the last (if not the last) Christmas movies for each holiday season. Something about it just has a wholesome finality compared to the other Christmas movies we love to watch, so I figured I'd go ahead and save it for Christmas Eve this December to review it.
The story is remarkably well-written and well-directed, showing audiences the story of a man whose life touches many other lives and sharing an important message of being grateful for what you have and who you have in your life, as you never truly know how much your actions will affect the people around you. Frank Capra frames this story masterfully with his directorial skills, giving audiences a movie that is well-paced and balances heartwarming, dramatic, and comedic moments. I was a little bored by most of the first two acts of the film as a kid, but as I got older, I began to understand and become more immersed in the backstory of George Bailey and what led to him deciding to make the decision to wish he'd never been born.
The performances are stellar, with James Stewart as George Bailey being one of many lead performances I'd place among of the best I've seen. Stewart brilliantly portrays George as a compassionate, witty, and kind-hearted young man who is willing to help people however he can as well as wisely refuse offers from people like Mr. Potter that would do him no good. I obviously may not have had as much life experience as George Bailey did in the film, but I found his personal problems to be quite relatable. I've never told any of you this before, but I've had my dark days in the past where I've been so frustrated by the hardships of life that I've felt like just ending it all despite all the people who love and care about me, but I've managed to pull through with help. Watching this movie just makes me feel so warm inside and happy to be alive with what I have and who I have.
Donna Reed is very sweet as Mary, being a supportive and loving wife towards George and sharing the hardships of his personal problems, as well as providing some solid comedic moments with George especially earlier on. Lionel Barrymore is great as the conniving Mr. Potter, making for a memorable antagonist who does anything to get what he desires, no matter how much it conflicts with other people's lives or the law. Henry Travers is amazing as the wise but child-like second class angel Clarence Odbody, who provides some of the most memorable and poignant lines of dialogue in the brilliant script for this movie.
"You see, George? You really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?"
Also giving great performances include Thomas Mitchell as the bumbling Uncle Billy, Frank Faylen and Ward Bond as Ernie and Bert (hey, did those two inspire Ernie and Bert on Sesame Street? 🤨), Gloria Grahame as Violet Bick, Beulah Bondi as Mrs. Bailey, H.B. Warner as Mr. Gower, Frank Albertson as Sam Wainwright, Todd Karns as Harry Bailey, Bill Edmunds as Mr. Martini, Sheldon Leonard as Nick, and more.
The dramatic aspects of this story are highly well-executed, immersing me and other audiences into the troubles George faces as he grows up, having to set aside his lifelong dreams of traveling the world to help the people of Bedford Falls with his struggling family business. This movie does an amazing job establishing and developing George's relationships with the people who love him in the first two acts, making the iconic third act of Clarence showing George the lives of his family and friends had he never been born all the more heartbreaking. By the time George suffers through the harshness of the alternate timeline and desperately cries out to God that he wants to live again just hits me in the feels every time. 😢 😭
The more heartwarming side of this movie is tremendous in presentation. It's a Wonderful Life didn't have to be set during Christmastime, but just that detail added to the story makes it so much more investing and memorable! The romantic interactions between George and Mary are wonderful, as well as George's relationships with his other friends and family, and that ending where he reunites with his family and friends is so emotional and wholesome, I consider it one of the best endings to any movie I've seen! The part where Harry comes back to town and proposes a toast to George gets me every single time!
"To my big brother George.... the richest man in town."
Of course, there's also some good comedic moments this film provides. The witty bantering between George and his friends is solid, the earlier scenes with George and Mary are pretty funny (specifically the scene where Mary does her best to make George's visit to her house romantic, but George keeps shooting her down), and some of the gags involving the characters reactions to Clarence's child-like nature. My favorite comedic line of dialogue that I like to quote often is this from Nick.
"Hey look, mister. We serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast, and we don't need any characters around here to give the joint "atmosphere". Is that clear, or do have to slip you my left for a convincer?"
The production for this film is really good for the time it was released, with some solid cinematography, good editing, nice production design of the town of Bedford Falls, and decent special effects for the snow and image of the angels in Heaven at the beginning. The score by Dimitri Tiomkin is excellent, providing the right amount of heartwarming, dramatic, and comedic touches to the movie it's written for. The songs used in the film are good tunes, such as "Buffalo Gals" (now I know where the Joker from Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite got that song from, hahaha), "Hark! The Herald Angel Sing", and "Auld Lang Syne". Those last two really added to the emotional powerhouse of an ending!
If there was any issue I took with this film, it would probably be that Mr. Potter is strangely not shown given his comeuppance, despite what the Hays Code otherwise had written in their laws at the time. I did read a part of the film's screenplay where after George walks by wishing Mr. Potter a Merry Christmas to the latter bitterly replying to him Happy New Year in jail, Clarence visits Mr. Potter and calls him out on his wrongdoings of stealing the $8,000 and influencing George Bailey into attempting to take his life, before disappearing and leaving behind a frightened Mr. Potter yelling out for his bodyguard's help. That said, I do see why that part technically wasn't really needed in the final product. I'm glad it exists though, even if just on paper.
Overall, It's a Wonderful Life is a timeless Christmas classic and one of the best movies I've seen in my life! While Die Hard and the Home Alone duology are my personal favorite Christmas movies, I do agree with others that It's a Wonderful Life is definitely where Christmas movies peaked in quality. I hate to sound like a normie, but those are my honest feelings and thoughts on this classic.
Note: Just a heads up. This is not my last holiday log for this December. I do have at least one (maybe two, tops) Christmas movie recommended to me that I plan on getting to before the end of this year, as packed as I am with completing my current studio ranking(s).
Merry Christmas, everyone! ✝️ 🎄
Rating: 10/10
