It's a Wonderful Life

I had a long day today, which is the reason why I am posting this review late. Since I didn’t have the time to watch the fifth Home Alone movie, I thought that maybe I will review a little classic that came out in 1946, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times said in his review of this film, “For a turkey dinner, with Christmas trimmings, is precisely what's cooking at the end of this quaint and engaging modern parable on virtue being its own reward.” This town’s characters that go through a lot in the running time of this film are waiting around to feast on this turkey. Or, they at least watch James Stewart eat it. Stewart is the main character in this beloved Christmas special, and by the end of this film, you see that he does most of the turkey stuffing and he deserves the white meat and stuffing.

Reason behind this: director Frank Capra, who had came back from the war, had resumed with a will in his previous manifest fondness for depicting people of simple, unpleasant worth. In this film, Stewart plays George Bailey, who wants to get away from his small-town life and duties but is never able to do so because slowly they close in on him. Capra shows in this film that it is really a family, friends and honest hard work that make “a wonderful life.”

George Bailey is a friendly guy who wants to travel and do big things but unfortunately he keeps finding himself running a building-and-loan association in a small town, married, and caged in a constant fight with the greedy old banker of the town, Mr. Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore. When it finally looks that the banker has won the fight, he does a hasty attempt to take (what he thinks) his horrible life. This calls on his guardian angel, played by Henry Travers, who grants him his wish and shows him what the town would have turned out if he never existed. When George looks around and sees this, he gets upset that he returns back to his life with such elation, and thanks to the help of all his friends, battles the financial crisis he is in.

In making this moralistic tale, Capra and his writers have put in a lot of everyday occurrences and emotional complications just for comedic timing, which works. The boyhood of his hero, the play at a high school dance, the clumsy hunt of a romance – all are shown in a humorous way, despite the too frequent tendencies of every one to act childish and shy. The heavier parts of the drama are handled in a tense, sudden style.

As the main character, James Stewart does a warmly interesting job, showing that he has grown spiritually as well as in talent during the years he was in the war. Donna Reed is remarkably balanced and polite as George Bailey’s sweet-heart wife. Thomas Mitchell, Beulah Bondi, H.B. Warner and Samuel S. Hinds stand out among the cast of assorted small-town characters who give this film variety and energy. Lionel Barrymore can be compared to Ebenezer Scrooge, and Henry Travers as the angel is “a little too sticky for our taste,” according to Crowther.

Crowther also says, “Indeed, the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer's point of view, is the sentimentality of it—its illusory concept of life.” The people Capra depicts are charming, nice people, his small town is quite an attractive place and his pattern for solving those problems is optimistic and superficial. Somehow they resemble theatrical attitudes rather than average realities. Crowther ends his review by saying, “And Mr. Capra's "turkey dinners" philosophy, while emotionally gratifying, doesn't fill the hungry paunch.”

In the end, I would give “It’s a Wonderful Life” a solid 10. This is also one of my favorite Christmas specials, and I think you should all make it a tradition to watch this film every year around this time. Hold on to your vomit bags tomorrow because I will finish off the “Home Alone” reviews.