OK, so maybe Frank Capra should have scrapped those hokey voices-amid-the-galaxy sequences. Perhaps he could have poured on a tad less syrup here and there. But the marble-hearted, Mr. Potter-like cranks who dismiss “It’s a Wonderful Life” as nothing more than a big tub of sentimental goo have got it all wrong.
The truth is, when you separate the film from all the nostalgia that has built up around it, it becomes clear that Capra’s beloved parable is a finely acted, handsomely crafted piece of cinema bolstered by Dickens-like density and an uplifting message of hope. Yes, that message may be overly idealistic, but the director and his actors deliver it with such conviction that it’s difficult to resist.
Ah, but then we have the joyless cynics who do resist it, and/or just don’t get it. How sad. There’s nothing we can do but express our sympathy and try really hard not to catch what they’ve got.
Capra often spoke of striving to make movies that “exalt the worth of the individual.” Nowhere does he pull it off with more gusto than with “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, he gives us a likable everyman who sinks to such horrendous depths of despair that he contemplates suicide. It isn’t until he is shown the extent of his influence on his family, his friends and his small town of Bedford Falls that he realizes – yes – his is a life worth living.
And isn’t that what we all desperately want to believe – that each of us possesses the power to make a difference? That the true measure of a man has absolutely nothing to do with how many zeroes are attached to his bank account, or how many times he’s appeared on the cover of People magazine?
But while the film so honorably celebrates the individual, it also exudes a sense of community that takes on an even deeper resonance during a year that has delivered some extraordinary levels of human hardship. It will be difficult to watch those feel-good closing scenes, where his fellow citizens rally to George’s aid, without reflecting on America’s hurricane victims – and on how a society truly only works when we maintain reciprocal obligations to one another.
As with most enduring forms of pop culture, “It’s a Wonderful Life” seeps deeply into our consciousness. It pokes certain emotional buttons and provokes earnest moments of personal introspection (“What have I contributed to society?” “Where would I now be had I done things differently?”). It certainly didn’t become an annual TV tradition for millions because it lacks heft.
Which brings us to the actual cinematic nuts and bolts of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The joyless cranks tend to put forth a bogus argument that there’s scant creative substance to Capra’s production, while pigeonholing it as schmaltzy holiday drivel. But such assertions fail to acknowledge the breadth of its agile script, or the power of its performances.
Let’s not overlook, for example, the film’s cleverly rendered comedic moments. The scene at the high school hop, where the dance floor opens over a swimming pool and George and Mary (Donna Reed) unwittingly dance their way into it, is always good for a few laughs. So is the scene that finds Mary taking refuge behind some shrubbery after accidentally losing her bathrobe on the way home from the dance.
Speaking of Mary, the woman is a goddess. This is simply not open to debate. Who in their right mind doesn’t absolutely love her? “It’s a Wonderful Life” provided Reed with her first starring role and what an astonishing debut it was. She’s such a vision of innocence and purity that she shimmers on the screen.
And she’s no caricature. Reed brings not only heart to the role, but plenty of backbone. Also incredible amounts of heat. The famous telephone scene, where she and Stewart wind up in a passionate embrace, crackles with intense urgency and romantic electricity. It’s one of the sexiest moments in movie history and, yet, not a stitch of clothing is shed.
Then there’s Stewart, delivering what is perhaps the finest performance of his remarkable career. It’s certainly a complete performance – one that requires him to steadily shake off the golly-gee demeanor and evolve into a tortured soul seething with volcanic anger and indignation. When his character is faced with financial ruin late in the story, Stewart must shift again, into a state of utter anguish.
That he does so without any crunching of gears says a lot about the skills of Stewart and the steady hand of Capra. The scenes of George’s downward spiral, bursting as they are with so much raw emotion, plunge the viewer into a palpably gut-wrenching experience that stays with you long after the credits roll. They also significantly temper any saccharine moments that preceded them.
In the years before NBC gained exclusive television rights to the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life” fell into the public domain and became an almost ubiquitous fixture on the airwaves. This was a good-and-bad situation – good because it introduced the film to new generations of viewers and elevated it to the status of holiday heirloom; bad because familiarity breeds contempt.
Now, even some heretofore fans of the movie undoubtedly are sick to death of it. Like an old song that you’ve heard ad nauseam on the radio, it’s pretty easy to tune it out and forget what it was about it that made you love it in the first place.
But that in no way diminishes the fact that there remains very much to love about it – no matter what the joyless, marble-hearted cynics say.
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