hat tip = Sons Of Liberty
The film did not perform well, opening to mixed reviews. Even the FBI would get involved, issuing a statement that the film's portrayal of "scrooge-type" Henry Potter, played by legendary actor Lionel Barrymore, was a plot by Communists to portray bankers as evil figures. The film would eventually (starting in the 80s) become a smashing success thanks to heavy rotation on various TV networks during the holiday season.
It's been speculated that a post-WW2 country was still too raw from so much loss. A ton of other movies doing the same thing - playing on that sense of loss of loved ones - made for tough competition. Reviews raked the film over the coals (probably egged on by the FBI) for its sentimentality. In fact, the New York Times said that the film's illusory concept of life was too fake.
What everyone got wrong was that through his character of George Bailey, US Army Air Force bomber pilot James Stewart was showing us his own struggle with what he'd experienced in the skies over Europe. This was Stewart's first film since coming home from flying bombers into German airspace. Anyone reading this who suffers from PTSD, knows what it's like to be at the proverbial end of your rope - which Jimmy conveys, during George's prayer. And we only recently learned that Stewart was basically ad-libbing lines in that scene at the bar, praying for some sort of hope. Jimmy himself was in so much pain that it reportedly made a lot of the cast and crew uncomfortable to watch his performance. His emotion was raw and real, channeled from the depths of the horrors he'd suppressed. The enormity of the scene, and his unscripted performance, triggered something in Jimmy and his tears during the scene are real, not acting.
Jimmy was the perfect actor to play George Bailey. George is actively suicidal. He's not just some fop, and a foil for everyone else's success story. His whole life has been disappointment after failure after let-down. He's settled for second-best, so that everyone he loves and cares about can go first and claim their prize. When George finally loses it, he's bankrupt and facing prison. He's lost his composure and yelled at his wife and kids. We've spent the first three acts of this movie watching his lifetime of struggle, and now we're seeing him in the throes of crushing defeat. Local bank mogul Henry Potter, who's actively trying to crush George, steals the money that George's Uncle Billy has misplaced, and tells George that his life insurance policy is practically nothing, and that George is worth more dead than alive. George takes this in, and heads out to throw himself off a bridge. It'll take the deus ex machina of an angel from heaven coming down to save him.
But instead of salvation, George goes deeper into his despair. He decides that his present and future aren't worth living. And more than that - his entire past is worthless. He wishes he'd never been born. He feels that everything he's ever done, his entire existence, has been pointless. The world would truly be better off if he had never been born.
IMO, this is where the movie gets really good. This is where George doesn't find redemption, redemption finds him and slaps the life back into him. He finally sees that everything he's ever done, everything that has ever happened or not happened to him, has been absolutely worth it - if not to George, then to someone else whose path has intersected George's. His bum ear, from saving his brother's life, allows his brother to go off to war and become a hero by saving others. His futile struggles against the evil banker Potter and Potter's attempt to dominate the town, a war George felt could never be won because "The Man", saved an entire town from becoming a desolate hellscape of servitude. He encounters his wife, who he swore would have been better off marrying the rich guy and living a life of luxury. But she never loved that guy enough to marry him and decided she was better off a spinster. She was truly happy with George, and that's part of the value that he brought to her life.
George Bailey's tortured, sad, second-place, runner-up existence wasn't a drag on anyone else. George was the greatest gift of all - the guy who held everything together, for everyone. They stood on his back. George was the Atlas who held up the world, so the people in his orbit could achieve something better than what would have been possible without him.
George finally realizes this, and his entire existence does a 180. The press at the time apparently didn't understand that the saccharine hope and joy that serve to end the last act of the movie are because of the rest of the film building up George's own personal tragedy. A tragedy that is masterfully executed by Jimmy Stewart, who brings his own pain to the George character. Go back and watch the scene where George decides to run off and kill himself, where he's in Mr Martini's bar, praying for guidance. Tell me you don't see Stewart's personal pain and emotional turmoil. And then think about how when Clarence (Angel 2nd Class) arrives to answer George's prayers, an otherwise absurd moment feels earned and celebrated due to the authenticity of Stewart's performance.
It's been speculated that a post-WW2 country was still too raw from so much loss. A ton of other movies doing the same thing - playing on that sense of loss of loved ones - made for tough competition. Reviews raked the film over the coals (probably egged on by the FBI) for its sentimentality. In fact, the New York Times said that the film's illusory concept of life was too fake.
What everyone got wrong was that through his character of George Bailey, US Army Air Force bomber pilot James Stewart was showing us his own struggle with what he'd experienced in the skies over Europe. This was Stewart's first film since coming home from flying bombers into German airspace. Anyone reading this who suffers from PTSD, knows what it's like to be at the proverbial end of your rope - which Jimmy conveys, during George's prayer. And we only recently learned that Stewart was basically ad-libbing lines in that scene at the bar, praying for some sort of hope. Jimmy himself was in so much pain that it reportedly made a lot of the cast and crew uncomfortable to watch his performance. His emotion was raw and real, channeled from the depths of the horrors he'd suppressed. The enormity of the scene, and his unscripted performance, triggered something in Jimmy and his tears during the scene are real, not acting.
Jimmy was the perfect actor to play George Bailey. George is actively suicidal. He's not just some fop, and a foil for everyone else's success story. His whole life has been disappointment after failure after let-down. He's settled for second-best, so that everyone he loves and cares about can go first and claim their prize. When George finally loses it, he's bankrupt and facing prison. He's lost his composure and yelled at his wife and kids. We've spent the first three acts of this movie watching his lifetime of struggle, and now we're seeing him in the throes of crushing defeat. Local bank mogul Henry Potter, who's actively trying to crush George, steals the money that George's Uncle Billy has misplaced, and tells George that his life insurance policy is practically nothing, and that George is worth more dead than alive. George takes this in, and heads out to throw himself off a bridge. It'll take the deus ex machina of an angel from heaven coming down to save him.
But instead of salvation, George goes deeper into his despair. He decides that his present and future aren't worth living. And more than that - his entire past is worthless. He wishes he'd never been born. He feels that everything he's ever done, his entire existence, has been pointless. The world would truly be better off if he had never been born.
IMO, this is where the movie gets really good. This is where George doesn't find redemption, redemption finds him and slaps the life back into him. He finally sees that everything he's ever done, everything that has ever happened or not happened to him, has been absolutely worth it - if not to George, then to someone else whose path has intersected George's. His bum ear, from saving his brother's life, allows his brother to go off to war and become a hero by saving others. His futile struggles against the evil banker Potter and Potter's attempt to dominate the town, a war George felt could never be won because "The Man", saved an entire town from becoming a desolate hellscape of servitude. He encounters his wife, who he swore would have been better off marrying the rich guy and living a life of luxury. But she never loved that guy enough to marry him and decided she was better off a spinster. She was truly happy with George, and that's part of the value that he brought to her life.
George Bailey's tortured, sad, second-place, runner-up existence wasn't a drag on anyone else. George was the greatest gift of all - the guy who held everything together, for everyone. They stood on his back. George was the Atlas who held up the world, so the people in his orbit could achieve something better than what would have been possible without him.
George finally realizes this, and his entire existence does a 180. The press at the time apparently didn't understand that the saccharine hope and joy that serve to end the last act of the movie are because of the rest of the film building up George's own personal tragedy. A tragedy that is masterfully executed by Jimmy Stewart, who brings his own pain to the George character. Go back and watch the scene where George decides to run off and kill himself, where he's in Mr Martini's bar, praying for guidance. Tell me you don't see Stewart's personal pain and emotional turmoil. And then think about how when Clarence (Angel 2nd Class) arrives to answer George's prayers, an otherwise absurd moment feels earned and celebrated due to the authenticity of Stewart's performance.
If this movie has so much light and hope, as the press complained at the time, it's not because it exists as some sort of fantasy where the world is filled with nothing but unicorns farting rainbows and bunny rabbits puking up pixie dust. It's because the film fights tooth and nail to scrape every bit of hope from a dark and terrible world. The darkness of George Bailey's life makes the light of a new dawn that much more joyous. But the two don't just play off each other and point up each others' strengths and weaknesses. The movie's hope exists in a man's courage to defy that despair. Its light exists in defiance of that darkness. That's what makes it realistic.
That's what the world needed then, and what it needs now - sometimes we're just too dumb to know it.
So Merry Christmas, everybody - or Chappy Chanukah, or Joyous Kwanzaa, or Happy Holidays, or Sexy Solstice, or whatever it is you say (or don't say) to people this time of year.
May whatever gods you do or don't believe in bless you and yours. Stay safe. Much love to you all.
