When You Wish Upon A Star

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2014)

Why should any open-minded open-hearted person want to dis this particular film? The same as with millions of other people it's my favourite Christmas film, and a classic I've always enjoyed for all kinds of wholesome reasons, with a heartwarming moral I know I am and which everyone should be the richer for the experience.
James Stewart has plans to do what he wants to and travel the world but is constantly thwarted with those plans and ends up not going and staying all his life in his crummy little town as a bank manager. His is a long story of self-sacrifice until a crisis is reached and the film veers into a charming and cathartic fantasy. Everyone played their parts perfectly, but Stewart was the essential part: it wouldn't have worked as well without his usual affecting intensity, the gulping emotion he displayed was knockout. The story was an excellent All-American updated retread of Christmas Carol with the moral surely just as decent and incontrovertible. It's worn very well, and I've never needed to watch it with rose-tinted spectacles or an excess of seasonal slush – the first time I saw it UK Channel 4 showed it one July presumably after the copyright had been allowed to lapse in the 80's. On the other hand as the decades have gone by the hype has been ratcheted up to hopefully sell Christmas DVD's, streams etc; there were only about twenty people in the local cinema to see it last night – a ten-day run is probably too much.
I like slushy sentimentality with a strong and timeless moral – that is if it's handled well, as was this lovely little film. Frank Capra, I preferred your It Happened One Night, but thank you for making It's A Wonderful Life and I hope you've got your wings. Money can't buy you love but love sure can buy you money!