Classic? Of its time and out of place, now.

Rating: 4/10 (30 December 2014)

This is on a huge number of people's best films of all time. Sadly, I think that says more about the people than the film. This was a feel-good film made in the aftermath of World War II and is supposed to reference the great depression. We shouldn't expect subtlety from such a morality tale, and truth is the characters are more like those from a Christmas Pantomime than from some carefully crafted, nuanced film plot. So Jimmy Stewart plays the Aladdin/Dick Whittington character, "George" who wants to go off and see the world but instead always does the "right thing" standing by the potentially downtrodden people of Bedford Falls. These, who would otherwise be at the mercy of archetypal villain, "capitalist/banker" Potter. ("Boo"! "Hiss"!) It takes nearly half of the film's two hours plus for George to be pushed into the arms of the pantomime's leading Girl, the saccharine sweet "Mary", by his mother!? The telephone scene in which he finally kisses her is utterly implausible, even risible. No wonder its original audiences and its writers didn't care for it. Then we have the major story arc of "Clarence" the Guardian Angel (= Fairy Godmother), who is trying to earn his wings by saving George from committing suicide (which would have disqualified paying out on his insurance policy). This is why the film is described as re-working of Dicken's Christmas Carol, and they are indeed, fairy-tale morality tales. Scrooge is redeemed, and George is saved from pointlessly topping himself and abandoning his wife and children. Of course there a whole load of holes in the plot line. Just one example; a call to his highly successful younger brother, whose life he saved, would surely have secured a loan to bridge the gap? And the film is misogynistic, sexist and racist: The "world without George" version of the bar in which he originally gets sozzled is just there for "men to get drunk, quick", associate with loose women and has a black guy playing the piano! OK, so Pantomimes are popular at Christmas...