Artful and Chance-Taking Film; Powerful and Well-Acted; Capra's Best

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2005)

"It's a Wonderful Life"'s storyline stamps it a socialist-Catholic European confrontation between the despised peasant class and their feudal overlords. The additional character to this class warfare, the first of a huge series of downtrodden against the uncaring films, is George Bailey. What stamps him as a democrat are two things--he does not define anything; and he wants to help those "in need"--even though what he actually does as director of a savings and loan is to invest in people he believes in--not for huge financial gain but to affect people's lives positively in the belief that a strong Bedford Falls citizenry living decently will enrich his life in the town and those of all his fellow citizens. His rival in the film, old man Potter, despises the poor and middle class and wants to keep them downtrodden and coming to him as infallible leader, to beg. The other amazing feature of the film is its flashback nature--2/3 of the film dramatizes Bailey's history; only in the last third do we see--through the bumbling agency of Clarence, George's guardian angel sent to help him on Earth--how important George's life had been to those touched by it. This was due to his work as much as to his nature; but I fnd this a difficult, jarring and very effective use of fantasy, especially in such an early film. How George got into trouble is a plot detail; he needs money, and despairs of finding it--leading to the sending of Clarence by the angel's bosses upstairs, whose voices are supplied by Moroni Olsen and Joseph Kearns. The film seems artistic to me from start to finish; its USerized and chance-taking script is also focused, purposeful and frequently very moving. Music by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Joseph Biroc and Joseph Walker complement Frank Capra's very sure direction, in my opinion. The story, adapted from Philip Van Doren Stern's "The Greatest Gift' was written for the screen by Frances Hackett and Albert Goodrich, with additions by director Capra, dialogue by Jo Swerling and Michael Wilson. Art Direction was by Jack Okey, with set decorations by Emile Kuri, costumes by Edward Stevenson. Familiar faces in the minor parts include Marian Carr, Ellen Corby, Almira Sessions, Stanley Andrews, Charles Lane, Sarah Edwards, William Edmunds, Argentina Brunetti, Sheldon Leonard, Mary Treen and Beulah Bondi and Samuel S. Hinds as George's parents. Other showing well include Lionel Barrymore as Potter, Thomas Mitchell as Uncle Billy, H.B. Warner, Ward Bond, Frank Faylen, Donna Reed, Henry Travers as Clarence and Lillian Randolph as the family's black maid. The film belongs to Jimmy Stewart, however; he is always interesting in the film and is given a wide variety of moods and challenges in the piece, from rage to surprise, to persuasion to sympathy to bitter complaint. Apart from the gaps in logic noted, the film has been given a powerful plot line, good acting and a contexted set of scenes that are frequently honest and always well-considered, in my view. Not to be missed nor overrated.