A brilliantly made film about a truly disgusting character

Rating: 5/10 (19 July 2010)

The James Stewart character is self-centred, obsessed with money, rude, short tempered, and regretfully drawn into his father's business, a housing and loan company favouring working class people by giving them mortgages they can manage, only because he feels obliged to do what his dead father wanted him to do (instead of racing off to Europe to play the university game). He does not manage things well, and is financially wounded (accidentally) by the villain (played by Lionel Barrymore: the dynamics are a lot like You Can't Take it With You, in that sense.)
Failing at everything, he goes to jump off a bridge, is saved from suicide by an angel (not at all clear why heaven wd want to save this dreadful person), continues insanely, declares he wishes he'd never been born, is then thrust into a sort of non-identity existence by the angelic intervenor, finally does his one good deed and is returned to humanity (gratefully, God knows why). Capra! Awful, though very well made. Gets huge approval from Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. I just don't get it. Patrick Watson, Toronto.