Classic, often overlooked, film

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2006)

People think of Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Oz, Godfather, Patton, Sound of Music, even Duck Soup - whatever. They forget this.
This is a witty, sharply written drama, the antithesis of socialism to answer others here, about the triumph of good over evil, of conservative stability and justice over corruption. The entire town, the whole world, has more soul, is better off, with George around to help counter gross misunderstanding and greedy manipulations of the 'the system'.
Potter doesn't believe in people. He doesn't ultimately believe his own rhetoric. But George shares his father's belief that people can better themselves, through hard work, diligence, but with the corruption of 'Potter's rules' removed as a barrier. George represents the American Dream, as always understood. Potter is the oppressive evil that imagines itself to be 'more equal' than everyone else, whether represented as the self-satisfied oligarch or the 'Barbary Coast' decadence of Potterville, with its 'workers slums'. George represents the spirit of self-sacrifice, putting his own dreams aside so that others might thrive, so that 'the system' works for people, and not against them. It's the will of the middle class aspiring not just to home additions, and third cars, but to long-lasting, just and peaceful stability and appreciation of others, shown in so many ways.
But there is bitterness. George does the right thing, but still bears a burden. And when his 'silly Billy' literally hands Potter the bank's cash, George is furious and begins to forget that he is loved and admired for putting his faith in others. The irony is that he succumbs to a host of misunderstandings, himself, which is precisely what his role in the community has tended to cure when it comes to others. At his lowest, he loses faith in them by losing faith in himself. And in that confusion, enter the angel.
Here's the twist on Dicken's A Christmas Carol. And the angel shows how people suffer, not because of a man's life, Scrooge, but if that man never lived, George Bailey. Without the need to retell A Christmas Carol in that way, they could have cut immediately to the party at the house, and the cash, all the credit, but no angel would have 'gotten its wings'.
The Christmas Carol angle is there not just so that George sees that he is loved but so that we see the same in our friends and relatives. The lesson is that even in little things, like the boring life of running some small town savings and loan (cause they still had those), not only might he be better off, but so is everyone who has benefited from being associated with him.
It's no coincidence that such a film, and such a message, is associated with Christmastime.