It's a Wonderful Life (1946) * * * *

Directed by:  Frank Capra

Starring:  Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers

The story is simplicity itself.   Our hero, the affable, principled hometown hero George Bailey (Stewart) finds himself standing on a bridge contemplating suicide after a series of misadventures involving his family-owned savings and loan association's money which has disappeared.    This makes the association ripe for a hostile takeover at the hands of the greedy, cheerless Mr. Potter (Barrymore), who has made it his life's mission to get his hands on Bailey's business and be the only money man left in Bedford Falls.   George wishes he was never born, and a novice angel named Clarence (Travers) grants him his wish.  

The final half of the film shows Clarence forlornly taking George on a tour of a Bedford Falls which never heard of George Bailey because he was never born.    Those who benefitted from George's existence are either dead or fallen on hard times, and the town itself has turned into a cesspool of corruption and red light districts (or what passed for those in 1946 movie depictions).   George's adoring wife Mary (Reed) is now a lonely old maid because her husband was not around to fall in love with.    These scenes function like a nightmare, one in which George confronts his friends and family members who have no clue who he is.    His mother thinks he's a crazy man when he says, "It's me, George, your son," and of course, he isn't to her in this sad alternate universe.

It's a Wonderful Life sets up George's relationships with a measured pace, so the impact is more deeply felt when George loses them.    George is not only rich financially, but importantly is rich in love.    He has so many people who love him, yet he still finds himself standing on the edge of the bridge thinking about ending it all.    He has lost sight of what matters most, and it leads him to the darkness.   It's a Wonderful Life contains cheerful sequences meshed brilliantly with those with darker undertones.    The Bailey casting is everything, and Jimmy Stewart is so much the everyman that we are willing to follow him on this perilous journey into his own private hell.

But, is there a subtext to the film which Frank Capra and Stewart, both of whom saw combat action in World War II, saw as a personal reason to make it?    It isn't something which occurred to me previously, but both faced death in the inferno of World War II and came out alive.    It's a Wonderful Life is their message to the world:   No matter how bad you think life is, it is worse not being here for it at all.   Both men faced that possibility every day during the war, and approached their lives with perhaps more gratitude than before.   It's a Wonderful Life is their message, as well as being a classic which holds up over seventy years after its release.    And why not?   Its appeal and moral are universal.   When George runs gleefully down the streets of Bedford Falls after he has regained his love of life, Stewart is perhaps the only actor who could do so without making it corny.    It is just right.   And It's a Wonderful Life earns its happy ending.