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“It’s a Wonderful Life” entering the public domain and losing its copyright protection is both the best and worst thing that has ever occurred to the film. The movie is no longer protected by copyright, so any television station that can get a hold of a duplicate of it is free to air it as often as they’d like. And as a result, Frank Capra’s long-forgotten movie was rediscovered and elevated into a Christmas ritual over the course of the past ten years. Early in the 1970s, PBS stations were the first to join the trend, using the story of the small-town hero George Bailey as counter-programming to pricey network holiday programs. The audience for the movie grew and grew over the years, becoming so popular that many families now view it as part of a yearly ritual, much to the general surprise of TV program directors.
That brought happiness to the lives of director Frank Capra and actor James Stewart, who both regarded “It’s a Wonderful Life” as their favorite movie. The worst thing is that the movie has been colorized, which prompted Stewart to appear before a congressional committee and Capra to make a dying-bed plea. Public domain movies are so helpless that you could legally chop one up to create ukulele picks without any legal repercussions. Thus, a garishly colored version that distorts the original, iconic black-and-white images has been broadcast on cable, is available for local syndication, and is available for purchase on cassette.
The fact that the colorized version is copyrighted and that so many stations are paying a lot of money for the rights to a movie that they could broadcast for free in black and white is a great irony. Finding out when my rival was going to air his colorized version, I would counter-program with the original black-and-white film, patting myself on the back for doing the community a favor. If I were a local television program director with taste and a passion of movies. Perhaps a video of Jimmy Stewart telling Congress in his inimitable style, “I tried to look at the colorized version, but I had to switch it off because it made me feel sick,” could be used to promote the film.
It’s a Wonderful Life is one of those timeless films that gets better with age, like “Casablanca” or “The Third Man,” which is what makes it so remarkable how well it stands up over time. Even excellent movies shouldn’t be seen more than once. They lose their allure and mystique once we know how they pan out. Other films can be watched as many times as desired. Like excellent music, they get better with repetition. The second group includes “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
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Recently, I watched the film again on the gorgeous video laserdisc version from the Criterion Collection. The movie functions like a strong and fundamental fable, sort of a “Christmas Carol” in reverse: Instead of a mean old man being shown scenes of pleasure, we have a hero who plunges into despair.
Of course, George Bailey (Stewart) is the protagonist; he never quite leaves Bedford Falls, his sleepy hometown. As a young man, he longs to shake the dust from his shoes and visit distant lands, but a variety of obligations keep him at home, particularly his duty to the family savings and loan association, which is the only thing preventing Bedford Falls from falling victim to the avaricious local banker Mr. Potter’s (Lionel Barrymore) greed.
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In addition to settling down to start a family and assisting half the town’s poor residents in purchasing homes so they can raise their own families, George marries his high school sweetheart (Donna Reed, in her first leading part). Then, it appears as though the evil Potter will succeed after all when George’s forgetful relative (Thomas Mitchell) loses some bank funds over the holiday season. Although his face is still nice and pink in the colorized form, George lacks hope and becomes mean. He is depressed and about to commit suicide when Clarence, an Angel of the Second Class (Henry Travers), rescues him and demonstrates what life in Bedford Falls would have been like without him.
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“It’s a Wonderful Life” director Frank Capra never wanted the film to be classified as a “Christmas picture.” It was his first film he produced after serving in World War II, and he wanted it to be special—a tribute of the hopes and aspirations of everyday Americans in America who did their best to treat others well and themselves. It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and You Can’t Take It With You are just a few of the populist parables that helped Capra establish himself as Hollywood’s poet of the common man in the 1930s. Capra later discovered the inspiration for “It’s a Wonderful Life” in a Philip Van Doren Stern story that had been collecting dust on studio shelves.
The film gave Stewart, who had only recently returned to wearing civilian clothing, the opportunity to reunite with Capra, who he had previously worked with when he portrayed Mr. Smith. The movie’s initial trailer, which is included on the Criterion disk, played up Stewart and Donna Reed’s romance while downplaying the film’s message; however, the film was not a box office success and was all but forgotten before the public domain prints started to circulate.
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There is more to “It’s a Wonderful Life” than just a sentimental “message picture.” Some of the earlier scenes, like the slapstick comedy of the high school hop, where the dance floor opens over a swimming pool and Stewart and Reed unintentionally jitterbug right into the water, may be missed because of the impact of the movie’s ending. (This covered pool was not a set but actually existed at Hollywood High School). Additionally, there is the dramatic scene in which George saves his younger sibling from falling through the ice, as well as the one in which Donna Reed loses her bathrobe and Stewart ends up conversing with the bushes. The telephone sequence, in which Reed and Stewart are furious with one another and find themselves compelled to approach one another, is wonderfully romantically charged. As the inebriated George Bailey stumbles through a town he wants to detest, then returns to it with the aid of a kind angel, the darker later passages take on an elemental power. Even the most clichéd parts of the film, like when the heavens discuss George’s destiny while the galaxies wink, work because they are so deceptively straightforward. A more complex strategy might have appeared laborious.
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Frank Capra’s wartime career benefited little from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and he never again achieved the 1930s-era level of box office success. The Capra touch, but not the magic, can be seen in later films like “State of the Union” (1948) and “Pocketful of Miracles” (1961), and the director did not produce another feature after 1961. Yet he stayed healthy and active until a stroke caused him to deteriorate in the late 1980s; he passed away in 1991. He was asked if there were still ways to create movies about the types of values and ideals found in the Capra films during a seminar with some film students in the 1970s.
Well, if there isn’t, we might as well quit up, he said.
For more personality quizzes check this: One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest Quiz.
