It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Directed by Frank Capra. Starring James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Gloria Grahame, Frank Fayden, Todd Karns, Frank Albertson, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, H. B. Warner, Mary Treen, William Edmunds, Charles Williams, Bobbie Anderson, Samuel S. Hinds, Virginia Patton. [PG]

A flop at the time of its release, this Frank Capra Christmas “classic” benefited from a lapsed copyright that resulted in the movie being relentlessly played by local television stations nationwide each holiday until it became a staple. Today, the supremely sentimental story of George Bailey (Stewart), his slow descent from young moon-eyed optimist to post-war suicidal depressive on Christmas Eve, and his redemption through the intervention of Angel Second Class Clarence (Travers), is well-known even to those who haven’t watched the movie in decades (or have never watched it at all). A transcendent film experience for many moviegoers, but too much is delusive and facile, tamely tackling serious subjects in the contrived fashion of bad luck and trumped-up foolhardiness and villainy; it’s a philosophy based on the Capra-corn view of humanity rather than day-to-day reality, which explains why its most effective segment is during Clarence’s Dickensian tour of Pottersville, when fantasy fully takes over, and the triumph of the human spirit and the fundamental value of a man’s life is pushed front and center (but even that stretch is ultimately undercut by bathos). Gets a lot of traction out of Stewart’s stratified gusto and career-turning poignancy (his first role since returning from overseas service in WWII), and although it’s a shallow characterization, Barrymore’s greedy and corrupted Mr. Potter is a consummate movie miser. Steer clear of the colorized versions.

63/100