FEBRUARY 8, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 1

"Read literature for the pleasure of it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading."

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life was a box-office flop when it opened in New York on December 20th, 1946 and should still be a flop today. Over the last sixty-one years, our country has grown to embrace this film as the Christmas-family movie hybrid. I have never understood why. My family and I didn’t have the special moment in the living room where we looked into each other’s eyes and then imagined a world without Joseph Yeoman.

I don’t like this movie. It’s sappy, relies heavily on weak plot devices, like a god or an angel to tell the story, and ruins strong dramatic moments by forcing the balance of humor and tragedy. At too many points in this film, it goes from being hyper-dramatic, like the scene with George Bailey shaking his uncle, to being very cheesy, when a squirrel jumps on the uncle’s arm and thus destroys the breakdown in George’s character. I saw this film for the first time this winter. It was at a small theater, packed with art school students. At one point in the movie, the audience began ringing bells. I went with my girlfriend, and afterward she tried looking into my eyes while recounting how amazing our life is now. This would have been fine and dandy if we were a family, but since it was a date, the movie forced me to think about having kids.

There are too many reasons to get into about why this movie flopped in its decade, and why it is a must see on or around Christmas (my girlfriend and her family watch it every winter). I admit that I love Jimmy Stewart's performance in it, and there are scenes that can only be described as wonderful. This isn’t enough to persuade me into loving this film. Those who cherish the film out number me, so to clearly look at why the movie has resurged, we need to focus on the 1940s compared to the 1980s, when the movie really became popular.

In 1947, It's a Wonderful Life was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture even though it ranked 26th in total box-office dollars. To be fair it was bad year for movies. The highest grossing was Welcome Stranger with 6.1 million. It’s a Wonderful Life got about half that. From there the copyrights to the movie were passed around until the movie became public domain (free to air on television), because of a clerical error in 1974. Thus, during the 1980s and late 70s, the movie played repeatedly on television during the holiday season, much like A Christmas Story and A Charlie Brown Christmas now.

James Stewart, one of my favorite actors, returned from World War II in 1945, and It’s a Wonderful Life was his first movie since leaving in 1941. In 1944, he became a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot, and started flying combat missions from England. Before going to war, he was Jimmy Stewart, America’s loveable actor. He was the underdog in Mr. Smith goes to Washington, also directed by Frank Capra, and the winner of an Academy Award for Mike Connor in The Philadelphia Story. He made feel-good movies, and was a great actor in them. Then the war hit, and he was gone for five years. He came back as James Stewart, a complete man. What he saw and did during the war changed him. He wasn’t the same feel-good actor of the past.

George Bailey is his first role since returning, and I don’t think America was ready for the new James Stewart. Capra and Stewart team up again this holiday. It should have been a success. People should have been waiting in line to see it. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was received well, and both movies' themes mirror each other. The little guy wins in the end, the corrupt loses, and the community is important. The main difference is the darker side of James Stewart. Audiences weren’t ready to see Mr. Smith try to jump off a bridge, shake an uncle into a scare, or grope Mary while she is on the phone.

George Bailey was the catalyst for some of Stewart’s greatest roles: Det. John Ferguson in Vertigo, Dr. Ben McKenna in The Man Who Knew Too Much, L.B. Jeffries in Rear Window, Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey, and Rupert Cadell in Rope. Future generations, like myself, would be introduced to Stewart after his canon of films had already been established so we don’t already have this predisposition that his characters have to be unflawed heroes. Harvey was my first Jimmy Stewart movie, but I didn’t fall in love with him until I saw Vertigo. In comparison, George Bailey is much softer of a character than John Ferguson.

The rise of Ronald Regan and Conservatism in the 1980s paved the way for the government and the media to focus on looking back to the past on how the present should be judged. This conservative concept is directly mirrored by the George Bailey journey. To find his place in the present, he has to recount the steps he made in the past. As Regan’s ideas on getting back to “classic America” were pushed, in turn so was a core theme in It’s a Wonderful Life. Also, contrary to contemporary belief, Frank Capra was a dedicated Republican.

Out of the ashes of the 1970s and 60s, where the concept of family was greatly remolded, President Regan’s administration sought to redefine the family after the nostalgic 1950s model. The concept of what a good 1950s family should be was modeled after the roaring 20s and consumerism. This family required a strong, working father, stay-at-home mother, and children who should be seen but not heard. In turn, President Regan wanted the American family to revert back to the family of the 1920s, which is the era It’s a Wonderful Life roots its story in.

George wants and breathes to be something grand. He is going to reshape the world. As the plot moves forward, it seems destiny keeps taking him to a fork in the road where he can choose his trip to Europe or family. George, like an honest 20s man, picks family. George risks his life to save his brother, he sacrifices being an architect to run his father’s dream, he misses his honeymoon to supply the town with cash, and he is ready to drown himself to save his uncle’s hide. George is a strong, working 1920s man. His wife stays at home, and takes care of their children. When the children are seen and being heard at the end of the movie, George screams at them. When he comes back from trying to commit suicide, he treats his family with kindness like a good father.

George Bailey is an allegory for how men coming back from WWII are supposed to act. With all of the young GI’s returning in 1946, this wasn’t the kind of man they wanted to represent them. Their fathers, after returning from World War I, started the Lost Generation, and during the roaring 20s spent money in surplus. To plug the growing anxiety of living, the Lost Generation, much like Fitzgerald’s characters in The Great Gatsby, became true capitalists and bought everything. Historically those GI’s, while taking dates out to the movies (1945 was a big year for the box-office), are going to want parties, or Potterville. Why go see a neo-socialist movie that portrays your generation as men who should start a family, care less about money, and help your communities. The themes of the movie didn’t match the values of the public in the 60s or 70s, but the 1980s and early 90s were a perfect match.

The only theme that doesn’t match both eras is the socialistic or communistic undertones throughout the whole film. Bankers are bad, the community over the individual, capitalists aren’t good people, every family should have a home and an opportunity. Those aren’t the laissez-faire fundamentals that Americans think their country is founded on. This film walks a fine line between conservative America and socialistic liberal. In that sense, no wonder why a country, that had just got done fighting a world war for freedom, wouldn’t like their home values to be challenged in a movie.

If this film’s only goal is to make the individual reevaluate their current mindset and think more globally about the cultures they are part of then this movie accomplishes what it set out to do. Frank Capra wanted to make a stimulating piece of art, and I think he did. Honestly, the problem is that the other themes, the plot holes (an angel being a significant character and $800 dollars as the straw that broke the camel’s back), and parts of the presentation get in the way of that core message (the galaxy talking). If it weren’t for the conservative 1980s and television repetition, this movie would still be a flop today instead of “the greatest Christmas story.”