December 25, 2004
Saturday

It’s a Wonderful Life, a 1946 film starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, is one of the most popular movies of all time. Because it focuses on the events of one Christmas Eve in the fictional town of Bedford Falls, it is a holiday classic and is shown endlessly during the Christmas season. The movie is so beloved that it even has its own webring made up of fan sites devoted to it, including one maintained by Karolyn Grimes, the actress who, at six, played ZuZu Bailey, the main character’s youngest child.

Unlike the members of that ring (and most others in the country, it seems), until today I had never seen the movie all the way through from beginning to end. I’d seen parts of it from time to time as I worked in the kitchen on my party preparations, and I’d seen clips of it on talk show segments that featured analysis of its message. My experience of it was like my experience of a lot of “classics” such as Ulysses or The Ring of the Niebelung. I knew a lot about it but I had never experienced it first hand.

I checked it out of the library a few days ago and late this afternoon, after our Christmas dinner was over and my mother-in-law had been returned to her residence, I sat down with a glass of white wine to see what people mean when they call this movie an important cultural experience.

The movie tells the story of George Bailey, a man who has always risen to duty. At twelve he saved his brother’s life in a sledding accident and forestalled a tragedy by intercepting a prescription he knew the distracted druggist had prepared improperly. He postponed college to earn money for that same brother’s education, and then abandoned his plans entirely in order to save the family business, a faltering savings and loan association, after his father’s sudden death. He fends off the takeover advances of an Evil Rich Banker, helps working people get out of tenements and into their own modest homes, and supports some townspeople hurt by the Depression. He marries his high school sweetheart and establishes a picture-perfect family of four children.

But one Christmas Eve he is suddenly faced with a seemingly insurmountable financial loss caused by his uncle’s carelessness. He feels personally responsible for covering the shortage and despairs when it looks as if he can’t, even after begging for help from the Evil Rich Banker. He sinks into despair, believes it would be better if he had never been born, and decides to kill himself. He is saved from this action by an angel who shows him what the world would have been like without him — no brother to grow up into a war hero, no community of neat homes for people who would otherwise have none, no beautiful children to be the hope of the future. George sees the light, understands that he has within himself the capacity to rise to the challenges he faces, and returns home to find that the people who love him are rallying around him.

The movie is everything its adoring fans say it is. It celebrates traditional values and treats important themes such as hope and the need for personal responsibility. But . . .

I didn’t like it. Although I appreciate those values and themes, I thought the presentation was corny and heavy-handed. I was especially put off by the despairing George, who becomes so abusive to his family that I felt frightened and uncomfortable during the scene where he is yelling at the children. Every character was either all good or all bad (and George, of course, was both of those things at once). And I wondered about the loose ends, in particular the disposition of the missing money, which the Evil Rich Banker is concealing under his lap robe as he tells George there is nothing he can do for him. The day is saved for George, but shouldn’t the ERB also be shown getting his comeuppance for his dishonesty? In short, in terms of its emotional impact on me, it’s no Amahl and definitely no Dragnet Christmas episode.

I’m glad I’ve seen the movie in its entirety now. I probably won’t make an effort to see it in full again. I will, however, remember one particular scene that is probably not important to the film’s many fans. When George Bailey once again foregoes his own plans to see the world and instead remains with the family business in Bedford Falls so that his brother can join a new venture, he is shown looking wistfully at a handful of travel brochures which he then discards. Later at the library he runs into Violet Bick, the town temptress who has never let caution or duty get in the way of her personal pleasure. She looks at the books he is carrying and says, “Don’t you ever get tired of just reading about things?”

Thirty years ago I was in the same state of despair that George Bailey faced. I wondered if my life meant anything and was certain that the world would not miss me if I disappeared from it. Something — an angel, somebody’s prayer for me, maybe just dumb luck — stayed my hand and I didn’t just endure the darkness, I prevailed against it.

And I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve been dreaming about Wyoming since I was ten. I’m about to embark on six months of reading about it. And then I’m going.