December 15, 2008
An outstanding, peerless film, It's a Wonderful Life is often seen as the icing rather than the cake it really is.
Released back in 1946, it wasn't intended as a Christmas picture. Brought forward from the New Year listings when a Douglas Fairbanks flick was pulled from the Christmas schedule, It's a Wonderful Life failed to match the post-war mood and was only moderately successful. Taking a new lease of life on TV in the 50s and 60s, when its copyright wasn’t renewed, it's been perennially popular ever since. And rightly so.
On Christmas Eve, cash-strapped George Bailey contemplates suicide, convinced he's worth more dead than alive. But an angel's intervention shows him what life would've been like had he never been born. The harrowing-cum-humorous road to redemption is both captivating and moving.
Born out of the ashes of World War II, with Jimmy Stewart and director Frank Capra back from military service, it became Stewart and Capra's favourite of their own films. As a showcase for Stewart's innovative acting technique, it's a movie-masterclass.
Goofy humour, despair, romance and rage all root George Bailey in reality. And Capra's direction - often sent-up as Capracorn - spirals ingeniously from romantic comedy to bleak film noir, hitting the high and low notes with perfection.
Cracking support from the then largely-unknown Donna Reed and the gravitas of Lionel Barrymore, help the town of Bedford Falls spring vividly to life. Not a frame of film is wasted. And scenes of searing honesty from Stewart are miles away from the tinselly glow the movie often has in our memories.
A knife-edge Stewart kicking over the furniture and frightening his family is a heart-stopper: Donna Reed’s reaction makes the moment all the more visceral and Capra’s pacing mercilessly plays out every emotion. Add to this the ear-slapping of a partially deaf kid and the dowsing of a drunkard down-and-out, and It’s a Wonderful Life visits the heart of darkness as much as it celebrates the light of life.
It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the greatest films ever made – a compendium of movies rolled into one, with moments of hilarity, horror and humanity. Made in the heat of the 1946 summer, first shown in the blizzards of a post-war December, it’s a film for all seasons – not just for Christmas.
Released back in 1946, it wasn't intended as a Christmas picture. Brought forward from the New Year listings when a Douglas Fairbanks flick was pulled from the Christmas schedule, It's a Wonderful Life failed to match the post-war mood and was only moderately successful. Taking a new lease of life on TV in the 50s and 60s, when its copyright wasn’t renewed, it's been perennially popular ever since. And rightly so.
On Christmas Eve, cash-strapped George Bailey contemplates suicide, convinced he's worth more dead than alive. But an angel's intervention shows him what life would've been like had he never been born. The harrowing-cum-humorous road to redemption is both captivating and moving.
Born out of the ashes of World War II, with Jimmy Stewart and director Frank Capra back from military service, it became Stewart and Capra's favourite of their own films. As a showcase for Stewart's innovative acting technique, it's a movie-masterclass.
Goofy humour, despair, romance and rage all root George Bailey in reality. And Capra's direction - often sent-up as Capracorn - spirals ingeniously from romantic comedy to bleak film noir, hitting the high and low notes with perfection.
Cracking support from the then largely-unknown Donna Reed and the gravitas of Lionel Barrymore, help the town of Bedford Falls spring vividly to life. Not a frame of film is wasted. And scenes of searing honesty from Stewart are miles away from the tinselly glow the movie often has in our memories.
A knife-edge Stewart kicking over the furniture and frightening his family is a heart-stopper: Donna Reed’s reaction makes the moment all the more visceral and Capra’s pacing mercilessly plays out every emotion. Add to this the ear-slapping of a partially deaf kid and the dowsing of a drunkard down-and-out, and It’s a Wonderful Life visits the heart of darkness as much as it celebrates the light of life.
It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the greatest films ever made – a compendium of movies rolled into one, with moments of hilarity, horror and humanity. Made in the heat of the 1946 summer, first shown in the blizzards of a post-war December, it’s a film for all seasons – not just for Christmas.