It's a Wonderful Life (1947) Reviews

It’s certainly a product of the Forties, although in some ways America hasn’t changed that much. It’s one window on life. There’s of course a bandwagon to slap the Classics on the back, but it is more earnest and elegant than the 49th percentile movie of today, and there is something to be said for that…. 

It’s very grown-up yet very cute, of course. Of course, it’s centered around the familiar: the familiar race & gender, the middle-class-yet-not-rich, the familiar aches and pains about the wealthy, the servant, the familiar sort of hero personality where you endanger yourself through service and lack of self-worth. Of course, it’s also a decent window on some of the ugliness of early 20th-century America—the beatings and the crudeness, for example, even though as the hero you’re supposed to give of yourself and sigh, right. 

I know that must sound very cynical; I suppose that the culturally appropriate thing to do would be to give of myself/silence myself, and write an ad to something-other-than-money, you know. But I don’t see it as a bad movie, you know. I like Greta Gerwig, but I thought this was better than “Barbie”, for example. As a metaphor or something, it had a lot of promise, but it was no metaphor; she was literally a doll; she was a literal doll…. Anyway, Frank Capra ‘47 is good: very grown-up yet very cute…. Don’t knock yourself out, but it’s a very decent movie. 

…. It’s probably one of the better movies of the 1940s, or Old Hollywood comedy-drama/observational comedy movies. Beyond that, it doesn’t make much sense comparing things that aren’t alike, you know. ~Was it better than the Harry Styles Dunkirk movie? Why, funny you should ask. My father died before that movie came out, but he saw it recently as a spectral DVD, and he reported to me in a seance that it left him feeling cold…. 

…. It’s very classical: the shadow is always another person, never ~George Bailey, you know. But it’s a cute old movie. 

…. It almost makes me nostalgic for a world that I’ve never seen or lived in, and never would want to see or live in, you know. 

…. The climax isn’t very naturalistic or satisfying. I don’t mean that there can’t be angels, but it’s very: la la la, life is wonderful, life is won—(looks at watch)—ap, movie’s almost over, (cranks crank and George Bailey’s life improbably falls apart overnight). I mean, he certainly did have scorn for money, and that can wreck your life. No single action that takes place is impossible, but the feel of it is all off. For you to trust your idiot friend to take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (8K 1947 money) to the bank and he just loses the whole kitten caboodle—a lot would have to lead up to that, some kind of simmering insanity, you know. It doesn’t just fall out of a clear blue sky. Frank Capra is funny to watch, but if that was his notion of trouble, he must not have had a very firm grip on things. Very black or white. Dickens or jail, basically. Very strange…. 

It basically just seems to me, very materialistic, in a subtle way—albeit with a few angels thrown in as an afterthought. Certainly religion is a strange thing, and without it Frank is quite cute—but he just seems like a child, knowing very little of the powers of life and death that are out there. 

…. It kind of reminds me of Mr Collins from P&P: I’m an inconsequential nobody, but I’m also the reason why the Jazz Age never happened and everything’s good, you know. (Karen the Psychoanalyst wrote about that kind of person.) 

It’s sort of cute, though. It shows that a culture that has a lot of unresolved issues can be very innocent, in a certain sense of the word…. 

Quite grandiose, though, at the end. “I did a favor for Frank Capra. He was going downhill, but I saved him by loaning him a dime and he never made another mistake after that, and that’s the reason why nobody watches Shadow Knight’s movies and improbable nonsense never happened and it’s all because of me! It’s all because of me! I thought I was just an ordinary slightly-rich-but-not-too-rich white man: it turns out I’m God’s deputy! Hahahaha….” 

Slightly cracked, but cute…. 

Terrible transitions, though; it’s like he didn’t know what they were. He just flipped a switch, you know…. 

(Clarence in heaven eating a cupcake) Ah, that’s perfect: it’s just slightly rich—but not TOO rich…. (leaves the server a nice tip, and smiles as he leaves)