Directed by Frank Capra. Starring James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Gloria Grahame G cert, QFT, Belfast; Movies@ Dundrum/Swords, Screen, Dublin; Movies@Gorey, Wexford, 130 min
It behoves the seasonal sceptic to find something unacceptable in It's a Wonderful Life(1946). You could argue that it's not really suitable for young children. This writer remembers shivering in horror at the thing when pale and wee.
Poor old Jimmy Stewart, driven close to suicide, gets propelled into a walking nightmare. His mother, now destitute, slams the door in his face. His brother rots in the ground. A monstrous Scrooge now governs the hitherto charming town.
Something of a slow learner, Jimmy eventually realises that he is walking through a parallel universe in which he was never alive. Ho, ho, ho. Pass the eggnog. Forget that. Pass the gin and the pearl-handled revolver.
Maybe, you might choose to pretend the film argues for an inward-looking, conservative America. True, Lionel Barrymore’s villain is a veritable caricature of the uninhibited capitalist. But the town’s eventual rebellion is rooted in the kind of cosy localism that so appeals to gloss-haired Republican candidates. Shouldn’t they have put Barrymore’s head on a spike and turned the Savings Loan into a Soviet?
Oh, who are we trying to kid? Sixty-six years after its release, Frank Capra’s dark comedy still comes across as the most agreeably manipulative of seasonal fantasies.
As almost everyone is aware, It's a Wonderful Lifewas not a success on release (although it received a best picture Oscar nomination). Given the gloom detailed above, this is not altogether surprising. But it has steadily gained a fanatical following over the succeeding decades.
On reflection, it is the determination to plumb the depths that sets it apart from the holiday pack. Once you’ve suffered all that hell, the happy ending feels well earned.
