Evaluate the Film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. According to the film George Bailey’s empathy filled world is ideal and in every way vastly superior to Potter’s empathy-absent world. Also, compare and contrast the personal happiness of George Bailey versus the personal happiness of Potter. Explain what forces and motivations shape George Bailey and what forces and motivations shape Potter. Finally, how realistic is the film’s portrayal of these two worlds? In answering this question be sure to consider the film in depth and detail (you probably need to watch it at least three times to do a decent job) and also the arguments presented in the Oxford paper. Offer as much depth, detail, analysis and careful reasoning in answering this question as you can.QUESTION TWO: Evaluate the analysis and arguments given in the Oxford paper as best you can. In particular, evaluate, in depth and detail, the claim (defended on pages 11 through 20) that an empathy filled world is, in every way best, not only for the community, but for each and every individual in that community. Also, evaluate in depth and detail, the claim (defended on pages 20 to the end of the paper) that such a world is humanly possible.NOTE: You can watch the film at the Bentley library. You can also try the following two websites, which I believe are free:
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/entertainment/watch/v16470106WCFAJWrJhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-8pu1chaO0Other Options that students have mentioned in the past include: she doesn’t call you come right okay thank you for your consideration you okay[1] If you go to amazon you can purchase it and watch it online for $10. –Matt[2] Here is a link I found for the film, and it’s in color. CassieIf anyone finds a really good website for computer viewing, send the information to me and I will forward to your fellow students!
THE STORY:Below is a scene by scene narration of the film that past students have found very helpful in understanding the film in a deep and critical way. It calls attention to highly significant scenes and highlights especially important moments in the film. So, for those who wish to read it I have included it below.
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It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
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The film's credits are seen in an illustrated storybook of wintry scenes as the pages turn. As the film opens, the setting is the typical, but imaginary American small town of Bedford Falls, somewhere in New York State, identified by a snow-covered welcome sign. It is Christmas Eve. Prayers from friends in Bedford Falls are heard for a man named George Bailey on the verge of suicide. The camera pans over locations in town, identifying where the voices are coming from - Gower Drug Store, Martini's, the local church, one of the homes, Bedford Falls Garage, and George's own home, where his children's voices are heard.
The camera shot dissolves slowly upward into the star-filled, dark night sky where two pulsating galaxies of light come into view. Two heavenly angels are conversing together in the film's otherworldly opening. They have heard the prayers for the film's hero, George Bailey (James Stewart), a man overwhelmed by his problems. Every time one of the heavenly voices speaks, the stars twinkle. In this cosmic fantasy sequence, Angel Joseph tells Angel Franklin that they will appoint a guardian angel for George. But the only angel available is Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), Angel Second Class, a sweet but inept, child-like apprentice angel who hasn't yet earned his wings.
The apprentice is summoned, and portrayed as a streaking star that appears before the brighter angelic stars. Before being dispatched, Clarence is told that George is despondent and considering suicide, "throwing away God's greatest gift," his life - he obviously needs angelic assistance. Clarence is promised that if he does a good job, he will earn his wings. Before Clarence is given a chance to become a full-fledged angel and sent to Earth, the heavenly powers show, in flashback, key events and background on George's life from his boyhood, to provide Clarence with important information about why George is so despairing.
Bedford Falls comes slowly into focus. It is the year 1919 and young native George Bailey (Bobbie Anderson) is 12 years old - born, raised, and educated in Bedford Falls. George and a group of friends are sliding down an icy hill on shovels onto a frozen pond. When his younger kid brother Harry (George Nokes) slides past the safe area and plunges into the freezing water at the end of the icy pond, George jumps in after him and saves him from drowning by forming a human chain, but his heroics cause him to catch a bad cold. From the resulting infection, he goes deaf in his left ear.
In the afternoons, George works at the local drugstore owned by "old man" Mr. Gower (H. B. Warner). Walking to work with his friends, they stand in awe and watch a horse-driven, hearse-like carriage pass by, carrying Mr. Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), "the richest and meanest man" in the county. At the store, he talks with a flirtatious eight year old Violet Bick (Jeanine Anne Roose) who orders candy at the counter and vies for George's attention. Also there is young Mary Hatch (Jean Gale, or Jeanne Gail), the childhood sweetheart he will eventually marry. Mary orders a chocolate sundae, but rejects George's offer of coconuts on top. George tells "brainless" Mary that cocoanuts come from Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, and the Coral Sea. Obviously, he wants to explore and see the world, bragging about being nominated as a member of the National Geographic Society.
When he bends down in front of her, she whispers into his deaf ear, vowing: "George Bailey - I'll love you till the day I die." She already knows that the boastful George is the only man she'll ever love, but he doesn't hear her. While finishing fixing her order, George discovers a recent telegram to druggist Mr. Gower informing him of the tragic death of his son Robert, due to influenza. Distraught over the news and drinking as a result, the despondent Mr. Gower mistakenly mixes a pill prescription containing poisonous cyanide. Gower gives the order to George for an emergency delivery. Although obedient and diligent, George realizes that the prescription is fatal, but he faces a dilemma - should he deliver it? As he leaves the store, Mary is still sitting at the soda fountain counter, watching him as he dashes off. Not knowing what to do, young George spots a sign with the words: "Ask Dad - he knows." Young George runs to his dad Peter Bailey (Samuel Hinds) for advice.
His father is busy in the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan Association building, confronting Potter in his office. George's lovable Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell), (Peter Bailey's brother), known for wearing strings around his fingers to prevent absent-mindedness, prevents George from interrupting, but is called away. George enters his father's office and listens to the conversation between his father and Potter. The contrast between Bailey and Potter is clear - Potter wears black, sits in a wheelchair, and is a "hard-skulled," villainous, miserly banker demanding immediate payments and whose consuming goal in life is to destroy the Building and Loan. And Bailey is a champion and defender of the rights of the little man, refusing to foreclose on the mortgages of families in town. Potter insults Bailey: "Are you running a business or a charity ward?" and young George stands up and comes to his father's defense when Potter calls him a failure.
His father rushes him out of the office without giving him a chance to ask about the pills. George returns to the store with the undelivered capsules. Before learning of the mistake, Mr. Gower angrily slaps George's sore ear for disobediently not delivering the order, although the boy describes the druggist's error: "You put something wrong in those capsules. It wasn't your fault, Mr. Gower." When the old man tests the pills and learns the truth, he breaks down and tearfully embraces George, profusely begging him for forgiveness. George promises never to tell anyone about the mistake.
The film moves ahead to the summer of 1928. George has grown up into adulthood and as a young man, he finally has his chance to get out of tiny Bedford Falls before entering college. He is about to leave for Europe on an exotic trip aboard an ocean freighter to see the world. He is in a local luggage and bags store purchasing a suitcase. With his hands outstretched, the moving image of George is suddenly stopped on the screen by the angels, as they inspect and comment upon it. When the flashback continues, George insists that his suitcase must be big enough "for a thousand and one nights with plenty of room here for labels from Italy and Baghdad...." He is presented with a second-hand bag with his name inscribed on it, a present from his ex-boss Mr. Gower.
On the streets of town, townspeople kid with him about his upcoming trip. With friends Ernie (Frank Faylen), the taxi driver, and Bert (Ward Bond), the cop [it has been hypothesized that the names for the Bert and Ernie characters on
Sesame Streetwere taken from this film], he calls himself "a rich tourist" and asks to be driven home in style. Just then, George sees another childhood friend, Violet (Gloria Grahame), the town flirt. He compliments her on her summer dress, but she shrugs coquettishly and walks away wiggling her hips, stopping traffic and getting them all to crank their gaze in her direction.
George spends his last night - the evening of brother Harry's (Todd Karns) high school graduation, with his parents for "his last meal" at the Bailey home. Behind his father on the wall are George's framed butterfly collection. His father tells him that Potter, on the board of directors, continues to harrass them. George calls Potter a "money-grubbing buzzard," although Mr. Bailey excuses Potter's miserliness as a sickness of his mind and soul. George has spent four years since his high school graduation working for his father at the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan Association. George has "it all figured out." His younger brother Harry is to take his place at the Bailey Company for four years while he goes off to college. Mr. Bailey sounds out his "born older" son George about what he wants to do in his future. George boasts about his plans: "Oh well, you know what I've always talked about. Build things. Design new buildings. Plan modern cities."
Mr. Bailey also asks about his son's feelings about taking over the Building and Loan. Exuberant about leaving Bedford Falls and traveling in his future, George declines his father's offer to return back home after college to take over the business: "I-I couldn't face being cooped up for the rest of my life in a shabby little office....I'd go crazy. I -, I want to do something big, something important." His father defends the importance of their business, sacrificing his entire life to altruistically help depositors in his bank and his family: "It's deep in the race for a man to want his own roof, walls, and fireplace. And we're helping him get those things in our 'shabby little office.'" George doesn't wish to demean his father's work, but explains that he wants to get away and achieve financial/worldly success: "I just feel like if I didn't get away, I'd bust." His empathic father demonstrates his understanding.
At Harry's 1928 high-school graduation party, George is heartily greeted by old friends including Sam Wainwright (Frank Albertson), a recent college graduate. Sam is known for prefacing conversations with "Hee Haw" and pretending to have floppy donkey ears. Violet approaches and offers her dance card to George: "What am I bid?" But George slights Violet when he is interrupted by Mary Hatch's brother Marty Hatch (Harold Landon) - they are all together again for old home week. Marty suggests that George dance with his "kid sister Mary" to give her "the thrill of her life." Violet reacts with mock surprise as George turns to look for Mary. His tall figure makes its way through the crowd to find her.
When he sees the grown-up 18 year-old Mary (Donna Reed), the first time they have met since they were childhood friends, she looks exquisitely beautiful in a close-up and he is visibly impressed with her. Although Mary is listening to an obnoxious suitor named Freddie (Carl Switzer,
Our Gang's'Alfalfa') tell her a boring story about an experience he has had, she immediately turns away and shows an interest and fondness for George. He takes her away from her partner and they go off dancing together after George tells Freddie off.
Beginning a heart-warming set of dreamlike sequences, George courts his childhood sweetheart and their love grows. At the party, they enter a Charleston dance contest, while unbeknownst to them, the jealous rival Freddie plots his revenge with a prank. With the turn of a key and the push of a button, the gym dance floor is opened up, revealing a swimming pool underneath. When the floor separates beneath them, they are so carried away with their hectic Charleston dancing that they don't notice - and they plunge backwards into the pool. Soon, everyone joins them in the water, including the school principal.
George and Mary walk home together, returning from the high school dance after falling in the pool and soaking their party clothes. They wear a hastily-thrown together weird assortment of borrowed clothes - George a tight #3 football jersey and Mary a long, loose-fitting bathrobe. They sing an off-key duet of "Buffalo Gals" under the light of a new moon. Then, he sweet-talks her, calling his eighteen year-old date "the prettiest girl in town" while distancing himself slightly.
On their way home while strolling along the street, they pause in front of the old deserted Granville house, and the gawky George accidentally steps on her bathrobe belt, the pretended "train" of her dress. She stops so that they can pretend a chivalrous encounter in a dramatic game. As a courtly lady, she extends her hand for a kiss from her courtier. He approaches closer to her, intending to give her a real kiss, but she coyly and slowly turns away from him. Playful, she walks away and continues to sing "Buffalo Gals."
George threatens to hurl a rock through one of the Granville house windows. He wants to make a wish - one that will only come true if he breaks a window. Mary wishes he wouldn't and confesses that she'd like to live in that old abandoned house - a prophetic wish: "I love that old house...It's full of romance, that old place. I'd like to live in it." He throws a rock and his aim is accurate - he breaks a window on the second floor. But then, he loudly describes his "whole hatful" of wishes to see the world and build magnificent buildings:
I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Coliseum. Then, I'm comin' back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I'm gonna build things. I'm gonna build airfields, I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I'm gonna build bridges a mile long...
Mary interrupts George by picking up a rock (unnoticed at first by self-centered George) and silently makes a wish of her own. [Her wish, learned later, is to live with George someday in the Granville house.] Following George's example, she throws it through another window - and seals their fate. George curiously asks about her wish. For a second time, she replies with a sly smile as her answer, and then turns and continues down the street singing "Buffalo Gals." She explains that if she tells him her wish for the future, it wouldn't come true.
George asks about her deepest wishes and then offers her a poetic, imaginative fantasy about lasso-ing the moon and bringing it down to Earth so that she can eat it - it's almost a marriage proposal:
What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You-you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon...Well, then you could swallow it. And it'll all dissolve, see. And the moon beams that shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair...Am I talking too much?
A bald, overweight neighbor (Dick Elliott) on a nearby back porch hears their romantic, non-sensical conversation and challenges George to do less talking and try more romantic action: "Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?" Just then, George inadvertently steps on Mary's bathrobe again and she accidentally loses it. She jumps into the hydrangea bushes to hide. Aroused by her predicament, he hesitates to throw her robe to her and teases her in a good-natured way, calling it "a very interesting situation." Mary begs for her robe back as he circles the bush with the bathrobe in his hands.
George's imaginative and harmonious contemplation of possibilities with Mary is interrupted when a car roars up the street with Harry and Uncle Billy. He abruptly leaves after receiving the tragic news that his father has had a stroke. The beautiful harmony of their mutual attraction is shattered. The last shot of the scene is a long, sustained close-up of Mary (with a mixed expression of sadness, concern and disappointment). She watches the car drive off. Mr. Bailey death means that George's dream of traveling abroad to Europe for the summer before college is short-circuited. He must handle the affairs of his father's business in the few months following his father's death.
In a meeting of the board of the Bailey Building and Loan Company that gathers to vote on its future and to choose a successor to Mr. Bailey, George listens to Mr. Potter (one of the board members) present a motion to dissolve the Building and Loan Association in a bold-faced attempt to shut it down. Although Potter calls George's father "a man of high ideals," he criticizes Peter Bailey's business sense - he's "not a business man - that's what killed him," maintaining that the company was always a losing proposition. The crotchety old Potter believes that the loan policies of the company only produce: "a discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class." Potter complains about a few idealistic, "starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey (who) stir 'em up and fill their head with a lot of impossible ideas." George delivers an inspired address in defense of his father's character, fighting selfishness and deceitfulness with honesty and decency. He speaks for the hard-working people of the town, and the way his father made them all better citizens and customers:
Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about. They do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book, he died a much richer man than you'll ever be.
George is committed to keeping alive the company as the only alternative to allowing Bedford Falls to fall completely under the ownership of greedy and unscrupulous Mr. Potter - the only source for borrowing money. "This town needs this measly, one-horse institution if only to have someplace where people can come without crawling to Potter."
Potter calls George's ideals "sentimental hogwash." The board votes not to sell out to Potter but to keep the Bailey Building and Loan Company under one condition - if George is kept in charge as Executive Secretary to succeed his father. When they suggest that absent-minded Uncle Billy run the company - an unworkable alternative, George realizes his opportunities to go to college and study architecture are closing down, crying: "This is my last chance." But then, he again agrees to sacrifice and sidetrack his personal dreams as a victim of circumstance. He will remain in Bedford Falls to operate the company, inherit the responsibilities of running the loan company, and instead send his younger brother to college, using his own college savings.
Over the next four years, George manages the company while his brother attends college in his place. When Harry graduates from college in 1932, he is to come back to Bedford Falls and run the family business. At the train station, George waits with Uncle Billy for his brother to return from college for the last time - while eagerly clutching travel brochures to Venezuela and the Yukon in his hands. He believes that he can finally be replaced at the company by his brother and turn over the management to Harry - he can, at last, leave Bedford Falls. As the approaching train whistle sounds, George explains the three most exciting sounds in the world:
Anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles.
The two brothers greet each other with overlapping lines when Harry bounds off the train. Unexpectedly, Harry is accompanied by his new bride Ruth (Virginia Patton), and George learns of Harry's promise of profitable work (out of town) in the research business for his father-in-law's glass factory in Buffalo. In a close-up of George's despairing, frustrated and dispirited face, he suddenly falls silent, realizing that he is doomed to stay in town. George is left alone as Harry returns to the train for his luggage. His dreams of escape and adventure are dashed, but he keeps his bitterness and discouragement to himself.
The Story (continued)The Baileys celebrate his brother's marriage in a family reunion at the Bailey house that evening. After a family photograph is taken outside the Bailey home, everyone moves inside except George and Uncle Billy. When Uncle Billy staggers down the street, George is left alone outside. He looks back through the porch screen door, noticing his mother, Harry, and Ruth getting acquainted. Having a smoke while he paces around the walk a bit, George hears the distant sound of a departing train whistle and abruptly looks up. Earlier he had said it was one of his three most exciting sounds. The sound symbolizes his hopes and dreams fading away forever. Noticing his travel brochures sticking out of his coat pocket, he discards them in disgust. Now that his brother is happily married, his sweet-natured mother (Beulah Bondi) tells George that local girl Mary Hatch has just returned to town after finishing college and he should call on her: "Nice girl, Mary...she lights up like a firefly whenever you're around."
After leaving the party at his home, he decides to go downtown, avoiding walking by Mary's house. On a downtown street with many bystanders, he runs into Violet who is willing to be his date. She wonders about his bookwormish tendencies. He suggests an imaginative plan for the evening, spinning another poetic, wild fantasy about fleeing from society into Mt. Bedford to take off their shoes, walk in the grass barefooted, swim in the falls, and climb high up to watch the sun rise: "There'll be a terrific scandal..." Violet is scared off and amazed that he would ask her to do something so impossible and uncomfortable. She believes George is a bit crazy and the townspeople publicly ridicule him and laugh in amusement.
He continues to wander through town and ends up half-intentionally passing by the front of Mary's house. After inviting him in from an upstairs window, and George mutters to himself: "I went for a walk, that's all," he finds himself in an uncomfortable encounter - conned into being an unwilling suitor by his match-making mother. (She had called earlier to alert her and announce his arrival.) Before he enters and joins her in the parlor, Mary has already changed into a lovely dress and fixed her hair. She has also prepared a nostalgic reunion for the two of them, recalling their walk together four years earlier and showing a romantic interest. She has remained true to her youthful vow whispered in the drug store.
In the parlor, she prominently props up and displays a hand-sewn needlepoint portrait titled "George Lassos the Moon" depicting a cartoon figure throwing a cowboy's lasso around the moon and pulling it toward earth, and she plays a recording of "Buffalo Gals" on the phonograph player. He saunters disdainfully up the front walk as she waits at the door, expressing his reluctance: "I didn't tell anybody I was comin' over here, ya know." Unthinkingly, he asks why she didn't go back to New York like her friends Sam and Angie. To his consternation, she explains how she was homesick for Bedford Falls after working in New York for a few vacations. With a surly, rude, and belligerent attitude, he notices her portrait in the parlor and calls it "some joke, huh." Noticing that he is discontented about everything, Mary attempts to suggest a topic of conversation by bringing up an exploratory question on his feelings about marriage.
Mary's meddlesome mother interrupts their already-strained conversation, asking: "George Bailey? What's he want?" To aggravate her mother, Mary exaggerates what they're doing: "He's making violent love to me, mother." She encourages her daughter to send George on his way, because she expects a phone call from potential fiancee Sam Wainwright in New York. After arguing and yelling at each other, George storms off: "I don't know why I came here in the first place."
Upset over their awkward encounter and faded dreams, Mary smashes the record of "Buffalo Gals." Exhausted after trying to be loving and patient with George, Mary answers the phone and speaks to Sam - with his familiar "Hee Haw" greeting. Because George has momentarily returned to retrieve his forgotten hat, she is able to let George know that mutual friend Sam is on the phone, making George slightly jealous. Sam asks Mary if he could speak to George Bailey - "an old friend." She disobeys her mother's wishes by sharing the phone with George.
The phone conversation sequence has some of the most unforgettable moments of the film. They share the same earpiece extension, listening and talking on the same phone. Although the doorway to the parlor slices through the frame, symbolizing the distance between the two of them, they are squeezed together. George is very conscious of her being close to him, and resists his close proximity to her. He is romantically attracted and cannot deny that he loves her, but such an admission would mean remaining in Bedford Falls, where he has been forced to stay against his will and give up his other dreams.
In a long closeup of them ear to ear, they listen to Sam who asks if George is stealing his gal. Mary is unable to go to a different extension, because her mother listens in on the upstairs extension. Sam offers George a 'get-rich-quick' job in his new business, telling him of the bright future in plastics. But Sam wonders if George is available, cheerfully mocking him: "I may have a job for you, that is, unless you're still married to that broken-down building and loan. Ha, ha, ha. It's the biggest thing since radio and I'm lettin' you in on the ground floor." All the while, George squirms and tries to contain himself, standing so close that he can smell Mary's hair.
Sam tells Mary to encourage George with the offer:
Will you tell that guy I'm giving him the chance of a lifetime? You hear - the chance of a lifetime.
She looks upward at him and with her lips almost on his lips reinforces what Sam has said in a whisper, but she is almost unable to say the words:
He says it's the chance of a lifetime.
The phone suddenly drops to the floor, and instead of grabbing and embracing Mary with a kiss, George holds her fiercely by the shoulders and violently starts shaking her, passionately protesting that he doesn't want to get married:
Now, you listen to me! I don't want any plastics, and I don't want any ground floors, and I don't want to get married - ever - to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do. And you're...and you're...
Then he runs out of words. She responds by crying helplessly, silently, and then George all of a sudden reverses himself and pulls Mary to himself in a fierce embrace. George overcomes his resistance to her and starts to kiss her, passionately, all over her face, holding her intensely. Their undeclared love for each other overwhelms both of them. Mary's mother turns from her eavesdropping on the stairway, running away shocked.
After a quick cut, the next scene is in the hallway of the Bailey house and the sound of the Wedding March. Mary and George appear at the top of the stairs in traveling clothes - married! At long last, they are about to embark on a honeymoon trip as a married couple, to be taken by Ernie's taxi to the train station. Ernie presents them with a gift of a bottle of champagne sent over by Bert the cop, relating Bert's good wishes. They kiss in the back seat, and show Ernie a wad of bills that they plan to use for a post-wedding trip to New York and Bermuda. The start of their honeymoon is dampened by rain - as they look through the rain-spattered rear taxi window, they notice something funny going on at the bank. The worried townspeople race toward the town's bank and to the Building and Loan to withdraw all their funds - in a bank run that will threaten the town's financial security.
Despite Mary's pleading with George to not interrupt their trip, George gets out of the taxi. Once again, George cannot leave his townspeople in a time of crisis. In the rain, he hurries to the Building and Loan. Echoing earlier shots in the film, Mary, in another expressively effective close-up, looks out the rain-streaked cab window as he dashes off. He finds the iron gate on the doors has been locked, creating a mob scene outside on the street. George unlocks the gate, unleashing the torrent of citizens into the association's lobby, where he finds Uncle Billy calming his nerves with a swig of alcohol. Billy proclaims in an agitated manner: "This is a pickle, George. This is a pickle." The crisis has obviously been fomented by Potter - the bank had called in their loan and Billy, in a panic, handed over all their cash and closed the loan company. George is flabbergasted: "Holy Mackeral." They have very little cash left on hand to distribute to all the townspeople who demand to withdraw their money immediately.
Meanwhile, Potter has already seized control of the bank during the crisis, and calls George to disingenuously help him during the crisis. Potter suggests that George tell the people to bring their shares to him and he will pay 50 cents on the dollar. Faced with tremendous pressure and confusion, George looks at the portrait of his father and a motto on the wall for courage: "All you can take with you is that which you've given away." He realizes he must appeal to the crowd to allay their fears. George appeals to the townspeople to understand that things aren't as black as they appear, just as sirens scream by outside. He explains to his depositors that they are all in this together - that their money is tied up in their neighbors' houses as an investment. Without the Building and Loan, they would all be at the mercy of Potter, who cares little for them, and would offer cash for their shares at half-price during the panic. George pleads with the people to not sell their shares to Potter at half their value: "Don't you see what's happening? Potter isn't selling. Potter's buying!"
Mary holds up the money that belongs to them, offering their $2,000 in honeymoon money to bolster the dwindling assets and satisfy the depositors, to tide them over until the bank reopens in a week. George sacrifices and throws away his last chance to leave Bedford Falls. The townspeople, although still fearful, trust in George's honesty and agree to withdraw only what they need to last the week. The fourth person in line meekly asks for $17.50. George leans over the counter and kisses the woman on the cheek, in gratitude. At the end of the day when the building and loan closes at 6 pm and they are left with only two dollars, George toasts the successful halt of the bank run: "A toast! A toast to Mama Dollar and to Papa Dollar..." George, Uncle Billy, Cousin Eustace (Charles Williams), and Cousin Tilly (Mary Treen) joyfully prance around the room, celebrating the survival of the Loan company.
Forgetting that it is his honeymoon day, George receives an unexpected call from the newly-wed "Mrs. Bailey" and is informed that they have moved in at 320 Sycamore, the address of the old, abandoned and dilapidated Granville place where he had earlier resolved to Mary that he would shake off the dust of the town. Outside in the rain, Bert is sorting through travel posters to provide decor and atmosphere for their honeymoon which must now be celebrated in town. George is greeted at the door (with a sign "Bridal Suite") and ushered in, discovering that Mary has improvised an imaginative honeymoon composed of a romantic candlelight dinner in a house with a leaky ceiling and crumbling plaster. The outside of the windows have been plastered with travel posters to erase the reality that their trip to Bermuda was cancelled. The window posters advertise sunny Florida and Hawaii, and a South Seas poster hangs inside on the wall.
Standing in front of the beautifully-set dining table, with a chicken rotating on a primitive spit in the fireplace (attached to a rotating gramophone playing Hawaiian music), Mary sweetly greets him. While they kiss, they are serenaded outdoors by Ernie and Bert. Emotionally sentimental, Mary thinks back to her secret, silent wish years earlier while they embrace: "Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for." Then, when Bert and Ernie have finished their song, Ernie kisses Bert on the forehead.
George and Mary generously help one Italian family, the Martinis, move into their new home in Bailey Park, where four-room frame houses have been constructed for immigrant families. Mary and George offer a brief speech at the Martinis' doorstep during a housewarming party, symbolically holding up a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a box of salt:
Bread - that this house may never know hunger.
Salt - that life may always have flavor.
Wine - that joy and prosperity may reign forever.
Over the years, George has built a housing development named Bailey Park with dozens of pretty homes. Potter is told how George's establishment threatens his own business, and he reacts with disgust: "The Bailey family's been a boil on my neck long enough." George's generosity toward the local townspeople makes prospects look dim and cash flow is low, but he is the best-liked man in town. In a contrasting scene, George compares his life to that of friend Sam Wainwright, a successful plastic business entrepreneur, who stops in town in his fancy car on his way to a sunny Florida vacation with his wife. Envious of Sam's success (wealth, glamour, and travel), George pauses with Mary as Sam drives away, jams his hands in his pockets, and then kicks shut the door of his own old car.
Unbelievably, George is summoned into Potter's office, congratulated for beating him, and offered a job to manage Potter's affairs and run his properties - with a starting salary of $20,000 a year. George drops his cigar in shock - this would mean living in the nicest house in town, fine clothes for Mary, business trips or vacations to New York, maybe even Europe. George wonders about the fate of the Building and Loan, and then asks for 24 hours to think it over. When he stands and shakes Potter's hand and is almost ready to accept, he suddenly comes to his senses, realizing that he cannot do business with Potter. He looks down at his hand, draws it away, stares at it, and then slowly wipes it off on his clothing. George emphatically refuses the offer:
I don't need 24 hours. I don't have to talk to anybody. I know right now, and the answer's no. No! Doggone it! You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money! Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter! In the, in the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider!
George's words come back to haunt him in his memory, as he enters his bedroom where Mary is sleeping. He glances at Mary's needlepoint creation that hangs on the wall of their bedroom, and is once again flooded with intense memories of his failed, imaginative bravado. Shameful and full of self-reproach, he feels dismayed that he has never been able to take Mary traveling for adventure and romance like he had always promised. He had wanted to leave his small hometown and see the world, but instead presides over his family-owned building and loan, always struggling with his nose to the grindstone and never seeming to get ahead. He wonders why Mary has remained so loyal to him. She surprises him by hinting: "I want my baby to look like you!" Comically, she uses the metaphor of the needlepoint and announces that she is "on the nest" (pregnant and soon to 'Hatch' their first child) and that "George Bailey lassos Stork!"
In a montage of George and Mary's passing years of life in Bedford Falls, Angel Joseph brings Clarence up to date. A devoted wife and mother, Mary first has a baby boy, and then a girl. She cares for the children and spends her days making the Granville house into a home, painting and wallpapering walls. George continues his daily struggle to keep the building and loan going, often returning home late after work. [In the first of three instances in the film, George grabs the railing post ball at the bottom of the stairs. It comes off in his hands and he replaces it in its hole.]
During World War II on the homefront, Mary had two more babies, but still found time to run the USO. Sam Wainwright makes a fortune in plastic hoods for planes. Potter becomes head of the draft board. Mr. Gower and Uncle Billy sell war bonds. Ernie, Bert, and George's brother Harry go off to war. During the war effort, Harry is a navy fighter pilot whose heroics save a transport ship full of soldiers. George is rejected by the draft board as 4F due to his bad ear. On the homefront, he fights the "battle of Bedford Falls," acting as a whistle-blowing air raid warden (although he sputters into thin air when he forgets to put the whistle in his mouth). He also leads the paper and scrap-rubber drives.
On Christmas Eve in 1945, Harry is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by the President at the White House. Harry's story is boldly displayed on the front page of the Bedford Falls newspaper: "PRESIDENT DECORATES HARRY BAILEY." That morning from Washington, Harry phones George in his office. Harry's family and friends in Bedford Falls plan for a home-coming to celebrate his native-son fame.
George's partner Uncle Billy is in the bank about to deposit $8,000 in building and loan funds. Unfortunately, while gloating to Potter about Harry's bravery in the war, he absent-mindedly and unknowingly wraps the money in the newspaper he is holding, and passes it to Potter. In his office, Potter discovers the money and keeps it for himself - obsessed with the idea of owning the town and running the Baileys out of business. Potter silently watches from his office's cracked door as Billy frantically searches for the money. Returning to the loan company, Billy wildly searches through piles of papers in his office. At the same time, Violet has come to ask George for a loan to help her start her life over in New York. True to his generous nature, George assists her after which she tells him: "I'm glad I know you, George Bailey."
Behind the closed door of Uncle Billy's office, George hears Billy's confession - that he has accidentally and carelessly lost the money. George searches in the obvious places in the office, and then races through the snow, hatless and coatless, retracing Uncle Billy's path in a vain attempt to find the cash. He panics when he realizes Uncle Billy's stupidity, becoming enraged with him and slapping him around: "Where's that money? Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison. That's what it means. One of us is going to jail. Well, it's not gonna be me!"
George is thoroughly depressed and disheartened by the catastrophes of the day. Fearing disgrace, he wanders home, ready to give up, and on the verge of possible financial ruin. As he enters into a Christmas-tree decorated living room, he is thoroughly distracted, disturbed and disoriented. His daughter Janie practices
Hark the Herald Angels Singon the family piano. Mary decorates the Christmas tree with the older son. As a fear-stricken George tearfully clutches his son Tommy to his chest and kisses him, he ignores his wife and other children. Mary happens to notice George's private display of emotion, self-absorbed with thoughts of scandal and prison. In an extreme close-up, Mary senses something is wrong, as his little boy decorates his head with tinsel. The tinny-sound of the Christmas song played by his daughter (offscreen) causes George to scream at her in frustration. The family turns toward him, shocked that he has shown such an uncharacteristic cruelty toward them with his tongue-lashing. It is the Christmas season, but he feels no love or the spirit of giving, uninterested in the party being planned for that evening. George sarcastically calls his hectic day "another big red-letter day for the Baileys."
And then George finds that his little girl Zuzu (Karolyn Grimes) is sick with a cold, caught while walking home with her coat unbuttoned so she could protect the rose she had won in school. George feels everything is a burden, blaming his daughter's cold on the old Granville house: "This drafty old barn! Might as well be living in a refrigerator! Why did we have to live here in the first place and stay around this measly, crummy old town?...Everything's wrong. You call this a happy family? Why do we have to have all these kids?" His son asks for help with his homework: "Dad, how do you spell frankincense?" George unwillingly snaps back: "I don't know. Ask your mother."
George leaves the kitchen and goes upstairs to see Zuzu. Another annoyance occurs to him on the way upstairs - he grabs onto the ball post at the bottom of the stairway railing and it comes off in his hand. With a crazed look on his face, he is ready to heave it away in anger, but he restrains himself and recovers enough to replace it. Mary supplies the spelling for the word for her son in the kitchen: "F - R - A - N - K - I - N ..." and she senses that George is seriously upset.
In a tender but sad scene at sick Zuzu's bedside, Zuzu greets her daddy and shows him the flower she has won. When the petals fall off her flower, she hands them to her father to paste back on. Unable to fix the flower, he turns away and pretends to, but he actually puts the loose rose petals in his pocket. Back downstairs, George shouts into the phone to Mrs. Welch, Zuzu's school teacher, blaming her for Zuzu's illness, calling her stupid, silly, and careless. George also turns on Mr. Welch, and physically threatens him to a fight. When his son asks for another spelling, this time of "Hallelujah," George angrily complains at his children and kicks over a table with models, drawings, and architectural blueprints of bridges and buildings that he has been working on and dreaming about - the profession he was forced to abandon. Self-destructively, he throws things wildly about and then turns to see his kids and wife looking at him with tears in their eyes. He catches himself and apologizes to them for his outburst, but he has frightened and scared them with his violent and bizarre behavior. Mary asks: "Why must you torture the children? Why don't you...?" George leaves his home, while Mary calls Uncle Billy, and the children offer prayers for their troubled father.
George turns to the scrooge-like banker Potter for an $8,000 loan, sitting in a low-bottomed chair in front of Potter. Potter taunts him, suggesting embezzlement, misappropriation of funds or womanizing. He pompously tells George: "Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You were going to go out and conquer the world! You once called me a warped, frustrated, old man. What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk, crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help." Potter refuses to help him, mentioning that George, with a $15,000 life insurance policy, is "worth more dead than alive." Potter threatens to call the authorities.
In one of the darkest sections of the film, George wanders out - on Christmas Eve - into the dark night, heading for Martini's Italian restaurant and bar. Seated at the bar, he drinks heavily and utters a prayer for help that is heard up above: "Dear Father, I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I'm at the end of my rope. Show me the way, oh God." The bartender Nick (Sheldon Leonard) and Mr. Martini are worried about his heavy drinking. Near him at the bar is Mr. Welch (Stanley Andrews), husband of Zuzu's school teacher. He angrily punches George in the mouth, and explains how his wife cried for an hour after George screamed at her on the phone. In defense of George, Martini throws Mr. Welch out of the bar. Sporting a bloody lip, George mumbles cynically: "That's what you get for praying." He interprets the sock in the mouth as the only answer to his prayer. He reaches for his insurance policy in his coat pocket, convinced that his suicide will be the best solution for everyone.
In a memorable scene, George despondently wanders outside into the dark, snowy night and gets in his car. He drunkenly crashes his car into a tree, abandoning it to go on foot. Stumbling into the path of an oncoming truck in the snowstorm, he heads for the river and stands in the middle of the town bridge looking into the icy river. During these hard times, he loses faith in life itself and is on the verge of suicide.
Before he jumps to his death, an odd, elderly stranger (his guardian angel Clarence) hurtles himself into the swirling icy water. He flounders and calls out for help from below, forcing himself to be rescued by George. George instinctively jumps in after him, forgetting for a moment that he had been contemplating killing himself just seconds before. They are both pulled from the water by the tollhouse keeper, who takes them into the tollhouse to dry off. They hang their wet clothes on a line strung in the room, and the stranger also dries off his favorite book,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Wearing funny underwear, the odd fellow claims he purposely jumped in to save George's life. He also claims that suicide is not permitted where he comes from - heaven. George thinks things are in reverse. The stranger calmly explains why he jumped in: "I knew if I were drowning, you would try to save me. And you see, you did. And that's how I saved you." The old man claims to be the answer to George's prayer rather than the bloody lip. Finally, the guardian angel introduces himself as Clarence Oddbody, AS2 (Angel Second Class). The bridgetender falls from his chair, thinking they are both crazy and rushes outside to escape from their company. George asks why he was sent to save him and berates his heavenly messenger:
Well, you look about like the kind of angel I'd get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren't you? What happened to your wings?
Clarence explains that he doesn't have them yet, but is attempting to earn them.
The apprentice angel reminds George how much he has really accomplished in life, but George isn't convinced. Clarence explains that George's death wouldn't solve any problems but the despondent man wishes that he had never been born at all: "I suppose it'd been better if I'd never been born at all." Looking heavenward, Clarence checks with his heavenly employers and gets the OK from Angel Joseph. He is permitted to grant George's wish. "You've got your wish: you've never been born." In an instant, the snow stops, the wind blows the door open, and George ceases to exist. With no cares, worries, and obligations, things change - he can hear out of his bad ear, his lip has stopped bleeding from Mr. Welch's punch, and his clothes are dry. [His freedom also brings greater problems: he has no friends, no family, and no sense of identity.]
On their return to Martini's for a drink - where George expects to return to his normal life, George finds that his smashed car is gone. He also learns that the town of Bedford Falls has been renamed Pottersville. These minor changes are a foreshadowing of what George Bailey will see on his fantasy journey with Clarence. He will be shown how badly Bedford Falls has fared and how different life would have been without him and his good deeds. Martini's has become a smoky, sleazy joint called Nick's Place, owned by a belligerent Nick, the former bartender who doesn't seem to know George. [George is at first confused in the fantasy sequence, not getting the point right away that he doesn't exist.] In the bar, Clarence orders "mulled wine, heavy on the cinnamon and light on the cloves." Nick responds with a clenched fist: "Hey, look, mister, we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast. And we don't need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere. Is that clear? Do I have to slip you my lip for a convincer?" When the cash register is opened, and a bell sounds, the apprentice angel tells George the way to know that an angel has earned his wings:
Every time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel's just got his wings.
With a child-like and naive nature, Clarence is unafraid to discuss angels with disbelieving Nick and others in the bar: "Why, don't they believe in angels?" Embarrassed by his slightly daffy companion, George tells Nick: "He never grew up." Clarence divulges his age: "Two hundred and ninety three, uhh, next May." Thought to be "two pixies," they are about to be thrown out of the bar when druggist Mr. Gower comes stumbling in. Nick identifies Gower as a "panhandler." Gower is terrified by George's show of familiarity for him. George is told that the booze-soaked, "rum-head" drunkard spent twenty years in jail for mixing a fatal prescription and poisoning a kid.
In the snow outside the bar, George finds out for himself that he has no identity, no papers, no cards, no driver's license, no 4F card and no insurance policy. And Zuzu's flower petals are gone too, but he has been offered a unique chance: "You've been given a great gift, George. A chance to see what the world would be like without you." In a garish, noisy, Las Vegas-style Bedford Falls without George, in one of the most frightening dream sequences ever filmed, George is given a nightmarish, perverted image of life without him, as he views all the changes in the characters and familiar landmarks of his life:
- Mr. Gower, the druggist, would have been sent to prison, where he would become an alcoholic bum suffering from DTs (the tragedy of a poisoned prescription-delivery would not have been averted without George's intervention and the boy would have died)
- Potter would run everything and life would be very different - dismal, merchandized capitalism at its worst. The peaceful small-town of Bedford Falls would become the garish Babylon of Pottersville, filled with bars (note the Blue Moon Bar and Cafe and George's earlier promise to lasso the moon for Mary), pool halls, midnight dance clubs, pawn shops, burlesque houses, girlie peep shows, with prostitutes and drunks roaming the streets. (George is seen in front of the flashing light of the "Indian Club" sign.)
- the Building and Loan would be gone replaced by a jitterbug dance hall
- Violet would become a cheap, gaudily made-up floozy who sells her body and is arrested by police in front of a dime-a-dance hall
- Bailey Park would not exist
- George's best friends, Bert and Ernie, wouldn't recognize him, replacing friendliness with suspicion and hostility, attempting to arrest him
- the old Granville house at 320 Sycamore would be as it was before he and Mary moved in - empty and haunted, deserted for twenty years and becoming a dilapidated, cheerless mansion
- George would have no children, because he himself was never born
- George's mother would be the proprietress of Ma Bailey's Boarding House, subsisting on a meager income, with a weary, unhappy, hardened, frightened and suspicious look at George
- Uncle Billy, who attempted to run the building and loan after the death of Mr. Bailey, would go insane when it collapsed, and become institutionalized in an insane asylum
As George stumbles down the steps of Ma Bailey's Boarding House after his mother has shut him out, his confused, desperate and horrified face is viewed in a tremendous close-up. Clarence wisely shows George how much his life has mattered, and he begins to understand the differences his absence made in others and himself: "Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives, and when he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"
When George attempts to locate Bailey Park, he finds a cemetery where Bailey Park once stood. Clarence clarifies why there aren't any houses because he wasn't there to build them. There in the graveyard in a harrowing scene, he finds his brother Harry's grave and tombstone (1911-1919). He would have died in the childhood sledding accident ("at the age of nine" according to Clarence) because George wasn't there to save him. And Harry would have never grown up to be a war hero, saving all the lives of the men on the naval transport: "Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn't there to save them because you weren't there to save Harry."
You see, George, you've really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?Slowly, George realizes that Clarence is right. But he feels that if he can just find Mary, things will be back to normal. Mary is discovered as an old maid librarian, a sad, lonely, frightened and plain widow without a spring or joyfulness in her step. Her hair is tied back tightly, and she wears unsightly spectacles. George approaches toward her as she closes up the library, pleading and begging Mary to help him, but she doesn't recognize him and screams to get away from him. In a panic, she runs from George when he accosts her. Bert comes to her defense, but is knocked to the ground. His fears deepened, George flees from the center of town, with gunshots ringing in his ears.
At the bridge where he jumped in, George pleads with his angel to end the vision and go back - to take back the wish that he'd never been born. He realizes the consequences of having never existed and begs to be restored to life, to a sense of belonging to everything and communicating with those around him. He prays for the chance to rejoin the living, to reclaim his social identity, his home, his family, and his life, accepting it for what it is rather than worrying about what it is not:
Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence. Get me back. Get me back. I don't care what happens to me. Get me back to my wife and kids. Help me, Clarence, please. Please! I want to live again! I want to live again. I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.
Suddenly his life returns: the wind dies down, and a gentle snow falls. Bert's police car turns onto the bridge. To the first person he encounters when restored to life, George asks an important identity question: "Bert, do ya know me?" Euphorically, life is back to normal. Bert demands to know where he has been, since the whole town has been looking for him. George gleefully cackles:
My mouth's bleeding, Bert! My mouth's bleed... (He reaches in his pocket) - Zuzu's petals! Zuzu's...There they are! Bert! What do you know about that! Merry Christmas!
His mouth is bleeding again, and Zuzu's petals are in his pocket! Joyously, he calls out Mary's name, welcomes his ramshackle car (still smashed into the tree) with a door that doesn't open and close properly. He races back through town - "Hello Bedford Falls!" - enthusiastically and ecstatically greeting every familiar face he sees and shouting out Merry Christmas. In his second run through town, he is equally hysterical - but now overjoyed. He even shouts at the buildings he recognizes - the Bijou movie theater and its marquee [ironically showing the sentimental movie
The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), echoing the theme of bells at the end of the film, and a film in which angel Clarence - Henry Travers - starred as Horace P. Bogardus], the Emporium, and the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan. He even wishes Potter a Merry Christmas through the window of Potter's office.
Returning home, George bursts through his front door and finds the bank examiner and local sheriff. He greets them with a smile, assuming they are there to punish him for bankruptcy and serve him with a warrant for his arrest. He is delighted at the prospect: "Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to jail!" He happily leaps up the stairs, accidentally yanking out, kissing and carefully replacing the railing post ball on the stairpost - for the
thirdtime. He chuckles to himself. At the top of the stairs, he blissfully embraces his children. Mary enters the house and runs into his arms on the stairs. He kisses her on the face again and again, asking if she is real Dragging him downstairs to stand in front of the Christmas tree, she tells him: "It's a miracle." Mary has brought his faithful friends, relatives, depositors and citizens of Bedford Falls to their home. They have all rallied with good will and Christmas spirit to support him and save him from going to jail.
Almost everyone in Bedford Falls who was positively affected by his presence is there - Mr. Martini, Mr. Gower, Violet, Annie the cook, and all the people who participated in the bank run. Incredulous, George silently says the name of each one as they come forward, relieved and thankful that they're alive to him. Proving their faith in him for the life he had given them, the townspeople collect gifts of enough money from their private reserves and put them in a large basket. The money amounts to thousands of dollars - enough to save his business from Potter's control. Billy excitedly pours out the donations onto the table. The man who had demanded all his money back during the bank scare comments: "What is this, uh, another run on the bank?" and then promptly puts his money down on the table.
A wire from London arrives from financially successful Sam Wainwright, offering an advance of $25,000 if George needs it for financial solvency - it includes greetings of Hee Haw and Merry Christmas. Janie plays
Hark the Herald Angels Singon the piano, and everyone joins in singing. Even the bank examiner contributes to the bulging pile of cash, and the sheriff tears up his arrest warrant. Flying through a snow storm, Harry arrives and offers a toast to George and the group, recognizing the real treasure of friends that George has (and wryly commenting on the money in the basket): "A toast...to my big brother, George. The richest man in town." The voices of people burst into communal song
Auld Lang Synefills the air.
In a touching ending and the film's most famous scene, while holding his daughter Zuzu in his arms, George glances down at the pile of money. His eye catches what is buried on the pile - Clarence's copy of
Tom Sawyerleft for him as a gift. Zuzu opens it and they find an inscription written in it:
Dear George, Remember
noman is a failure who has
friends. Thanks for the wings! Love Clarence.
People who have real friends know the best there is in life, rather than reaching for rewards and yearnings elsewhere - real riches can be found in the treasures nearby. Mary looks up at George and is told: "That's a Christmas present from a very dear friend of mine." Suddenly, a little bell on the Christmas tree begins to tinkle as it sways back and forth. Zuzu points to the bell, dutifully reciting what her teacher told her about the significance of a ringing bell:
Zuzu: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.
George (grinning): That's right, that's right. (He congratulates Clarence, looking upward and giving a wink.) Attaboy, Clarence.
Only George realizes the full significance of the bell ringing - it rings for Clarence who has earned his wings by succeeding with a tough assignment - and also for George's awakening of consciousness through divine intervention in his experiences, enabling him to be freed from the confines of earthly pressures. He has found his own rewards and gifts - life, redemption, and freedom. The swelling sounds of
Auld Lang Synebuild to a crescendo in an affirmation of life. [The film originally ended with 'Ode to Joy.']
[Scrooge-like, covetous banker Potter, despite reprehensibly stealing money from the Bailey Building and Loan and helping to cause George's suicide attempt, remained unpunished and unrepentant -- something unusual for the average Hollywood movie at the time. The inclusion of this cliche would have diluted the message of the movie - that one man's life touched everyone else's. It would also have weakened the sentimental ending as the community of characters celebrated
despitePotter's successful, unpunished chicanery and spiritual bankruptcy.]