The Darker Message in It's a Wonderful Life

And so, as John Lennon sang, this is Christmas. In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey wished he had never been born, and, presto, just like that he was visited by an angel named Clarence who not only saved him from suicide but took him through a tour of life as it would have been without him.

* The pharmacist at the drug store where a teenaged George worked is a broken down alcoholic, despised by the town for having accidentally filled a prescription with poison because George wasn’t there to stop him.

* His brother was dead because George couldn’t save him from a sledding accident.

* And the love of George’s life is - God forbid! - a librarian which was synonymous at the time (1946) with spinsterhood.

Yes, George Bailey’s life had been wonderful, after all. His life had touched so many others, and to think he had wished that he had never been born.

Frank Capra’s 1946 movie, an Oscar contender for best picture that year, had been forgotten until the 1980s when its public domain status meant that any TV station with access to a print could show it without charge. Suddenly, it was everywhere and its ubiquity helped make it a lot of people’s favorite Christmas movie. (The music score was still copyrighted, however, and after some legal maneuvering, the film was rescued from the public domain in the ‘90s and now airs exclusively on NBC.)

Beloved though it may be, It’s a Wonderful Life is bullshit. If George Bailey had not been born, perhaps his brother would not have been out sledding and not have needed rescuing. Many things would have changed, not just the events depicted.

It’s a Wonderful Life was meant to be uplifting, but its message could be interpreted in less hopeful ways if you want to make the effort. There have been times in my life when I wished that I had never been born, but no angels descended from heaven to show me that my life had value. Maybe there are no angels. If I’m wrong about that, my lack of celestial visits could mean something worse: I am not worth saving.

I’m aware that this is less a comment on the film than an expression of my own cynicism. It's not that I'm a pessimist for whom the glass is always half empty, never half full. I see my glass as full. Indeed, it’s overflowing. It’s just that someone is always pissing in it.

© 2012 Brian W. Fairbanks

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3 Forgotten Christmas Movies

The promise of peace on earth is never fulfilled at Christmas, but everything is possible in Christmas movies. George Bailey is saved from suicide every Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge always greets Christmas morning as a kinder, gentler man, and Bing Crosby rises from the dead to sing "White Christmas" in black and white (Holiday Inn) and color (White Christmas). Like the sound of reindeer on the rooftop and sleighbells in the snow, Christmas movies are a part of the holiday landscape. It wouldn't really seem like Christmas without It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, but while those classics are among the most heralded Christmas movies, there are other, less popular, but still delightful films sure to brighten your holiday season.

1940's Remember the Night is the charming tale of a prosecuting attorney who takes a shoplifter to his family's farm for Christmas because he doubts he can successfully convict her on Christmas Eve and doesn't wish to see her spend the holidays in jail. The shoplifter, a product of a broken home, experiences a Christmas unlike any she's known before. Meanwhile, the prosecutor falls in love with her, making his professional duties all but impossible. Four years later, the film's stars, Fred Macmurray and Barbara Stanwyck, made one of film noir’s most cynical couples in Double Indemnity, but in this Preston Sturges masterpiece, they display a warmth that is as endearing as the Preston Sturges screenplay.

In 1949's Holiday Affair, Janet Leigh is a widowed mother responsible for getting department store clerk Robert Mitchum fired during the Christmas season. Mitchum is soon competing with Wendell Corey for the affections of both Leigh and her son in this modest but effective Christmas romance. It's especially nice to see big, bad Bob Mitchum in such a gentle role, and his tough guy image keeps the sugar coated story from becoming too sweet.

Bob Hope is as synonymous with Christmas as Bing Crosby. In addition to starring in annual holiday TV specials and entertaining the troops, he starred in The Lemon Drop Kid, a delightful but now relatively forgotten 1951 comedy that deserves to be revived every Christmas. In this Damon Runyon story, Hope is a scam artist whose gang poses as Salvation Army sidewalk Santas in order to pay off a debt to a gangster. Like Scrooge, Hope sees the error of his ways by the time the credits roll, but not before providing some big laughs and introducing the classic Christmas carol, "Silver Bells," an Oscar nominee for best song.

All three of these films are available on video and are sure to brighten the holiday season as much as the more famous Christmas movies. Watch them, and, who knows, they may become as much a tradition in your home as It's a Wonderful Life.

© 2003 Brian W. Fairbanks

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal

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