Posted on 12/17/2009 3:32:58 PM PST by NYer
When??
Haven’t seen it round here.
See my post 18===the screening in question was at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern NY. Rockland County near the border of NJ, where I live in Bergen County.
I had no idea about the lack of TV broadcasts of IAWL.
Now that I come to think of it, I haven’t seen it on TV
for at least a few years.
Come on!
When things went haywire George Baily bailed his bank out with his OWN money!
His own risk.
True, but remember the big tear-jerker scene at the end when everyone takes up a collection? Does it occur to anyone that these “altruists” had a good thing going and wanted to keep the gravy train running? Although we tend to sentimentalize small-town America, people there can be grasping and self-interested, just as big-city folk.
Alien???
Ben-Hur?
So here’s a proposal:
Who can we get to write a screenplay for “It’s a Wonderful Constitution,” to be produced and showing in theatres by midsummer? Can you see it now? A young man just trying to help people (think healthcare) is thwarted by the unconstitutionality of his dramatic plan of action. He is angered and disgusted by what he sees as selfish, self-righteous conservatives standing in the way by standing on their “constitutional rights” and it leads him to extreme despair, disparaging the Constitution as no more than an old, worthless piece of paper, as he sets out to end it all in the river below.
Then he encounters an angel (not Palin - too over the top) who must help him resolve this life crisis. He does so by sending him into an alternate universe where the American Constitution was never written, where the American colonials never got past their small-minded bickering because, by a quirk of alternate history, someone convinced King George he could keep the colonies in line if he just enslaved them at a kinder, gentler, slower pace. The revolution had no trigger, never took place, and while Jefferson and Franklin had some great tavern conversations, no one ever had the impetus of crisis sufficient to set down those words that have for so long been the guardian of American freedom.
So, as our protagonist ventures into this alternate world, he encounters a strange, unsettling culture where the protections of the Constitution were simply not there to protect him and the people he cared about from the many harms people inflict on each other, where the government had become this large, faceless machine that treated humans as commodities to be bought and sold at will by the privileged class. No freedom to speak. No freedom to gather with like-minded people. No freedom to practice one’s own religion. No due process. No equal protection. No warrant needed for the government to invade any home. On and on it goes. Adventure yes, action aplenty, but with an ever diminishing hope of final escape, a slowly growing sense of suffocation. .
Toward the end, he further learns there is nowhere else in the world he can go where freedom still reigns, because there was no America, as he had known it, to step in and help the other peoples of the world fight off their respective tyrannies. All had fallen, in the end, to the petty interests of small men.
Finally, as he approaches the apex of this dark terror, our hero has the epiphany that the lost dignity of man in this future horror show turned on a singular event, the absence of a decision by a relatively small group of extraordinarily thoughtful people to respond to a crisis of impending tyranny by putting down on paper a system of government which, by it’s power to limit government, could actually succeed in protecting the inalienable rights of all who must live under the power of that government. Yes, he says, that is the answer. If only it had not been lost, the opportunity not missed.
At which point the young man is returned to his own time and place, full of relief, to be sure, but also amazement and gratitude that he was privileged to live in a place that, however imperfect, had that wonderful old piece of paper known as the US Constitution, to stand as the timeless defender of his and everyone else’s inextinguishable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Good movie? Or not? What do y’all think? And what about casting? All (beneficial) ideas welcome.
But...but, they all loved George!
Parade pisser!
Now I will never be able to enjoy that happy ending!
LoL you win.
They had four: Pete, Tommy, Janie and Zuzu.
Ah, someone has been imbibing in the Randian Kool-aid. In George Bailey's world people are human beings, not merely the means to a capitalists bottom line.
That’s a keeper. I can’t help with the casting, but that plot gets my vote.
“Really cares about her Fig-ure, don’t she?”
To be honest, I didn’t remember. I’ve only seen the movie a couple of times, because I don’t like it very much. “Zuzu”?
I miss Jimmy Stewart and all the other G-dly, decent people who used to be so visible in the entertainment media. All we have now is the slime at the bottom of the barrel.
Despite the obvious gulf between our theological beliefs, I agree wholeheartedly. And I love your tag line!
I was always surprised by the life of Gloria Grahame - who plays the blond bombshell Violet in the film.
In real life she was married four times. Okay, that’s not too shocking for a Hollywood actress, but her last husband was her STEPSON from her second marriage! And she had children with both Nicholas Ray and his son, Anthony Ray.
Apparently she started having an affair with Anthony when he was 13.
Not a fan of Frank Capra. Not a fan of Jimmy Stewart’s acting, either. The voice was just annoying.
>>Even if we sympathize with their circumstances, the fact is they couldn’t afford the loans. Even Bailey admits they would be too old to enjoy their homes if he waited for them to qualify under ordinary rules.<<
Yes they could.
No one lost their house in the movie.
ping
Gosh, Donna Reed was pretty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.