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Posted on 12/25/2025 7:41:08 PM PST by Rummyfan
There is only one movie most people watch around Christmas, and that has to be the ultimate Christmas movie, Frank Capra’s sublime It’s a Wonderful Life.
What’s remarkable to me about this movie is that everyone still watches it and loves it, even though it is unapologetically religious. It’s a Wonderful Life is what Hollywood today would label “faith-based,” even though no one would describe it that way. And yet, it’s inescapable. This is a movie about prayer. It’s a movie about angels and a movie about faith.
Hollywood would never make a movie that dared to say, as It’s a Wonderful Life does, that we all believe in God and that there are such things as angels watching over us and that in times of complete and total helplessness we pray.
Of course, other themes run through the film, like FDR’s New Deal and the lifting up of the poor in the wake of Herbert Hoover (embodied in Mr. Potter). There is no doubt that this was a very left-leaning story with the building and loan and giving of ourselves to share with everyone, which could, in some cases, be seen as socialist ideology pushed into Hollywood content.
(Excerpt) Read more at sashastone.com ...
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A lot may depend on what your family watched every Christmas season. My family made sure to watch “Miracle on 34th St.” and some others. We never watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a group. I have heard of the film, but was never swept away by it. There are several sub plot stories in that movie to keep track of. From what I’ve seen of it, the performances are quite good and very convincing.
I actually watched it for the first time all the way through this season.
I can certainly understand why it has been a classic that has endured the test of time. Very well done film.
It is amazing to me that two of the most loved movies of all time were box-office flops when they came out. They were, of course, “Wizard of Oz” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. They both had similar trajectories to ultimate appreciation - they were shown on television after their copyright ran out. True for sure with “Life”. I think it’s true for “Wizard”.
Ted Turner started showing it on TBS in the 70’s, since he didn’t have to pay royalties. The actress who played the little girl in “Life” who gave flower petals to Jimmy Stewart (Zu-Zu) saw the movie for the first time when she was 40 years old.
White Christmas here.
L
It's A Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Miracle on 34th Street did NOT make the cut, and only It's A .... was even mentioned by the panel.
Can't remember who ran the survey, but it sounded like something with a younger audience, and the oldest person on the panel looked under 40.
So as much as the author of this piece wants to focus on their favorite Christmas movie, sounds like the next generation will be looking to ELF for guidance in the future.
That has to be the most clueless reviewer that I’ve ever read....
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/
Harvey (1950):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_accord_1_cdt_t_57
Harvey (1972):
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068680/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_accord_1_cdt_t_14
It's endured the past fifty years or so. When it was released in 1946, it had been panned by critics and it failed at the box office; people at the time simply thought the film was too corny.
It's a beautiful story with some excellent acting, but I suspect that its popularity today is simply nostalgia for the American heyday.
Die Hard
Dickens A Christmas Carol and It Hapened on Fifth Avenue.
Die Hard. Just finished it
On to the Brooklyn 99 version now. Yippee kayak
But for what’s described as a “clerical error,” most of us would never have seen the movie. The story is the owning movie studio neglected to renew and extend their copyright, allowing any TV station to run the movie for free during the holiday season. This was about 1070 or so, tho I may be off on the date.
The rest, as they say, is history and we have our don’t-miss Christmas classic.
The director/producer Frank Capra was quite pleased at the belated success of It’s a Wonderful Life, as he had high hopes for it during production. Movie-goers, however, had little interest in it, having just come out of WWII and wanting light comedy fare.
Capra asked Jimmy Stewart to participate and Stewart accepted, as his first movie following his military service.
Because we’re masochist?
I’ve never been able to finish that movie. It is the the worst thing Jimmy Stewart ever did.
*1970 duh
Stewart was quite proud of his performance and of the movie, he said on Johnny Carson.
I see the movie several times each year.
I’ve never even tried to watch it. The few moments I’ve seen, as well as everything I’ve heard about it, just seemed lame. I’m not a real big Jimmy Stewart fan anyway.
I can’t put much stock in people crazy over Home Alone.
Like the movie, like Donna Reed, and much respect for Jimmy Stewart and the 8th USAAF.
I saw “The Wizard of Oz” when it was first shown on TV in 1959. I liked it until the ending, which I thought was a lame cop-out (the whole story was merely a dream). In recent years, wrote an alternative ending that involves William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Albert Einstein.
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