Posted on 01/01/2007 4:19:57 PM PST by workerbee
I love It's a Wonderful Life because it teaches us that family, friendship, and virtue are the true definitions of wealth.
In 1947, however, the FBI considered this anti-consumerist message as subversive Communist propaganda.
According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.
The FBI specifically detested the way Mr. Potter was portrayed:
The casting of Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" resulted in the loathsome Mr. Potter becoming the most hated person in the film. According to the official FBI report, "this was a common trick used by the communists."
"What's interesting in the FBI critique is that the Baileys were also bankers," said Noakes. " and what is really going on is a struggle between the big-city banker (Potter) and the small banker (the Baileys). Capra was clearly on side of small capitalism and the FBI was on the side of big capitalism.
The FBI misinterpreted this classic struggle as communist propaganda. I would argue that It's a Wonderful Life is a poignant movie about the transition in the U.S. between small and big capitalism, with Jimmy Stewart personifying the last hope for a small town. It's a lot like the battle between Home Depot and the mom and pop hardware store." Source: Franklin and Marshall College and Delilah Boyd
As you can imagine, Life is more than just a Christmas movie for us here at Wise Bread. Heck, George Bailey's life story is practically the blueprint for our mission statement!
(Excerpt) Read more at wisebread.com ...
Well, we all know Hoover was such a role model for the youth of the time.../sarcasm.
If you want to see liberal communist crap watch Spencer Tracy or Katherine Hepburn ,or both together.
The Desk Set?
What I got from that was a person, possibly within the FBI whose name is blackened out, sent a memo to the director regarding communism in Hollywood and in that person's OPINION, IaWL is communist propoganda. That IN NO WAY means the FBI believed this or supported this person's opinion.
Notice how this non-story ties right in with the blogger's rhetorical questioning:
"We can look back at the FBI report with scorn and ridicule. But are we really that much more enlightened today as a society?"
Never mind that it's not a "report", it's a memo.
Every movie they made was so liberal they should have come with a barf alert.
I thought it was acceptable for private citizens to send "reports" to the FBI, which would then be included in a file even if there was little merit to the charge.
Anyone who watches the movie can see it as a serious story about a man's finding purpose in life, and an optimistic sermon on the possibility of goodness in ordinary citizens. It is actually quite anti-materialistic.
Frank Capra gradually became more conservative, and I understand that he was to that extent progressively shunned by many Hollywood pseudo-intellectuals.
Mr.Potter is a villain: he is not just a big-city banker, but he essentiaslly steals, and he has no regard for the values and traditions of the local people. Today he would probably be one of those rich contributors to liberal causes. It is interesting that in the end, he is not redeemed at all. No liberal mush here!
There are many good people of wealth, but there are some bad ones, and this film does not feed the blind worship of wealth and celebrity which is so rampant today. The film in its anti-materialism is very conservative.
I call bullshit
"The Best Years Of Our Lives".
L
Well, it is a common trick, but the rich banker/landowner/railroad man was the stereotypical villain in just about every single Western made during the same period, including most of John Wayne's. So was it the Communists or just an early edition of Hollywood liberalism in action?
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