[massgopguy]

Read the tag line.

[stylecouncilor]

I’m going to see it on the big screen tonight. Hot Dog!!

[Ciexyz]

I think it's a hoot when George sees the 'false' Potterville with all the strip clubs and bars - horrors!

[BelegStrongbow]

We put a real ringing bell on our tree every year because George did. And we think the same thing he does when it rings.

God bless us, every one.

[Soothesayer]

Disagree. It stopped being a wonderful life when the commies and Jihadists conquered the planet.

‘George Bailey’ could have jumped and it would have made no difference at all.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

As for the idea that not getting to Europe is a tragedy, that notion would have much amused my immigrant mother. To her, the tragedy would have been not making it out of Europe.

One thing to flee Europe for a better life, another to visit it as a young tourist seeing the world for the first time. I love the movie a lot, but I've always felt a little sad for poor George, too. He has his measure of happiness and he certainly has made a huge difference in the lives of others, but he hasn't had much choice in how he got there.

[Iron Munro]

“Fra-gee-lay … must be Italian!”

[San Jacinto]

I married the girl I went to high school with and
I never went to Europe.

Gee, that’s kind of like saying —

I won a million dollars and
I never fell in a pile of horse crap.

[23 Everest]

We have a DVD and the family watches it every Christmas.

[paulycy]

[marsh2]

I love this movie. It is filled with early and mid twentieth century American archetypes and the values to which I was born. It is a story of an individual’s free choice. On the surface, those are choices of life paths. George could have continued in that cab and left the savings and loan and the town to fail, but he didn't. His morality guided him toward self-sacrifice - to take on the responsibility that comes with the choices of love/caring about others and the accompanying intimate involvement in their lives.

When Clarence shows him what would have happened if he had not been born, it was as though he had taken the other path. We got to see what life is like with the selfishness of Mr. Potter prevailing, and with love and responsibility removed. The comparison was an validation of the comparative goodness of those values and the final scene an affirmation and celebration of their mutual benefit.

Really good flick.

[Blue Ink]

“It’s a Wonderful Life” depresses the hell out of me, and in fact I find it quite anti-American in that it misreads the promise of America as few films do that are so lauded.

George gets guilted into giving up his future as an architect to run that Building and Loan, a job to which he is neither suited or inclined. In a free market, you don’t do anyone any favors when you try to succeed at a business you’re no good at. Building homes is like any other business. It isn’t and shouldn’t be a charitable enterprise — if you don’t like it and you can’t do it at a profit, get out of the way and let someone who can do it.

Director Capra loved to give anti-profit, we-should-do-it-for-love exemptions to lots of businesses — medicine, building homes, agriculture — but the truth is, you take the free market away — you compel people to do it or give their services away, or do it — heaven help us — to HELP PEOPLE — your idea of helping, of course — and you wind up with lousy doctors, badly built homes, and famine.

George’s brother Harry takes George’s college money on the condition that Harry will step in and run the business after he graduates. Well, guess what? Harry comes home from college with a wife. Oh, and guess what else? He’s got a terrific job offer, so he won’t be running the Building and Loan. Harry’s got the right idea about how to live your life; his mistake was not following through on his promise. The brothers should have liquidated that business then and there if Harry didn’t want to take it over.

Now George feels he’s stuck. But WHY is he stuck? Inappropriate guilt. Nobody likes a martyr, and I don’t like George after Harry makes such a sap out of him.

Bedford Falls would have gotten along just fine if George had just minded his own business and gone off to build bridges or whatever he wanted to do. He may have been the richest man in town, but he still had to get up the next day and go to a job he hated. That’s not a wonderful life in my book.

[clearcarbon]

This recently recovered scene was cut from the movie.

[Allegra]

It’s just not Christmas season with “It’s A Wonderful Life.”