It's a Wonderful Life (1946) - movies

An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed. Director: Frank Capra Writers: Frances Goodrich (screenplay), Albert Hackett (screenplay), and 4 more credits » Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore | See full cast and crew It's a Wonderful Life is an American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, that was based on the short story "The Greatest Gift", written by Philip Van Doren Stern. Released in 1946, the film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community would be had he never been born. Despite initially being considered a box office flop due to high production costs and stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has come to be regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was actually $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box-office failure that today everyone believes ... Directed by: Frank Capra Produced by: Frank Capra Cast: Argentina Brunetti Beulah Bondi Charles Lane Donna Reed Frank Faylen Gloria Grahame H. B. Warner Henry Travers James Stewart Lionel Barrymore Mary Treen Sheldon Leonard Thomas Mitchell Ward Bond Review Come now, what on earth am I going to say about one of the most beloved films ever made? Something about how it was originally coined on a Christmas Card? About how a clerical error resulted in it not being copyrighted and contributing to its ubiquity on television -- since it was royalty-free? Or should I just go ahead and tell the few people on earth who haven't seen it what it's all about. Okay kids, if you don't have a TV, It's a Wonderful Life tells us about George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), who lives and loves his small town of Bedford Falls so much he'd die for it. And sure enough, when his tiny Building & Loan (aka bank) starts to fail -- thanks to the malicious influence of the local tycoon (Lionel Barrymore) -- George heads for his local bridge to end it all. A la A Christmas Carol, a helpful angel (Henry Travers) intervenes to show George what life would have been like had he never done his decades of good deeds in Bedford Falls. And it ain't pretty. And so George finally gets another chance to turn things around and, hopefully, sing another rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne' before it's all over. It's timeless and perfect in its own way, but people that say Life never wears thin must be in the triple digits... or the single digits. It's an extremely long film that drags terribly at parts, but which always redeems itself in the following scene -- usually thanks to Stewart or Thomas Mitchell as his bumbling uncle. Donna Reed is equally great as Mrs. Bailey, and Barrymore, as always, crafts the perfect villain which has become the archetype for moneybags bad guys throughout the history of film. Under the helm of Frank Capra -- no stranger to sap -It's a Wonderful Life emerges as undoubtedly his most gooey sweet movie ever. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we need sweetness, like when we've just eaten a ration of bitter Neil LaBute or Ridley Scott movies. Lifewas a bit of a flop on release but it earned five Oscar nominations and, of course, a lifetime of fans. The new DVD adds some tepid extras (on the back side of the disc, no less), but the remastered video -- pulled from the original negative -- is worth a long, hard look, preferably while recuperating from an eggnog hangover. (Errata: My favorite typo in recent memory is this tragic misquote on the Life DVD press release: 'Teacher Says Every Time A Bill Rings An Angel Gets Their Wings.' Artisan, I like your thinkin'.) The 60th Anniversary edition DVD has the exact same extras as the Artisan edition, but puts them all on one side of the disc instead of making it a flipper. Good move. The new two-disc DVD set includes the same extras as the 60th Anniversary set, plus a copy of the colorized version of the film (which is strangely like a whole new movie).

Categories: old movie