redirected from Main.ItsAWonderfulLife
alt title(s): Its A Wonderful Life
Every time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel's just got his wings. — The angel Clarence.
Source of the
Wonderful Life trope, this much loved film tells of one man's life of self-sacrifice and quiet despair, from which he is rescued by a miracle.
As the film begins,
angels are listening to myriad prayers for a George Bailey (played by
Jimmy Stewart). One of the angels, called Clarence, is told
he must answer the prayers, once he's been told who George is.
Cue Flashback.
Zooming in on the small town of Bedford Falls, the first thing we see George do is save the life of his younger brother, Harry, at the cost of deafness in one ear. A little later, a girl, Mary, whispers promises of eternal love into his deaf ear just before George saves another life, and a pharmacist's career.
Skipping ahead a few years, we next see George at Harry's graduation party, held in the school's
gymnasium/swimming pool. George tells Mary about his plans for the future — leave town, see the world, go to college, build big things. Before an hour has gone, George learns his father has just had a stroke. His dreams will have to be deferred.
George stays in Bedford Falls to look after the family business, the Bailey Building & Loan, on the understanding that Harry will take over when he returns from college. However, Harry brings back a wife, whose father offers him a much better job, which George insists Harry take, sacrificing his opportunity. Soon afterwards, George himself is offered a better job, but turns it down, knowing that without him the family business will be taken over by the
avaricious banker, Mr. Potter.
For several years, George's life continues in this vein. Every golden opportunity is frustrated by his self-imposed duties, until one Christmas Eve, when Potter seizes an opportunity to steal $8,000 from the Bailey Building & Loan, then threatens to charge George with the theft. This latest indignity, on top of his daily troubles, drives George to attempt suicide.
This is where the film began. Clarence appears, prevents George from committing suicide, and then
grants his unintentional wish, creating an
Alternate Universe in which George never existed.
Wandering around town, George soon discovers that Pottersville, the alternate Bedford Falls, is full of strip clubs and drinking dens. All his friends and acquaintances are miserable, his brother is dead, and his wife is a bitter spinster. Clarence then explains how George single-handedly prevented this dire fate. He, and he alone, kept Potter in check, preventing the town from descending into squalor and vice.
George takes back his wish and Bedford Falls is restored. When he returns home, the sheriff is waiting to arrest him, but all the neighbours rush in, offering money. George has been saved. His life may never improve, but he now knows that he is appreciated, and has made a difference.
Despite the seeming feel-good ending, it's significant that Potter completely gets away with the theft, almost impossible to achieve at the time under the
Hays Production Code.
See Also:
Frank Capra, for more details about the director of this film.
This film provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion
- Agent Scully: George is slow to believe Clarence is really an angel who altered reality and he seems far less bothered by the fact that the town is a cesspool than the fact that nobody recognizes him, spending most of his time demanding, "Dontcha know me, Bert???"
- Alternate Universe
- Be Careful What You Wish For
- Betty And Veronica: Mary and Violet, respectively - George chooses Mary.
- Chekhovs Gun: Pretty much everything that happened over the course of the movie is shown significance when George sees what Beford Falls is like without him.
- Christmas Miracle
- Complete Monster: Mr. Potter, arguably the single most evil man in western cinema (yes, even more than you, Palpatine and Anakin). When the defeated George comes begging pathetically for any assistance Potter tries to have him arrested (on Christmas Eve!) for losing money that *Potter* himself stole from him. That really takes something special.
- Not as horrid but still quite dickish is how Potter loudly and obviously *yawns* when George delivers a speech to the board of the Baily's Savings & Loan on what a good man his father was (after his father was dead).
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Henry Potter
- Deus Ex Machina
- Driven To Suicide: George contemplating jumping off the bridge.
- The Dutiful Son: George
- Egopolis: Pottersville
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Mr. Potter is this trope.
- Evil Cripple: Mr. Potter
- Fridge Logic This bothers many people who think the film through. At one point, George hits a cop in the Alternate Reality to escape arrest. As George flees, the cop promptly pulls a gun on him and opens fire... as George runs through a crowded street.
- Arguably, this was semi-justified by the fact that it takes place in the alternate reality Crapsack World, where (apparently) police think little of firing their weapons in crowded places.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar: Letting Potter's crime go unpunished.
- Gondor Calls For Aid
- The Great Depression: Black Tuesday was George and Mary's wedding day.
- Hello Nurse: Violet
- How We Got Here
- Iron Woobie: George Bailey
- Karma Houdini: Potter. Some fans found what he did to George a Moral Event Horizon, and this was hysterically spoofed on Saturday Night Live with a "lost ending" that has the townsfolk form an angry mob to take him down.
- A little Fridge Logic allows the conclusion that, in a universe where God clearly exists (and is good), an old, evil man like Potter won't enjoy that money for long...
- Science Marches On: Buffalo, NY (where the fictional Bedford Falls is located) is now closer to Pottersville than Bedford Falls.
- The Law Of Conservation Of Detail: Much of the first hour sets up what will be changed by George not existing.
- The Roaring Twenties
- Super Multi Purpose Room: The high school gym, which opens up into a swimming pool.
- Tear Jerker: "I want to live again! I want to live again! Please, God, let me live again!"
- Timeshifted Actor
- Vindicated By Cable: It was not a big hit on initial release. It actually became a public domain title in 1974, so virtually every TV station around started airing it around Christmas due to it being so inexpensive. Since the early 1990s its copyright has been re-established - see the other wiki
for all the details - but it's still a holiday staple.
- The Woobie: George Bailey
- Wonderful Life: Trope Namer and Trope Maker
- World War I: Not mentioned, but the first flashback is set in 1919 and an allusion is made to the Spanish flu.
- World War II
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Harry Bailey's grave reading "1911-1919", despite Clarence saying he died at the age of nine. For those that don't understand, that's eight not nine.
- Youngest Child Wins: Appears to be in full force, with George's younger brother becoming a war hero when George can't even get into the army, until the climax.
