Tuesday, December 19, 2017





It's A Wonderful Life

It's A Wonderful Life is my favorite Christmas movie of all times. I don't remember exactly when I started watching it on television, but of course it was during the Christmas holidays.

I remember when my daughter was about 2 years old it was on television and that's the first memory I have of the movie. It was so emotional and just made me want to watch it over and over again. It is a movie that was made in 1945 and is in black and white. Although I think they have a colorized version of it too.

In case you have never seen it before (there must be some that haven't seen it) Jimmy Stewart is the star who portrays George Bailey, along with Donna Reed as Mary his wife.

At Harry Bailey's (George's younger brother) graduation party night in the school gymnasium, George decides to go check it out and sees Mary. You can tell right away that they have an attraction for each other by the look in their faces. They dance together and everyone is having a lot of fun, until a guy who was with Mary before George turns the key to open the pool they are dancing above and they fall in the water. Then everyone else jumps in and it is hilarious.

George has travel brochures and wants to see the world with the money he has saved up from working at the family building and loan business with his father. George has a younger brother Harry who goes to college and the agreement is when he graduates he will take over the building and loan, then it will be George's turn to go to college.

Things don't work out as George plans. George and Mary fall in love and end up getting married, which keeps him in Bedford Falls. George is voted in to take his father's place at the building and loan after his father has died. As fate would have it, Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) takes a large deposit to the bank and misplaces it when he goes to deposit it. Uncle Billy has a habit of forgetting and even forgot about George and Mary's wedding.

Unbeknownst to Uncle Billy, the town's richest man Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) obtains the money in a mix-up when Uncle Billy shows him a newspaper. The money envelope gets mixed in it. Mr. Potter then goes in his office and finds it while Uncle Billy is searching all over the place looking for it. Mr. Potter owns everything in Bedford Falls and wants the building and loan, so he keeps the money, knowing that this will be the end for it.

Uncle Billy goes back to the building and loan office and is searching high and low can't remembering what happened to it. When George finds out and the money is nowhere to be found he can't take it. He's at his wits ends and wishes he had never been born.

When his wish comes true he roams down the town street seeing people he knows, but they do not know him since he got his wish that he had never been born. When he is ready to jump off a bridge into icy water, wanting to commit suicide. an angel named Clarence saves him. George gets his wish that he had never been born and he goes into a bar to have a drink, along with Clarence with him. The bartender doesn't know him. He goes to his home and it is an abandoned house with nobody living there. He sees his wife Mary walking on the street and she doesn't know him, as she is a spinster librarian.

The ending is great when George tells Clarence he wants to live and everything changes. He runs down the street saying "Merry Christmas" and everyone knows him now. He goes to his home and his wife and children are getting ready for Christmas.

The whole town gets together to help George and donates money for his substantial loss that Uncle Billy lost. At the end George is holding his little girl beside their Christmas tree. A little bell rings and his daughter says "teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings"!






2 comments:

  1. I have never seen the entire movie. My husband likes to switch around and watch different channels when the commercials come on, so I've only seen the same exact section of the movie over and over again!

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    1. If you get a chance I think you will like the movie. I don't know how many times I've seen it, but never get tired of it during the Christmas holidays.

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