It’s a Wonderful Life is not only the best of all Christmas movies – it’s one of the greatest American films. It’s often mistakenly thought of as a big pile of corny sentimental mush. But as someone who’s allergic to fake sentimentality, I can promise you there is a much more substantive – and dark – achievement in Frank Capra’s 1946 masterpiece.
I first saw this movie in the best possible way, and I feel very lucky. I was attending USC’s film school, and they were showing a retrospective of Capra movies. USC has connections at the film studios, and they can often get pristine prints from studio vaults. This was way back in the 1970s, kids, before It’s a Wonderful Life had gone into the public domain and become a Christmas staple on every local TV station in the country. And I, a fairly experienced young film buff, had, believe it or not, never heard of this movie! So I went to see it with zero expectations of any kind, and no knowledge at all of the plot. (And also, by the way, it was nowhere near Christmas, and this was L.A. anyway, where it never feels like Christmas.)
What unfolded before my widening eyes was a glistening, gorgeous 35mm print. If you’ve only seen Wonderful Life on television, you’ve only half seen it. It is beautifully crafted – the photography, the editing, the storytelling itself are models of fine workmanship, probably Capra’s very best movie. The cast, from the leads down to just about every supporting role, is nearly perfect. And as the film proceeds, it develops an astonishing emotional pull, as powerful as a freight train, a nuclear missile, an earthquake.
I was 20. As far as I can remember, I had never cried at a movie before. It came upon me out of nowhere in the last scene, when our hero’s brother toasts him as “my big brother George, the richest man in town.” I was overwhelmed with emotion, suddenly sobbing uncontrollably. And it shocked me. What the hell was going on?
Article comments
1 - Pat Evans
People who accuse the director of 'Capra-corn' don't know what they are saying. Occasionally his films were too sentimental, but this one is one of the greats along with "You Can't Take it With You", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", and "Meet John Doe". Hang the people who prefer a bad pun to critical evaluation.
2 - handyguy
The sentimentality is there, but it feels emotionally true, not manipulative. And there is a lot more going on than the sentiment, just as there is in Dickens.
3 - Rodney Welch
I agree for the most part with your review -- though, given your bio, it's maybe worth pointing out Ms. Kael's own review: "No one else can balance the ups and downs of wistful sentiment and corny humor the way Capra can -- but if anyone else should learn to, kill him."
4 - handyguy
Yes, it was Pauline Kael's opinion I had in mind when I described what I think of as a mistaken perception of the movie. She was and is an incomparable writer, but her tolerance for certain types of sentiment was very low indeed (although she was a champion of D.W. Griffith). Nonetheless, that last line of hers is pretty wonderful.
5 - Rodney Welch
She and James Agee and Stanley Kauffmann -- all great critics and writers whose views I may only agree with 50 percent of the time. There are many times when I'm watching some old movie and thinking: "PK would just hate this. Damn, it's good." I get the feeling she loathed the Bette Davis soaper Now Voyager -- can't find her review of it anywhere -- but to me it's one of those great, gooey, guilty pleasures that gets me every time. It is so manipulative and corny, but I just find it terrifically enjoyable. It's kind of like It's a Wonderful Life in that way, that the emotional effect is so strong that all gripes just sound puny, you know? On the other hand, I loved her review of DePalma's The Fury -- a lot of people thought she just overrated the hell out of it, but with every word I found myself going "YES!"
6 - handyguy
Interesting. I recall that around the time I saw It's a Wonderful Life at USC, I was appalled by two of PK's reviews. One was of The Fury, a movie I despised at the time but feel less strongly about now, and the other was of Dino DeLaurentis's execrable remake of King Kong, which she also praised beyond all reason. I thought she had lost her marbles. She eventually redeemed herself.
As for Kauffmann, it's hard to forget that he was blind to the brilliance of both The Godfather and Jaws [which he panned, later praising Jaws 2 as being superior because he thought it scarier!]. So I find it hard to take him seriously, but I'm sure that's unfair of me. The most important criterion of a critic is the quality of his/her writing and thinking, not a tally of individual opinions we agree or disagree with.
7 - Rodney Welch
Agreed. And what I love about Kauffmann, more than almost anything, is highlighted by those pans you point out: he seems completely unaware of any impression but his own, which is good. He never gets on the bandwagon. He doesn't care if everyone else loved it or everyone else hated it. I've seen him write sharp, smart, thoughtful and downright educational reviews of films everyone else simply dismissed -- Sam Shepard's Far North and Bruce Beresford's Last Dance soar to mind -- I've seen him totally dismiss movies that everyone was talking about, like Blue Velvet, which is one of my all-time favorites, and I've even on one rare occasion seen him totally recant a negative review from years before (Visconti's The Leopard.) Kauffmann turned 90 this year -- and he still approaches every film with both the perspective of a lifetime of viewing and the freshness of someone seeing a movie for the first time, and he combines both with a remarkable economy of style. Roger Ebert once said that Kauffmann gets more truth in a tighter space than any writer alive.
8 - clydefro
Really enjoyable piece there. It's a Wonderful Life has been one of my favorite movies for a long time, even after delving deeper into international and classic films. It's really unfair that it (and Capra, for the most part) takes such a beating from the arty elitist critical circles. I love the dark qualities of the film and I believe this was an important post-War step leading up to the great, tormented roles Jimmy Stewart would play in the 1950s for Hitchcock and Mann. I'm not sure he's ever really given the credit he deserves for subtly straying from his aw-shucks image and taking really daring roles.