An Ode to George Bailey

There's a wonderfully sentimental yet somewhat snarky ode to one of my favorite films of all time, It's a Wonderful Life, in the New York Times today.

What I love about this piece by Wendell Jamieson is that many of the reasons he says he's a fan of this movie are similar to mine, like the fact that Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey character is an anti-hero, a flawed, sometimes mean and dispirited soul who feels as though his life has added up to nothing because he's been nothing but a nice guy, a martyr, to the people he loves.

"My affection for It's a Wonderful Life has never waned, despite the film's overexposure and sugar-sweet marketing, and the rolling eyes of friends and family . . . It's a Wonderful Life is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife."

In the course of writing the story about It's a Wonderful Life, Jamieson contacted an upstate New York district attorney and asked him, if this had really happened, if Uncle Billy had lost the $8,000 and George claimed credit for the error, would George go to prison even if he gave back the money that he got in donations. The answer was, technically, George could go to jail, but the DA said, "He'd be a tough guy to send to jail."

Jamieson also called a professor of urban policy at New York University to ask if Pottersville -- filled with bustling bars and gambling joints -- would've been better off economically than the reserved and quiet Bedford Falls, with its movie house and dying manufacturing base. (The verdict was that gambling money might've been a financial boon in the waning days of American industrial cities.)

But the best part of Jamieson's story was when he called out the character of Harry Bailey as "a slick, self-obsessed jerk, cannily getting out of his responsibility to help with the family business, by marrying a woman whose dad gives him a job." Harry's character has perpetually irked me because he's treated like a good guy and while he openly acknowledges that George was always getting screwed -- being stuck with the Bailey Building and Loan, giving Harry his college money, letting Harry skate away from the business when George wanted to travel -- but selfishly proceeds with his plans anyway because George was too kind to get in his brother's way. The aforementioned rage that George winds up expressing on Christmas Eve when he again shoulders the burden of his family's responsibilities -- and they blithely allow him to do so -- is completely understandable. If you let the whole world walk all over you, you're going to blow your top too. And just because Harry delivers THE tear-jerker line of the film at the end, doesn't, in my mind, excuse his behavior.

My one regret about this movie is that, much like life I suppose, there's no justice in the end for the evil Mr. Potter. He gets to sit atop a pile of ill-gotten gains while George Bailey faces jail time for a crime he never committed. Many years ago, the folks at Saturday Night Live concocted their own version of how Mr. Potter might've been paid back for his treachery. (See link to video here.)



I would've loved to have seen Uncle Billy suddenly remember that he accidentally handed the money to Potter and to have seen the mob go get Potter . . . but only to have Potter taken away in handcuffs, not pummeled in the exaggerated way this video shows. But maybe that's just me, displaying some of my trademark sentimental hogwash.

Image credit: Paramount Pictures/New York Times.