first my apologies to Diverpam for breaking all the rules of her write-off to benefit Epinion's member Imames, who has a desperately ill daughter requiring surgery and a husband recently unemployed - no insurance! Diverpam asked that you use every one of your Epinion titles in your review, better yet, work it into a real product review.

Secondly, I never contacted her to let her know I was going to get in the thing, in fact, just decided today. My apologies to breaking all the rules, but let's face it - 580 reviews, most of them on really bad and indecent movies, would be a Herculean task. I considered it, and even tried it, but the size of the review alone! and then there is the fact of how to you work Butt cheeks, shaved beavers and perky nipples into ANY review? Snicker, I guess I just did (grin).

It's a wonderful life was released in 1946, the year I was born (for the math deficient, I will be 56 this year) and had an all star cast, for the time. Often left on the shelves until that magical time of the year, Christmas, I think it should be a movie viewed any time you feel like it. It is a movie about blindness, something that our heroine of this write-off, Emily, is all too familiar with.

George Bailey (James Stewart) is the gentlemen in question - so immersed in his ‘problems', setbacks in his life, blocks in his path, that he becomes ‘blind' to those that surround him and love him. Granted, he has his trials - financial ruin on the horizon - but considering the pluses in his life, this is trivial. Reaching the end of his emotional tightrope, George decides to end his life by jumping from a bridge.

Ruminating on his past, he moans the things he had to give up - an education, seeing the world outside Bedford Falls, not finding ‘his real self'. As he wavers on the precipice of suicide, he sees a man floundering in the water and saves his life. This man, Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), is actually an angel that has come to Earth to earn his wings. In order to do this, he must save George. What we have here is a Catch 22 - each bent on saving the others' life which will in turn save their own.

Clarence, in the fashion of the ghosts of Christmas Carol, take George back and show him just how this small town, and the lives he touched, were changed by George's presence there.

Even more than the story is the acting involved. James Stewart gave one of the best performances of his life in this movie showing all spectrums of the emotional scale. It is a movie that you become deeply involved in, arguing the good and trying to champion George on, help him realize what he is leaving behind is much more important that what material possession could entail.

Henry Travers, as Clarence, is just a cuddly teddy bear of a guy that was the perfect choice for this movie. Bumbling along in a way that you feel won't ever let him reach his goal, his cherubic cheeks and sparkling eyes give him wings that are already so huge and powerful you can feel the air disturbed by them when he enters a room.

This movie was nominated for Best Actor (Stewart), Best Director (Capra), Best Film Editing (Hornbech), Best Picture (Capra), Best Sound Recording (Aalberg) 1947; Won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Director (Capra) 1947; Entered in the National Film Preservation Board, National Film Registry, 1990; and WON Young Artists' Award, Former Child Star, Lifetime Achievement Award (Hawkins) 1994!

Some of the scenery in this movie was intensely done - when George runs through the center of this small town, covered in snow, lights glistening, was just wonderful. The other actors involved, Donna Reed as the wife, Lionel Barrymore as the nefarious town banker, the curly haired Carol Coombs as the daughter and the freckled faced Jimmy Hawkins as the son, fleshed out the movie giving it more ‘togetherness' and compassion.

Frank Capra, as producer, director and writer, put forth an emotional film that draws on family values and dips into the dreamer in all of us.

But, like most, we stumble along through life like George. Blindly closing ourselves off from our fellow man, the people that love us, all in the guise of obtaining that extra goodie, the bigger boat, bigger house, newer car, etc. While I agree, I enjoy an intricate bauble once in a while, I also know that to ‘live to work' isn't what it takes to get along in this world. In that vein, I will contribute $.50 for each person that reads this review, and $.25 for each comment (good or bad), to Emily. An angel I don't know but one that deserves her wings.

Thanks,
Susi

Please go to Diverpam's profile page to get the list and links to the other writers in this wonderful tribute to a true Epinions family.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
.........Native American Proverb...........

Recommended: Yes