I first discovered IAWL in the mid-late 1980s, on television. At the time, the rights to the movie expired, and TV stations aired this as a Christmas movie during the Christmas season. Often, it aired numerous times on the same channel in one week, week after week. An entire generation discovered it during this time, including me.
If you remember the old TV Guides from the 1980s (I collected them for awhile), there used to be a feature called 4-Star Movies, which listed all of this week's movies that the magazine's critics (including Judith Crist) praised. I will never forget seeing the title "It's A Wonderful" life listed dozens of times in one week. I wish I had an old copy of TV Guide to share it on the blog. If I ever find it, I'll scan the page and update this page.
So the year was about 1985 or 1986 (can't recall exactly which). I was about 10 or 11 years old at the time. That's when I got my very first "portable" television set for my bedroom, a gift from a relative that probably got it from a garage sale. It was a small B/W set, and looked like this one in the picture.
This was the coolest thing in the world in the days before the internet and smart phones. I never had cable growing up. Back then, all I had was a TV set and a few channels. In Chicago, the channels were 2 (CBS),5 (NBC),7 (ABC),9 (WGN),11 (PBS) ,20 (PBS),32 (FOX), 38 (Christian), 44 (Spanish), 60 (Syndicated), and 66 (Syndicated).
With that little TV I would sometimes come home from school (I was a latch-key kid) and watch my favorite shows. On Saturday mornings, there were cartoons - Muppet Babies and Bugs Bunny & Friends were favorites....when 11:00 AM came, the "best" shows were over and it was time to go outside and get some fresh air. In the evenings, I enjoyed "Night Gallery" and "The Twilight Zone". Sometimes there was a made-for-tv movie or a "movie of the week" on, and I'd watch it then talk about it the next day with school mates. I'll never forget watching the 1978 film Superman on that little TV on ABC. Before I had a VCR, I recorded the audio-only on a cassette recorder, believe it or not. Superman, Superman II, and Superman III were my favorite movies in the mid 1980s.
During this time, while switching channels one day, I happened to catch the last half hour of IAWL. It's the part when Clarence comes to visit George Bailey. I was captivated. It felt like an episode of "The Twilight Zone". George was living a nightmare - no one knew who he was. It fascinated me.
What also struck my attention: two of the supporting characters had the names of Muppets - Bert and Ernie.
All my life up to then I had been a huge fan of The Muppets and Sesame Street, and hearing George Bailey yell "Hey Bert! Ernie!" was so oddly amusing to me. Supposedly it's never been officially confirmed whether the Muppet pals were named after the movie, but come on. I'll never buy the idea that it's just a coincidence. Jim Henson knew a great movie when he saw one.
In subsequent years, whenever I caught the movie on TV, I only saw the ending! I kept saying to myself..."one day I'm gonna see the whole thing!" Then my family purchased a VCR in June of 1987, a huge milestone in the history of my TV viewing.
Like Wile E. Coyote setting a trap for the Road Runner, I remember setting that VCR to video tape the movie for the first time that Christmas season. The recording had commercials and took up 3 hours of video tape space. Sadly, I never watched the entire film that season. I said "One day I'll get around to watch it". Then I remember "fast forwarding" while watching the movie in high speed thinking "wow this is a long movie". Then I got to my favorite part - the end with Clarence, and was filled with nostalgia remembering the excitement of watching the movie for the first time in bed under the covers watching on my little black and white TV.
By the Christmas season of 1989, IAWL still aired on TV numerous times, and I considered it as "one" of my favorite movies, but not my "all-time favorite". In 1989, my favorite movie was - brace yourselves - Batman with Jack Nicholson. I had seen it 4 times in theaters (a record breaking achievement until recently). My second favorite was Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Yes, these movies were my early "loves". Puppy love, really.
But not true love.
1990 was the year where my knowledge of movies expanded. For my birthday that summer I received as a gift a large coffee table book called LIFE GOES TO THE MOVIES, and it fascinated me all summer. I started renting "older" movies from the video store that year, and learned more about the filmography of Jimmy Stewart, whom I came to admire primarily because of IAWL.
I caught IAWL on TV every year. In 1992 I finally recorded the black-and-white version on PBS "uncut", without commercials.
Around this time, it occurred to me that Jimmy Stewart was still alive - a living legend! I remember watching a TV retrospective of his career on PBS one day - it was hosted by Johnny Carson. I was captivated by it, and learned about all the other movies he did. I remember thinking, Wow, The Philadelphia Story looks like a good movie! So I rented that one. I also caught up with Rear Window and then The Shop Around the Corner. Incidentally, all of these movies are featured in this blogathon!
Then I saw Harvey, and that, too becoming a favorite movie of mine, and this film solidified the case that Jimmy Stewart was my favorite actor.
I also remember traveling halfway across the city on public transportation to rent the harder-to-find Stewart movies, such as Born to Dance and Destry Rides Again. The more I saw, the more I realized that IAWL was still my favorite.
By 1994, IAWL had become my favorite movie and has been so ever since.
Each time I see it I see something new, and at various points in my life.
- Potter, the heartless bank CEO has become all too relevant in today's world, I feel, especially after the 2008-2009 financial collapse.
- When I was a kid, I didn't understand what a prostitute was so it was only years later that I realized what little Violet Bick grew up to be.
- The line where George's dad says "You want to be a millionaire by age 30" makes more sense to me now that I'm past 30 years old and know what it's like to have those kind of dreams, and have had to sacrifice some.
- I can understand the jealousy that George feels about his more successful childhood friends, and seeing his friends and brother get married before him.
- The dad having a stroke has more meaningful to me now that I've known people who have suffered them. And after my mom died I could relate to George even more, when I suddenly had more responsibilities than ever before, just like George.
- Sometimes when I watch the colorized version, I'll see details I never noticed before, such as the Coca Cola and Cigar signs in Gower's Drug Store.
- And I notice funny, oddball things like when little George puts the coconuts on the Ice Cream even after little Mary says she doesn't like them and he gives her that speech about them coming from Tahiti.
After reading Kate's post on Citizen Kane and the description of Kane knocking over the furniture in his house, I was reminded that George has a similar tantrum in IAWL and made me think about why he did that, right in front of his wife and children. Then when I consider all the disappointment he experienced in his life, he was bound to snap. It's the most heartbreaking scene in the film and James Stewart's acting is brilliant. I'll never forget in 1990 when PREMIERE magazine listed IAWL as the best film of 1946 in a retrospective looking back at the last 100 years of films. The writer of the article wrote "James Stewart is the greatest American actor of the twentieth century".
For more about this movie read the review at:
Old Hollywood Films
Another take on this movie is from Katie from She Likes Movie, who does not like this movie.
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