The Heart of It's a Wonderful Life
It’s a Wonderful Life, a holiday favorite enjoyed annually by film buffs and average audiences alike, is an enduring “classic” in the best meaning of the word. But nearly 30 years of Christmastime television programming passed before the film outgrew its disappointing early reception. Upon release in 1946, It's a Wonderful Life’s box office was modest at best. Reviews were mixed or unkind.
In his book The Heart of It’s a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Hawkins brings something of an insider’s perspective to explain the film’s persistent appeal. Hawkins was the child actor who played the role of George Bailey’s youngest son, Tommy. He reviews the known facts, including Hollywood’s indifference to the production and Capra’s insistence to see it through. Dalton Trumbo was one of the film’s original screenwriters? Capra rejected his ideas and ran the script through several writers, including himself. Even without Trumbo’s input, It’s a Wonderful Life presented such a clear image of capitalism’s worst ends that the film was condemned by internal memos within J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.
Although Hawkins lapses at times into motivational self-help prose, his essential points are correct. With or without Clarence the sentimentalized angel, It’s a Wonderful Life is essentially a religious picture, spiritual, not individualistic but communitarian, not navel-gazing but society building. George Bailey, memorably played by Jimmy Stewart in what has become a defining role, willingly put aside his ambitions for the sake of friends, family and town. He is the troubled (suicidal) opposite to Mr. Potter’s smug sense of entitlement and power. The story stands on the preposition that each life can be incalculably valuable by showing the fate of Bedford Falls had George never been born.
The Heart of It’s a Wonderful Life is published by Harper Horizon.
