(11 votes, average: 4.09 out of 5)
Loading …Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents Its a Wonderful Life movie review a 1947 film starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and directed by Frank Capra George Bailey has so many problems he is thinking about ending it all - and it’s Christmas ! As the angels discuss George, we see his life in flashback. As George is about to jump from a bridge, he ends up rescuing his guardian angel, Clarence. Clarence then shows George what his town would have looked like if it hadn’t been for all his good deeds over the years. Will Clarence be able to convince George to return to his family and forget about suicide ? Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It’s a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it find its audience through repeated TV showings. Frank Capra’s masterwork deserves its status as a feel-good communal event, but it is also one of the most fascinating films in the American cinema, a multilayered work of Dickensian density. George Bailey (played superbly by James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls, dreaming dreams of adventure and travel, but circumstances conspire to keep him enslaved to his home turf. Frustrated by his life, and haunted by an impending scandal, George prepares to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. A heavenly messenger (Henry Travers) arrives to show him a vision: what the world would have been like if George had never been born. The sequence is a vivid depiction of the American Dream gone bad, and probably the wildest thing Capra ever shot (the director’s optimistic vision may have darkened during his experiences making military films in World War II). Capra’s triumph is to acknowledge the difficulties and disappointments of life, while affirming–in the teary-eyed final reel–his cherished values of friendship and individual achievement. It’s a Wonderful Life was not a big hit on its initial release, and it won no Oscars (Capra and Stewart were nominated); but it continues to weave a special magic. –Robert Horton
Comment by Daniel Gooch “soopergrape”
# December 31, 2006,
I saw “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the first time as an adult recently, you know that sappy flop that just happens to be one of the most watched Christmas movies after SIXTY YEARS? What I saw was not what I remembered seeing. I replayed the scenes that seemed to have such a magical effect on me, most of them also just happened to have Mary Hatch/Bailey in them. I replayed them in slow motion and stepped through some of them frame by frame. What I began to realize caused me to wonder. Almost all of the really special things I felt about this movie had to do with Donna Reed. Yes Jimmy Stewart was good, but it was only against the backdrop of Donna Reed’s Mary that I felt he became great in this role.
I saw the details and subleties of a performance that felt so real that if I saw some scenes a thousand times I would still be torn up by her in them. I find that I have become a bit of an apologist for the movie as a whole, and her in particular. I am working on a guide, of sorts, that deals with certain aspects of the plot and character development that I feel are commonly overlooked by the casual viewer. All I can say is this: If you watch it-pay deliberate attention to her face and especially her eyes. And, watch her scenes several times over so you can see the details. Near the end of the “Parlor” scene there are several seconds of her that I find endearingly spicy. The very last frame before the camera cuts to her mother shows a change in her expression I wish I could have seen all of. I wish Capra had allowed us to see this scene develop from their point of view all the way through. At least from the point where sweet, innocent Mary has just told her disapproving mother that a depressed and irritable George is “…making violent love to me, mother!”
I would have much rather seen the two of them and merely heard her mother’s reply.
The “telephone” scene is the best emotional interaction I guess I have ever seen on film. If it isn’t clear why, I’ll send you a copy of what I have so far.
I realize that I had never really noticed Donna Reed before, other than that she was different in this from what I’d heard about her. My dad didn’t watch the Donna Reed show, so it was never on. I never really noticed her in anything else, except maybe for glimpses of the TV show. After watching the young Miss Reed closely in It’s a Wonderful Life I find it hard to believe that she was mostly offered bland/dull/B-movie, squeaky clean roles afterward. I can’t imagine that no one could have seen the things I now see in this movie, and in Donna Reed’s character Mary Hatch. She is just such a foxy lady in this-even given the standards of the day. Her eyes and facial expressions show a fun, playful spirit that she seems to be well aware is a contradiction to the prim and proper front Mary presents to the world. Although she won her Academy Award for the role of Alma in “From Here to Eternity”, as for steamy attractiveness, Alma can’t hold a candle to Mary Hatch!