It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

Film: It's A Wonderful Life

Director: Frank Capra

Country: USA

Released: December 1946

Runtime: 131 minutes

Genre: Christmas

Studio: RKO

Influenced: Kurosawa, Frank Darabont, Spielberg, David Lynch

It was actually a novel experience to watch this film outside the festive season, while not full of cheese, wine and Christmas cheer. One of the most striking things about the film while watching it with a sober hat on was how stunning the cinematography is, with director Frank Capra conjuring up a vision of small-town America, from the quaint streets of Bedford Falls to the snow-capped hills of the countryside. Capra's use of colour is particularly noticeable, from the warm yellows and reds of the Bailey family home to the vivid blues of the night sky.

Like all the best Christmas films (I'm also looking at you Muppet Christmas Carol), the plot is based on Charles Dickens' classic short story, A Christmas Carol. In Capra's version, the film tells the tale of George Bailey, a self-sacrificing man who is struggling to make ends meet and to keep his family’s building-and-loan association business afloat. After a series of unfortunate events, George is on the brink of losing everything when an angel named Clarence comes to his rescue. The angel's gift is a vision of what life would have been like for George's family and his town had he not been born.

Thanks to Clarence's guidance, George comes to realise the importance of his network of relationships and the impact of his life on those around him. Yes, the film lays on the syrupy emotion a little too thick at times, but only the hardest of hearts could fail to be moved by its finale. War veteran James Stewart is terrific as George Bailey, bringing depth and complexity to the role, while Donna Reed plays his long-suffering wife Mary with real emotion. Lionel Barrymore is wonderfully cast as Mr Potter, the villain of the piece, and Gloria Grahame has a nice cameo as the town's "fast" girl, Violet.

Interestingly, the film was not an instant hit with the cinema public, perhaps the fairly depressing picture of a world where dreams go to die hit a bit too close to home in the immediate post-WWII period. Capra said the film was conceived around the theme of the "individual's belief in himself" and as a counter to the growing trend towards atheism, so it's interesting that as society became more secular over the decades, the film's appeal began to grow and grow. It wasn't until the mid-1970s that It's A Wonderful Life was considered a "Christmas" movie and established itself as a staple on American TV, but now it's hard to think of it any other way.