It’s a Wonderful Life
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
- Director: Frank Capra
- Genre:Drama / Family / Fantasy / Romance
- Runtime:131 minutes
Cast
James Stewart : George Bailey
Donna Reed : Mary Hatch Bailey
Lionel Barrymore: Henry F. Potter
Thomas Mitchell : Uncle Billy
Henry Travers : Clarence Oddbody
Christmas Eve finds George Bailey (James Stewart) deeply troubled. Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), Angel Second Class, is assigned to save him and earn his wings. Joseph, the head angel, reviews George’s life with Clarence. At the age of 12, George (Bobby Anderson) saved the life of his younger brother Harry (Todd Karns) who had fallen through the ice on a pond, though George lost the hearing in one ear. Later, as an errand boy in a pharmacy, George saved his grief-stricken boss, druggist Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner), from mistakenly filling a child’s prescription with poison.
George’s dream has been to see the world. He repeatedly sacrifices his dreams for the well-being of others until Harry graduates from high school and can replace him at the Bailey Building and Loan Association, vital to the people of Bedford Falls. On Harry’s graduation night in 1928, George discusses his future with Mary Hatch (Donna Reed), who has had a crush on him since she was a little girl. Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) and Harry break the news to George his father has had a stroke, which proves fatal. Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a heartless slumlord and majority shareholder in the Building and Loan, tries to persuade the board of directors to stop providing home loans for the working poor. George persuades them to reject Potter’s proposal, but they agree only on the condition that George himself run the Building and Loan. He gives his college money to his brother.
When Harry graduates from college, he unexpectedly brings home a wife, whose father has offered Harry an excellent job in his company. George cannot deny his brother such a fine opportunity. Once more, George has to set aside his ambitions.
After their wedding, as George and Mary leave town for their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank that leaves the Building and Loan in danger of collapse. Potter offers George’s clients “50 cents on the dollar,” but George and Mary quell the panic by using the $2,000 earmarked for their honeymoon to satisfy the depositors’ needs until confidence in the Building and Loan is restored. Read more
