It's A Wonderful Life
Frank Capra's favorite of his own films is now everyone's favorite Jimmy Stewart picture, but it wasn't a favorite of audiences when it was released. Postwar moviegoers were understandably depressed by the tale of George Bailey's repeated failure to escape from Bedford Falls, not to mention the lack of a comeuppance for thieving Old Man Potter (Lionel Barrymore). After a clerical error resulted in a lapse in the copyright, the movie went into the public domain in the 1970s and became a TV staple that audiences rediscovered and embraced. It remains as unflinchingly bleak as ever, with Capra mining a dark obsessiveness from Stewart that the actor would later put to good use in Anthony Mann Westerns and Hitchcock thrillers. That bleakness makes the wonderfulness of the ending all the more hard won and richly deserved. Like George Bailey, the film's original viewers may not have realized how good they had it and how lucky they were. Today, a lot of us live in Potterville, but we wish we lived in Bedford Falls.
