"It's A Wonderful Life" Showed Conscience

Edited very slightly December 8, 2020

 

"It's A Wonderful Life" is a movie given by Frank Capra and the United States to the world.* It shows how conscience is important to holding people together. If you've never seen this movie, made just after the end of World War Two, please take the time to sit down and watch it, it will inspire you.** It will inspire you, unless of course, you love money more than anything, and thus you see communists lurking everywhere, including under your bed. If you think I'm joking, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI believed the film was the result of communist infiltration of Hollywood; after all, the main character, played by Jimmy Stewart, gave up money to help others, making him downright un-American in the eyes of the moneygrubbing ego maniacs who are constantly working to have the world orbiting around themselves. In today's America, I'm sure the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and Donald Trump see the picture as under the influence of communists, so beware, you may make their list if you like this movie. I hope I do make their list, since I'll call them what they are; a bunch of fascist propagandists, undoubtedly all in the possession of leather bound editions of "The Collected Works of Joseph Goebbels."***

I have to believe most of you have seen the movie at some point (but watch it again, we need reinforcement in our lives, and NOT from the merchants of hate and survival of the fittest), so I'll go through it briefly, including the ending. The movie centers around the life of small town resident George Bailey, played by James "Jimmy" Stewart. The Bailey family isn't against business, the father and uncle run a building and loan company that helps workers achieve the American dream of owning a home by pooling money to build homes for the town's non rich. The Baileys struggle to get by, just as their customers struggle in their lives, but the Baileys are always more than a little reluctant to foreclose on the town's people, although they are opposed in such beliefs by Mr. Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore, the town's richest man and the owner of just about everything in the town. George has many dreams, including the dream of leaving small town life and going off to do big things. His dreams often come into conflict with his conscience, but in the end, George's conscience wins, although his help to others brings hardship to himself, as "no good deed goes unpunished." In his childhood, George saved his younger brother who had fallen through the ice into a nearby pond. The result is, George loses the hearing in one ear due to the frigid water. As George prepares to go off and do big things, his father dies and George takes over the struggling building and loan business, which otherwise would have been liquidated, leaving the market to moneygrubbing Potter, who is constantly plotting the demise of the company. When the Great Depression strikes, George is about to leave for his honeymoon, but he chooses to remain in town and spend his own savings to keep the building and loan in business. The constant struggle to eke out a living and keep the business going takes its toll on George, and by the time World War Two ends, his troubles are capped off by the shortage of $8000 on the business accounts, money misplaced by his forgetful uncle (played by Thomas Mitchell). The ruthless and jealous Mr. Potter now moves in for the kill, accusing George of embezzlement and calling in the law. The distraught George turns on his family in anger and decides to end his own life.

As George prepares to jump off of a bridge, his guardian angel, played by English actor Henry Travers, who has been watching events unfold, intervenes and jumps into the swirling river first, as he knows George will quickly forget his own life when another person needs help. After the rescue, the angel, named Clarence, carrying a copy of "Tom Sawyer," tells a disbelieving George who he is. Clarence has been given the assignment of saving George so that he, Clarence, can then earn his wings, which the devoted, but less than resourceful angel has been unable to do for centuries. So Clarence gets another chance too! George, now again focused on his own troubles, gives Clarence an idea when he tells him, "I wish I'd never been born." Clarence grants the wish and George Bailey's history is wiped out. As George goes through town, no one knows him, including his own mother, and he sees the town has been renamed after Mr. Potter. All sorts of things are different, including a grave for his younger brother, who ended up dying, because George wasn't there to save him when he fell through the ice into the pond. The brother had helped save a transport ship full of men in World War II, but Clarence then tells George that all of the men on the transport died, because his brother hadn't been there to save them, because George hadn't been there to save his brother when they were kids. This is how events of people's lives link to other lives. The section of town where the homes had been built for average people is vacant and ringed with slums owned by Potter. After George tries to get his wife to understand who he is, she screams, bringing a police officer in pursuit of George, who heads back to the bridge to ask to be put back to his real life, troubled though it is.

George, unaware his real life is back, wants to slug his long time friend the policeman when he pulls up. When the officer calls him by name, George realizes his life is back and he cheerfully dashes through town to get home. He enters the house where a bank examiner and a detective with an arrest warrant are waiting for him. In comes George's wife (played by Donna Reed) and other family members. In a turn around from his always helping others, they are carrying money donated by the townspeople to help George this time. More people crowd the house to donate, and one man says, "I wouldn't have a roof over my head if weren't for you, George." People remember! A telegram arrives from a lifelong friend and successful businessman granting George a large line of credit. (Hm, he must be a communist too. Damn, they're everywhere!) With the line of credit and the donated money now available to George, the detective tears up the warrant and joins the celebration. George's brother arrives and offers a toast to his brother George, "the richest man in town." As they all sing, George looks down into the donation basket and sees Clarence's copy of "Tom Sawyer," complete with the inscription, "George, Remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings!"           

* Frank Capra produced and directed the movie.

** The movie is readily available on DVD.

*** Joseph Goebbels was Hitler's propagandist. Goebbels and his wife were fanatical Nazi nutcases to the very end, as after Hitler's suicide, they tragically killed their six beautiful young children in Hitler's Berlin bunker, and then, not so tragically, killed themselves.

Photo is of the 2 disc Paramount DVD release of 2007

WORD HISTORY:
Yarn-This word goes back to Indo European "ghor/gher," with the idea of "guts, intestines," which were then used for strings, chords. This gave its Old Germanic offspring "garnan," by which time the meaning had broadened to include "wool used to make string, thread, yarn." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "gearn," seemingly pronounced "ge-arn," which then became "yarn," as the "initial "ge" blended to become a "y" sound. The word also took on the meaning "a story," from the idea of putting ideas together into an understandable tale. Other Germanic languages have: German "Garn," Low German Saxon "Goorn," Dutch "garen," West Frisian "jern," Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish all have "garn."