It’s Christmas Eve, which means that, somewhere, someone is probably watching Frank Capra’s Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life (and an angel is getting its wings). The 1946 film stars Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, a small-town man whose story I summarized in a piece earlier this year:
It’s a Wonderful Life took a circuitous journey to its current renown. As I noted in a different piece in 2020 (yes, I’m a fan), the film was “somewhat ignored by audiences and misunderstood by critics in its initial release,” but “the passage of time and many TV airings have given this film the iconic status it deserved from its first screening.” Nowadays, it is virtually — and rightly — inescapable during the Christmas season, with its message about the fundamental value of life and the importance of family and community, as well as many of the other elements of its story, having thoroughly penetrated popular culture.
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