IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: 4K Blu-ray (Liberty Films, 1949) Paramount Home Video

In his first postwar production, director Frank Capra alienated audiences with this somber tale of an 'every man' driven to the brink of suicide, but given the very great gift of being able to see what life would be like if he had never been born. There are many today who regard It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) as the American Christmas Carol; its apocalyptic last act, easily rivaling Ebenezer Scrooge’s carpet-hauling to his own grave, illustrating for our world-weary protagonist the perils of his wish-fulfillment in an alternate universe where all of the goodness and light - while he lived - is turned into the murky chalk of social iniquity by his absence.  Capra’s rare genius for looking into the human condition and finding its’ raw emotional core had always been particularly well-expressed in all those memorable movies made at Columbia Pictures during the 1930's. Capra’s repatriation into the war effort in the early forties, coupled with a split from his alma mater upon his return from service, created a minor disconnect in his career.  Between 1941 and 1946 Capra was effectively ‘off the screen’ except for his contributions to the ‘Why We Fight’ franchise: sobering, morale-boosting wartime propaganda efforts made for the war department. Like fellow film maker, George Stevens, Capra returned from these conflicts abroad a changed man; arguably, a more precise individualist, unafraid to stare into the brooding darkness of humanity and squarely face the fear and loathing found from within – something Capra’s heroes throughout the frothy 1930’s never did.

Alas, like Capra, the world had also gone through a metamorphosis during these terrible years of war and with it, audience’s tastes permanently altered in their popular entertainments.  Ironically, this seismic shift ought to have made It’s A Wonderful Life a sizable hit. For it fed into the movies’ increasingly foggier impressions of the American ideal, exemplified most transparently by the ‘film noir’ movement (as yet to be classified as such, though nevertheless pervasive). And yet, It’s A Wonderful Life was a miserable flop, effectively sealing the fate of Capra’s fledgling ‘Liberty Films’ production company. Perhaps audiences were expecting something else from Capra – a return to form, or a movie to affirm for those hopeful, if waned spirits, that the post-war gestalt had not entirely eroded the moral axis of vintage pre-war Americana. Whatever the case, the picture, regrettably, was an ‘ahead-of-its-time’ turkey, destined for greater longevity in the intervening decades as ‘late night’ television took hold and began reissuing public domain copies of It’s A Wonderful Life over and over again for audiences to reassess at their leisure. Remarkably, the picture’s legacy has only continued to ripen with each passing year, perhaps, because the audience today has steadily digressed from the idealism of James Stewart’s every man, George Bailey into the haunted and cynical peripheries of hopelessness experienced during his sojourn through the alternate reality labyrinth of his own design.  

It’s a Wonderful Life is a far more mature movie than audiences were willing to embrace in 1946. Perhaps they simply had tired or were disillusioned by a fictional character who wished himself gone from the earth at precisely a moment in history when so many were grateful just to be alive and coming home from the global nightmare abroad. By now, It’s A Wonderful Life is so much a part of our yearly televised Christmas tradition, it seems all but impossible to regard it as anything but a classic. Irrefutably, from an artistic standpoint at least, it always was one. Yet, at the time of its theatrical release this story, skillfully scripted by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Jo Swerling and Capra himself, found utter indifference to outright resistance at the box office; in retrospect, a genuine shame. Despite 5-Oscar nominations, It’s A Wonderful Life entered the history books as a footnote rather than a monument, and, with a resounding thud that effectively ended Capra's dreams of being his own boss. It also made Capra subservient to the powers that be elsewhere. I would argue that with one exception Capra’s film career was effectively over after It’s A Wonderful Life; 1948’s State of the Union, made by Liberty Films for MGM, a brilliant readdressing of the themes previously explored in Capra’s more iconic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).  Although Capra continued to make movies until 1961, he would never again enjoy the autonomy or popularity derived from this ‘golden period’; his last movie, A Pocketful of Miracles, a weak-kneed remake of his own Lady for a Day (1933).

Of all the stories Capra ever committed to celluloid, It’s A Wonderful Life is perhaps his most disturbingly profound and emotionally satisfying. We are taken on a very complex journey this time around: through a man’s flawed trajectory in life - the thwarted desire he repeatedly suffers, regarding himself as a failure while he makes valiant strides to pursue dreams much too great to fill his meager instep; fate, interfering in his thirst for ‘greatness’. Lest we forget, that to be great is not akin to ‘goodness’ itself. And George Bailey is very good indeed. Herein, Capra illustrates the merit of ‘greatness’ by redefining the word; not so much about what is in the mind of the daydreamer, hoping to achieve great things for himself, but how his more modest, daily gestures positively impact, and, unknowingly create purpose and achievement more profoundly felt in the lives of others. George Bailey’s gradually resentment at constantly being made the buffer against virtually every social injustice burdening the town of Bedford Falls, leads to temporary disillusionment that weighs as a millstone around his neck. Lacking any tangible reward for even these efforts, George temporarily succumbs to the misconception that his entire life has been wasted. He is brought to heel and taught an invaluable lesson by Clarence Odbody: Angel – second class (the lovable, sadly underrated Henry Travers); made to see all the shining gifts his life and struggles have yielded, not only for the community at large he has diligently served throughout these many decades, seemingly without distinction, but in the realities of his own happy home.

The penultimate ‘message’ of the piece, “no man is a failure who has friends” is a bit oversimplified to truly satisfy; perhaps, a tad forced in its harking all the way back to the lithe and loony ‘Capra-corn’ imbuing his earlier movies. Yet, in James Stewart, Capra possesses precisely the gentlemanly grace and fortitude necessary to give ballast to the quaint notion any man who loves, and is loved by many in return, is undeniably, the richest and most splendid bugger in town. And Stewart illustrates the heartbreaking pain in coming to this startling, if not altogether terrible original, or even profound, realization. As he leans against Martini’s bar, soaked through to the bone from having lumped it on foot through a hellish snowstorm; glassy-eyed with anxious tears for an indiscretion he has not committed (but will likely be arrested and tried for as its scapegoat), praying to God for guidance, only to be interrupted by a physical assault on his person; Stewart’s George Bailey completely loses his way, or rather, thoroughly abandons his moral compass. He is truly a ‘lost soul’ – unable to see the merit in living any longer, reminded, only in tinny echoes, that his life now may be worth more to his family as a corpse on which they can at least collect from his life insurance policy. How did a man of George’s immeasurable talents and immaculate passion for people come to fall so low? And where can he possibly go from here?

Capra and Stewart discover their cause célèbre together; guided by Capra’s uncompromising belief that the Lord will not allow a good man his tumble into the permanent abyss of such overwhelming despair. But the Lord…well…He tends to work in very mysterious ways. And so, the answer to George Bailey’s prayers is not an obliteration of his woes or fulfillment of his own dreams and desires, merely to remedy the rank cynicism brewing from within; in other words, to be given precisely the reasons he thinks are important to validate himself as a ‘truly great man’. God, after all, is not the tooth fairy or a genie. He does not ‘grant wishes.’ But He does shine a light on the misfortunes to befall, should George exercise his free will and choose to take his own life. And so, we – and George – come to discover Bedford Falls greatly changed in his absence; the quiet snowy hamlet reborn as Pottersville; a sort of mid-American Sodom and Gomora, overrun by immoral decadence and political corruption, to have proliferated by the unfettered greed of George’s arch nemesis; Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore, in a thoroughly disturbing performance). Here is the antithesis to George Bailey’s merits as a much-beloved community organizer. Without George, his brother, Harry (Todd Karns) would have drowned as a youngster in the frigid waters of a nearby pond; their mother (Beulah Bondi), made bitter; the town vixen, Violet Bickel (Gloria Grahame) turned to prostitution, and, Bedford’s trusted apothecary, Emil Gower (H.B. Warner) driven to self-destruct as the town rummy, responsible for a young boy’s death by inadvertently poisoning his prescription.

Capra’s point is undeniably to force Stewart’s downtrodden fellow to bear witness to the integral part he has unwittingly played in reshaping the moral fiber of every member in this small community. Far from a failure, George Bailey has enriched the lives of so many; each, recognizing his merits and socially – even spiritually – enriched for having known him. Perhaps relying on the old adage about ‘no man being an island’, Capra carries this notion one step further, showing George how fragile these various destinies hang in the balance and are gingerly held together by the choices he alone has made, perhaps even unknowingly, for the furtherance of all. That George Bailey cannot see this for himself is the real ‘failing’ in his life; the one God will choose to rectify and, eventually, help to restore to him as the ultimate Christmas blessing. George Bailey has, in fact, led an exemplary life. Assuming the burdens of sustaining his home town with the only independent financial institution to rival tyrannical millionaire, Henry F. Potter after the death of his own father (Samuel S. Hinds), George has also been blessed in marrying the prettiest girl in town; Mary Hatch (Donna Reed). Even so, George considers the arc of his life's work a complete and utter waste of time because he never achieved the basic dreams he aspired to – adventure, travel and heady times as a ‘big man’ in the big city.

Indeed, the Baileys are rich in only one thing – friendship – an intangible George begrudgingly discounts. Herein, Capra illustrates a fundamental of the human condition at large; abject complacency, nee naïve blindness in believing the world that surrounds any individual has simply evolved without the individual’s input or impact. Lest we forget, even the smallest gestures can foster huge ripples. But George Bailey has taken these life associations for granted. Now, fate, having already conspired against even this modest life, and quite possibly, George’s reputation as an inherently ‘good man’, will spin his salvation in quite a different direction. Reputation is a curious and fragile commodity; George’s, inadvertently threatened when Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) misplaces the Savings and Loan deposit, slated for the bank. Without this payment, the organization his father founded will be cast into bankruptcy and scandal. Seizing the opportunity to ruin George once and for all, his wheelchair-bound rival, Mr. Potter, recognizes the principled cache his rival might still bring to the table, albeit deviously bent to Potter’s will and reforms. So, Potter first attempts to bribe George with the promise of wealth and authority – precisely the tangibles George once craved. However, when George refuses, Potter threatens foreclosure, imprisonment and financial ruin. This leads George to believe his family would be better off if he were dead.

If postwar America was anticipating another 'feel good' masterpiece from Frank Capra, they were well to receive it, albeit in a more subdued, though arguably just as undiluted form. To be sure, It’s A Wonderful Life dabbles in the familiar ‘Capra-corn’ with ample dollops of sugary sweetness. But these moments are counterbalanced by the harsh realities of life (the death of a parent and the surrender of a dream) and capped off by Capra’s nightmarish regression into a world without George Bailey: not a dream sequence, but a plummet into purgatory from which no redemption of the soul is possible. Even George and Mary's courtship is not of the idyllic ‘hearts and flowers’ ilk usually sprinkled in Hollywood-ized pixie dust. There are no violin strings, starry-eyed montages and moony exchanges under a starlit trellis; no cool rippling waters mirroring divine bliss from inside the wishing well. In fact, in some ways the romance between George and Mary in It’s A Wonderful Life owes more to the infrequently interrupted trajectory of lusts and passions inherited by the noir hero; a strange undercurrent never more superficially represented than in the ebullient high school graduation vignette. George meets Mary at Harry's high school prom. Mary is a senior. The worldlier Violet Bick (Gloria Grahame) openly flirts with George. But Harry makes George promise to dance with Mary instead. Freddie (Alfalfa Switzer), a jealous rival for Mary’s affections looms over their immediate happiness, despite the fact Mary prefers George. Hence, given half the incentive and all of the opportunity to exact revenge, Freddie activates the gymnasium floor. It opens beneath the dancers, revealing the school's swimming pool as George and Mary - along with half the attending guests - plunge into the waters. Strolling home afterward in over-sized bathrobes and football attire, wet clothes slung over their shoulders, Mary confides to George her future aspirations for quaint domesticity. But these dreams are interrupted when Harry arrives in a borrowed jalopy to inform his brother their father, Peter, has suffered a fatal heart attack.

From this moment forward, It’s A Wonderful Life steadily digresses from the usually scripted sunny backdrop of a traditional Capra movie. George’s dreams of college and travel are dashed upon Harry’s return home when his new wife, Ruth Dakin (Virginia Patton) suggests Harry’s interests would be best served by an appointment in her father’s lucrative factory in New York; an opportunity George can see as a benefit to his brother whom he dearly loves. So, once again, sacrifices are made and again, George puts his own happiness on hold. George’s love for Mary is neither immediate nor even steadfast. He resists her obvious advances in a thoroughly mean-spirited attempt to be rid of her influence; a love, he ultimately cannot deny. And shortly thereafter, George and Mary are happy – or so it would appear – achieving smaller victories together – at home and for their neighbors; home ownership, at a time when the average wage earner was still being threatened with the aftermath of the Great Depression. Potter is incensed that Peter Bailey’s modest enterprise, one he has repeatedly failed to either possess or crush, has thrived under George’s leadership. Thus, when Uncle Billy’s lackadaisical misfiling of the Savings and Loan deposit results in a possible scandal for everyone, Potter keeps the money and elects to either ruin George once and for all or sway his influence to a darker purpose; a prospect even more detrimental to the forthrightness and legacy of Peter Bailey.

Refusing to partake of this blackmail, yet seeing no safe haven as his retreat, George contemplates suicide to spare his wife and children their good name. He is rescued from these poisonous thoughts by Clarence Odbody and shown the monumental destructiveness his plotted demise would have on an entire community. Never having been born, George could not have saved Harry from drowning. In tandem, Harry, who in life distinguished himself as a war hero, now is not there to save the lives of a good many fellow servicemen after their ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Without George, Mary turned spinsterish; Ma Bailey became an embittered curmudgeon; Emil Gower, a drunken ex-con, belittled and humiliated by Nick – the bartender (Sheldon Leonard); Violet, a cheap prostitute. Even the veritable milk of human kindness expressed by George’s best friends, Ernie, the cabby (Frank Faylen) and Bert, the cop (Ward Bond) is curdled into cynical – even sinister – speculation. What George has utterly failed to realize until this moment is how meaningful his life has been to his friends; how the kindnesses shown others has helped to shape their lives, and, how great a success his own has been in their reflected triumphs, interwoven into the fabric of all of their lives.

Pleading for his life after the nightmare has all but consumed both sanctity and sanity of the world he once knew and cherished, George is restored to his former self. He hurries home to find Mary and his children eager for his return, and Mary – having learned of the mislaid funds and Potter’s threats to prosecute for embezzlement – now calls upon their many friendships; the outpouring of sentiment and badly needed monies freely given by all, more than ample to cover the debt and thus absolve George from facing any prosecution for a crime that, after all, he did not commit in the first place.  Herein, Capra opens the floodgates in an outpouring of public opinion for the redemption of our beloved fallen man; the various characters we have been introduced to along the way, each pledging all they can to procure a very Merry Christmas for George Bailey and his family – even Sam Wainwright (Frank Albertson); the man who, having failed in his amour with Mary, and later, turned down by George for a joint business venture into plastics, now himself flush with cash, sends a telegram to inform George he will advance him whatever is required to help in the reparations. “To my big brother, George,” Harry Bailey, newly home from the war, prophetically announces, “…the richest man in town.”

We depart at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life, reveling in this penultimate redemption of a good man’s soul. And James Stewart’s reaction to hearing these words reveals nothing less than an absolute epiphany for redefined ‘greatness’. The swell of sentiment Capra releases here is throat-lump-inducing and heartily imbued with the Christmas spirit, set to the bittersweet strains of Auld Lang Syne - a teary-eyed reminder that life rarely offers its pursuer what he/she desires, but it almost always allows for just deserts. George Bailey is indeed ‘the richest man in town’ – the greatest gift of all, unknowingly shared – now, re-payed to George at precisely the moment when he desperately needs it the most. No man is an island, after all, and George Bailey’s rediscovered self-worth strengthens his resolve; Capra’s sublime message to the rest of us; to do more, do better, and perhaps do it better than anyone else. Certainly, no one could do it as well as Frank Capra.  James Stewart’s performance as the every-man at the end of his rope is sheer genuine. In the moments following his initial confrontation with Clarence, we see Stewart’s mind eagerly at work, believing the hoax, however elaborately conceived. Yet, it is in the starker and more terrifying realization that George’s void in society has managed to dismantle everything once immeasurably enriched by his presence, that we also come to appreciate the film’s message as perhaps more profound than it really is: no man is a failure who has friends. Oh yes…and every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings. “At’a boy, Clarence.” Kudos to Stewart and Capra too.

After releasing a restored B&W print on DVD five Christmases ago; then, a B&W and colorized Collector's Set two Christmases ago, Paramount Home Video repackaged It's A Wonderful Life yet again on Blu-Ray – advertised as a ‘Platinum Edition’. Alas, none of these offerings were particularly satisfying, and contained a lot of edge effects that Paramount’s meticulous 4K restoration of the picture rectified last Christmas. If only Paramount had not made the idiotic decision then to simply release the 4K in digital only and forego a physical media release. Ah, but cooler heads have prevailed. Because this year It’s A Wonderful Life arrives in true native 4K and the results on 4K UHD Blu-ray are breathtaking. Gone are those aforementioned edge effects.  If you already own any of the previously issued Blu-rays, prepare yourself for the distinct pleasure of viewing It’s A Wonderful Life as never before. The gray scale is vastly improved here. Paramount’s standard Blu-ray had some fluctuating contrast issues, with mid-range tonality infrequently blown out. And the original Blu-ray was also heavily digitally scrubbed, resulting in an image that appeared more digitally harsh than smooth, and thoroughly lacking in film grain. Well, now we get the real deal. Grain structure has been lovingly preserved and looks very film-like – especially in projection.  Contrast is bang on. The image is rock solid and spell-bindingly gorgeous.  The 4K remaster is sourced from an archival original camera negative, with a ground-up restoration that could not have been easy or cheap.  The results, however, speak for themselves.

A word here, Paramount has included their old 2K remaster on Blu-ray – so, no upgrade for those who still have not advanced their current systems to a 4K player and TV. This is the same Blu-ray Paramount has endlessly marketed and repackaged over the last decade. It contains the ‘colorized’ version of the movie and 3 new extras; a brief reflection piece, a making of, and a cast wrap up featurette. Cumulatively, these extras total just under an hour and are most welcomed. To finally own the movie in pristine 4K is a treat that no iTunes download of the 4K master can compete with; apologies to those who continue to champion digital downloads as the wave of the future. But there is no way to achieve the same - or even similar bandwidth - from a download. This disc is therefore easily the best way to experience this perennial holiday classic at home. Very – very – highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4K remaster - 5+

Standard Blu-ray – 3.5

EXTRAS

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