George Bailey: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.
Mary: I'll take it. Then what?
George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair...
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If you have never watched this movie in its entirety, or if you associate it only with Christmas, you are missing a gem. Long one of my sentimental favorites, and not just because it's Frank Capra (a truly optimistic director with the underdog always coming out on top in American society -- just see Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (the original with, you guessed it, the fabulous Jimmy Stewart) or You Can't Take It With You.
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The classics are classic for a reason -- the same way you read an old classic novel, you watch classic movies. The scene pictured above is without a doubt one of the sexiest and romantic love scenes in cinematic history (along with Scorcese's Age of Innocence when Newland Archer touches Ellen Olenska's bare hand underneath her glove), and it involves no sex.
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It's A Wonderful Life is full of drama -- we feel for poor George Bailey who is always doing the right thing by his family, even at the expense of his own happiness. He is a true cinematic hero. Jimmy Stewart delivers a great performance that is brilliant in his restraint -- we feel the boil of his passions underneath the surface of his everyman likeable good guy. He curtails his own desires for travel when his father dies and he takes over the Savings and Loan, and sacrifices again when his brother comes back married with the prospect of a new job with his new father-in-law, not taking over the Savings and Loan from George, as promised.
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Sure, the message that no man is a failure who has good friends is feel-good. But what a ride it is seeing how the world might be different a la A Christmas Carol if George had never been born.
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Watch it and do not shed a tear or think about your own life or your own friends.
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I dare you.
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