It’s A Wonderful Movie

A couple of years ago, me and my friend Siobhan had an argument about the subject of holiday movies. Which was the best one? My mom had raised me loving Miracle on 34th St.(the original one thank you very much! with a very young and spunky Natalie Woods) And Siobhan loved It’s A Wonderful Life!

So one night, we decided to put the two to the test head-to-head. It was a long night. IAWL itself is clocking is a solid 2 hours, and MO34S is an hour and a half long. So that’s almost 4 hours straight through. But with some chocolate milk and cigarettes, we made it through.

Sidenote: Just noticed that IAWL came out in 1946 and MO34S in 1947. How cool is that? Meanwhile, we get Jingle All The Way and The Santa Clause as follow-up holiday movies. Yeesh.

Anyway, I had been poisoned by years of seeing just the end of IAWL. The part that’s totally sappy where it’s “Daddy! Daddy! Teacher says when a bell rings an angel gets its wings!” “That’s right… that’s right.” And I even made fun of that part. Because come on, it’s a little cheesy.

And then we watched the movie. How MEAN is George Bailey? How FUNNY is this movie? And how much do you feel for this guy? He’s the original hard luck case.

I think about this movie a lot and especially him because in a lot of families you have this experience where one person sort of gives up their life, so you can live yours. Because someone is taking care of an elderly parent, or the business or whatever. And it sucks to be that person. It’s thankless. But people do it.

We were talking the other day about the fact too that she sews a pillow about the George Bailey lassoes the moon thing. And how like, kind of freaky that is. But I love how he reacts to it. And how he hardly even compliments her with, “Where’d you get that dress?” Not you look pretty. And the song? And he ignores her. Then she smashes the record. UNEXPECTED!

He’s a meanie alright.

Anyway…. about halfway through I realized, oh no, this IS better than Miracle. But I still love Miracle on 34th St. Especially this line, “Well, you’ve heard of the British nation. And the French nation? Well, this is the IMAGIN-ation.” It’s cheesy. But you know what? I’m cheesy.

So every year, we try to watch it together. But we skip Miracle on 34th St. Capra, you won.