THE WORST WE CAN FIND - Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 20 - IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

 

The Worst We Can Find Christmas Advent Calendar is getting closer to the end, but there’s still some Christmas cheer to spread and Day 20 sees RiffTrax daring to go where no one else has tried – beating up a beloved classic – with It’s a Wonderful Life!

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Program: RiffTrax

Air-Date: December 18, 2020

The original movie poster and RiffTrax's artwork for their streaming version.

Plot: Someone’s gotta help George Bailey! We don’t find out why until late in the movie, but the prayers of family and friends for George reach the celestial realm and Clarence, an Angel Second-Class who has yet to earn his wings, is giving an overview of George’s life in a small town called Bedford Falls, before he is sent out on his mission to save George from giving up on life.

The majority of the film is one huge flashback as we see George’s life starting as a 12-year-old and onward to the present of Christmas Eve, 1945. The main theme of the flashback is that George has repeatedly sacrificed his own dreams to help others only to find himself now at Christmas in a precarious situation where $8,000 had been stolen from his business by his nemesis who has also sworn out a warrant for his arrest.

Thinking everyone would be better off without him, Clarence arranges to show George how things would have been if he had never been born. The results make George realize how precious life is to himself and others and prays to have his life back.  Returning to his house, George finds that all his friends are there to help him get the money together so there can be no arrest. Realizing how rich he is with family and friends, George is informed that Clarence has gotten his wings as everyone happily joins in song.

Why you shouldn't put quotation marks around a title as it sounds sarcastic, as per Bill.

Thoughts: Based on a self-published short story called “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern, RKO originally bought the rights to the story in 1944 for Cary Grant to star in a film adaptation. Frank Capra, “the most Capre-esque director of all” as explained in the riffs (with films like It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe to his credit), was putting together an independent production company at the time called Liberty Films and bought the rights to the story to make it a movie.

Capra happily worked with Jimmy Stewart in the past and Stewart had just returned from fighting in World War II and was looking to get back to work. The film really is the beginning of a period where Stewart began expanding beyond the “juvenile lead” comedic roles (although you can see that as early as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington); his George has humorous beats to him early on, but the character’s anger and his struggle at the bar where he is pleading to God have a dramatic tense that would benefit Stewart later in his Hitchcock appearances and movies like Winchester ’73.

Lionel Barrymore, who used a wheelchair for a number of his later roles due to injuries he received in a traffic accident, was originally to play FDR in a movie called The Beginning or The End but was pushed out of the role when the Roosevelt family found out. Barrymore, known for his opposition to Roosevelt when he was alive and happily campaigning against him in his last two elections, didn’t set well with the family and the role was denied him even after a screen test. Instead, he moved on to play Potter, which is probably his more remembered role of his career besides his appearances as Dr. Gillespie in the Doctor Kildare series (and, yes, that explains the one joke in Blazing Saddle for those who may not have been aware). In an odd coincidence, The Beginning or the End was brought to MGM as a project through Donna Reed, who had to turn down working on that picture because she was busy with It’s a Wonderful Life.

Interesting side notes: according to Bobbie Anderson, who played the young George Bailey, H.B. Warner really did slap him hard upside the head, causing the bleeding from the ear that we see in the movie, and it is not just an effect. A more familiar and whimsical tale is that the crash heard after Uncle Billy leaves the party was unintentional on-set, but actor Thomas Mitchell improvised a response that worked well for the scene and it was left in (and you can see a uncharacteristic smile play on Stewart’s face after it occurs).

The movie received mixed reviews from critics, with many feeling the movie was overly sweet. The box office was weak and the movie lost money for Capra’s production company, which it never recovered from. The weak critical response also damaged Capra’s career and both Stewart and Reed struggled to find work after the release of the movie (Reed would later state that Stewart actively avoided being seen with her at events and parties because of the association). What saved the movie was a mistake in the 1970s when the copyright for the movie lapsed. Because of this, the movie because very inexpensive for television stations to use and air, leading to the movie being seen by a large number of people around the country. When video-cassette recording of movies were becoming popular in the 1980s, It’s a Wonderful Life also made a huge mark in that industry for the same reason, hence even more people seeing it over and over. This led to various parodies of the original work to pop up and at one point Comedy Central had a contest where films were sent in by the public in order to retell the story (much like the fan-made Star Wars Uncut done in 2009). Many of those takes were done in a humorous fashion, including redubbing and riffing of material from the movie. (Eventually copyrights were reestablished in the 1990s.)

The movie now is considered a holiday classic and while its running time of 131 minutes usually makes people tepid in trying it out, most come away as fans who will return to it repeatedly over the years.

Favorite Riff: (George, beaten down with thoughts of going to jail, realizes that his violent tantrum has his family staring at him in stunned silence)
Mary: George, why must you torture the children? Why don’t you - ?
George: (despondent) Mary.
Mike: Well, good job, Mary. You went and ruined Christmas for everybody!

The Riffing: MST3K shied away from bigger movies for the most part. First, because they simply couldn’t afford them, and secondly because Joel felt the emphasis of the program would be to show movies unfamiliar to most viewers (this was one reason Plan 9 from Outer Space had not be used in the original series, as it was considered too well-known and already mocked enough at the time). At the time of Cinematic Titanic, Hodgson was asked about a team-up between that group and RiffTrax and he didn’t see the idea working very well, as RiffTrax was willing to dive into more recent and recognizable films, which he felt didn’t work for what he wanted to present. There is, of course, This Island Earth for Mystery Science Theater 3000: the Movie, but that was the exception that proved the rule – there was enough heat for using a “classic” movie that it seemed better to stick with what had worked up to that point.

But RiffTrax was a different beast in that regard. Starting early on with riffing commentaries that could be played over blockbuster movies, there was less fear of mocking the classic. Thus, while it took years for the team to get there, riffing a beloved classic like It’s a Wonderful Life was not completely unusual.

Even so, it did mean that the movie would have to have some type of alteration in order to be of fair-use. To do this, the movie was edited here and there, while still leaving most of the story intact.  MOST of the story intact. In fact, one of the funniest things to happen in the RiffTrax version is that the entire “alternate universe” George witnesses that convinces him to live is gone! Wiped out of the movie with a fast wipe between George in the hut by the bridge drying off and then happily running home to Mary and the kids. How they resolved the change in George is one of the better gags of the movie as well, so I won’t spoil it here, as it is well worth finding out on your own.

Released as the COVID crisis of 2020 was just starting to die down a little, the RiffTrax version of It’s a Wonderful Life is a successful attempt to riff a classic movie that is beloved by a good number of people. It may sting a little here and there with some of the riffs for us that keep going back to the movie every year, but it is also a refreshing reminder that sometimes we can kid the things we love. Even something as wholesome as It’s a Wonderful Life. The riffed version can be found on Amazon Prime and the RiffTrax site.