In the 1960s, NBC would show this film on "Saturday Nights at the Movies". This was a very enjoyable podcast. MY sister covers some of the trivia regarding this film in an episode of “From Beneath the Hollywood Sign”. The highlights for me in “White Christmas” are any time Vera Ellen dances. She also has a way with a line. It’s too bad that she didn’t eventually become a character actress. Edith Head did indeed design the costumes for this film. You should give her and the actors some credit: Bing Crosby (who often comes across as cold to me on film), Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen, Dean Jagger, Mary Wickes, John Brascia and Anne Whitfield. Food? I’ve never noticed the actual food, but sandwiches on a club car or at a New England inn appeal to me. Please, invite me to you next dinner party.

So I have a very distinct memory to go along with this movie. It came out when I was in junior high and my friends and I watched it at a sleepover and decided to pause it and learn the whole handshake. 😄

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Great movie!

Currently having nightmares about losing my novel in a lake.

"That's a Christmas gift from a very dear friend of mine." and "Attaboy, Clarence."

"Best Scenes from It's a Wonderful Life." That would be all of them, folks.

I heard this ona lil peep song

Well no shit.

A Cinderella story ❤❤❤️‍🔥🔥🔥

This movie was a real gem of my teens, I saw it in the cinema and owned the soundtrack which rocked. Just found it on Ebay so I'm looking forward to reliving it soon.

I didn't have a job at all in high school but after I graduated a couple months in and now I'm a cookie baker, couldn't be more grateful tbh

He wasn't ugly 😂

I felt the same way lol they mistreated him

I've always assumed they were Irish twins

I worked as a cashier at a drugstore in high school.

The problems she has with the "The Notebook" is she wants to put it in a different decade. James Marsden is made more attractive in the movie than in the book because he was 8 years older and a work-a-hol-ic in the book. James Marsden, himself said they had to make him better in the movie. Wealth isn't always a plus and I find Noah much more attractive than Lon although Lon is attractive. She likes Lon better even if Allie ended up exactly like her mother.

Mr Napkin Head was a goofy little character that was just about being silly. Why does everything have to be so damm serious. Chill out women

This is so dry

Yeahhh it’s called putting in work to make money. Some of us didn’t grow up with an iPhone and microphone in hand.

I sold beanie babies at 17

Never waste your time on washed up junkie's.

This is my favorite film and It's a Wonderful Life is my secretary film. Both have people trying to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. I have a very dark type.

Catch the full episode: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n6iufYh5fcSags0

they should have a goonies waterslide. or even a goonies waterpark.

Mary is the mvp of their relationship. There are moments George could’ve betrayed his own values and Mary comes in and either supports or leads a situation. The run on the Savings and Loan she problem solved that beat. That was leadership.

Just like youth is wasted on the young, this film is wasted on you.

The Barrymores were/are a famous theatrical dynasty. Lionel, Ethel and John were siblings, and did manage a movie together in the 1930s centering on Rasputin, where Lionel played Rasputin and Ethel the Empress Alexandra. Lionel and James Stewart had acted together before in a Capra movie, "You Can't Take It With You", where Lionel played a very different character. He and John were in at least two other movies together, "Grand Hotel", where they shared several scenes, and "Dinner and Eight", where they do not. Ethel was in a lovely, lovely, strange movie, "Portrait of Jennie", which I highly recommend. Drew is directly descended from John Barrymore.

There's an almost throw-away line early on which I think explains Mr. Potter. Peter Bailey throws it at him as almost an accusation, but Mr. Potter may be supremely lonely, and may have been all his life: "Mr. Potter, what makes you such a hardskulled character? You have no family - no children." No family, no children, juxtaposed to a group the like Baileys. It may not be comprehensible to Peter Bailey and consequently to his sons. But it may go a long way to explaining why is Mr. Potter the way he is.

Gifting a new home with bread, salt and wine is a very old tradition, and each item is a wish for exactly what George and Mary say it's for. And Martini with his family would completely understand this tradition, so I argue that the gifting is not cheesy but almost ritual.

The "hatful of wishes" line is regarding George's own ambitions, not Mary's. She asks him what he wished for and he answers not just one wish but a hatful of of them. As he expounds on his dreams and ambitions, that's when you see a change of expression come over Mary, a sort of determination, and that's when she picks up her own rock to throw. Correctly, she says she won't tell her wish, because if she does, it won't come true. I personally have no problem with the lasso the moon sequence - to me, it's part and parcel of his run through the grass proposal to Violet, and shows that he has this vaulting, almost visionary, poetic side to him that doesn't get much chance to come out. It also further illustrates his character because he says that he would get the moon for Mary, that he would give it to her. He then doesn't babble but envisions what would happen to her illuminated from within by the moon, with the beams coming out of her fingers and toes and the ends of her hair. He is seeing her and letting her see herself in a glimmer of silver. This is ever so much more than a hee-haw and a hearty thump on the shoulder from Sam Wainwright.

I dispute that Mary is submissive. She shows no submissive qualities during the walk home from the gym: she challenges George lightly, and plays along with him. She makes her wish and doesn't tell him what it is. Later, in the house, she argues with George, and he's the one who gives up and leaves, only coming back for his hat. There is nothing submissive in how she teases both her mother and George while they're on the couch. Similarly, she is the one who offers the $2,000 during the bank run: it never occurs to George to go there, but she saves the day by literally shouting it out and raising the bundle of money in the air. This is not submissive: it's comprehension and partnership. She is the one who spends the day securing the Grandville house for them and recruiting Bert and Ernie to help out. She is an active and willing partner in the Bailey Park scene. And she is the one who jumps in after George leaves the house in distress: she gets on the phone, finds out the nub of what's happened, and she, not George or Uncle Billy, gets the ball rolling for that last scene. This is an initiating and supporting person, not submissive at all, and I am at a loss to know how you feel that that she is, or that her mother, who has to virtually push her to the phone to get to Sam, feels that this person is submissive.

Only Sam Wainwright ever initiates "Hee Haw": I think it was just his trademark. Remember he uses it as a greeting to Mary before he even knows George in Mary's house. It's just a little character bit for Sam, not a big thing, but you always know it's him, especially at the end, when he sends that "Hee-haw" along with the promise of up to $25,000. It has nothing to do with mocking George. I'm disappointed that, after so many times watching this movie, you don't discuss Uncle Billy and his situation: he's a widower. We learn this in the scene at his house, where he says he's been to rooms that have been locked since "he lost Laura". The loss has clearly been devastating to him, and seems to have happened a long time ago, as we don't hear or see anything about Laura when George is a child or grown up. Billy has been alone for decades, and this explains a lot about his love for animals, his general state of mind, and the gentleness with which people seem to handle him.

After listening to this, there's one thing to say: We're doomed. An analysis so lacking in insight, it's embarrassing. For example, the guy in the middle called Frank Capra a communist. Frank Capra was a Republican who never voted for Franklin Roosevelt and named names for the FBI in the late forties. Morons who don't do any reading before they start talking in public should be ignored.

Hot Dog! Was a common expression of that time when something went great. The cigar lighter would not always produce a flame right off. George made a game of it by creating a wish and flicking the lighter. The Hee Haw however irritating was just another pre-depression crazy expression of exuberance, and there were a bunch of them. Like the current expression That's sick! (which is just as dumb).

I really love your discussion, but my back goes up when people start talking about cutting scenes for shorter time. Unfortunately, today's audiences seem to want to see a shorter movie packed with action, not allowing character development or story development. It seems everybody wants to get back to the craziness of life instead of taking time to watch a complete story. I liken it to reading the last chapter of a book and throwing away the rest. Perhaps I'm sensitive to it because I'm a writer. I get it, my favorite author is Tolkien, and he describes things to the molecule, but his LOTR series was voted Book of the Century in one poll, and Book of the Millennium in another in 2000. Television and commercialism has reduced our attention span to minutes instead of hours. A story should take the time it takes to tell, and no less. A word processor is not a microwave, and society has sped up life to the point that small beauties are pushed aside for large moments. For me, it is one of the main reasons my favorite movies are either in black & white, or over two and a half hours. Either better quality storyline or one given the time to be told. I really enjoyed your perspective and comments. Thank you.

Hee Haa is the equivalent of "Waaaazzzuupp" today...my god people !!!!

Hee Haw was a command way back for a team of mules or horses. Frank Capra used it in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (my fav. Capra film) so its kind of him paying homage, and Frank also used things throughout films to give the audience an east follow along directive. Hee Haw was always Sam and since he was in the picture on a phone, on a telegram he used the Hee Haw to tie it in. He used the sore ear to tie bits together, he was a master at this, most people miss it tbh.

Matt may not run barefoot in the grass but he does capitalism a lot. Key to the the movie is Potter vs Bailey and the two sides of capitalism. The discipline of business run well (Potter) against business being used for social good but not run very well (Bailey). By the way Matt a lot of women like a little b.s. like the moonbeam stuff. They may think it's silly but they'll never say stop it.

In many ways, I think Mary is the real "hero" of this story, even more than Clarence, who's just doing his job, or George, whose life is mostly driven by circumstance. I really like both of those portrayals, but it's Mary whom we see always standing strong in times of trouble, smoothing the way so that others can get their big moments. And while some might accuse her of simply being a "submissive" wife, I really don't think her character is either written or performed that way. Notice that Mary is the one who manages things so that in the end SHE gets everything she truly wants out of life. And it turns out, of course, that George finally discovers (or is shown) that all the things Mary has been working so hard for are also the things that will make George the happiest.

It’s a Wonderful Life deserves a Criterion release. I’ve never been fortunate enough to see it on the big screen. Our local cinema screens throwback films on Sunday and Wednesday nights, and they showed it this month, but those are the only two nights a week when I have standing plans. One day. It’s a top 10 favorite of mine.

Gen X here. Jurassic Park III is tremendously underrated - that shot of the pterodactyl is worth the price of admission alone. It’s a far more successful film than Dominion. But the original, which you’re discussing here, is dazzling. I was 18 in the summer of 1993; my family stood in line for over an hour to see it on opening day. Our screening was sold out. The first shot of the brachiosaurus literally took the breath of the entire audience away. We all, collectively, gasped. It was one of the great moviegoing moments of my entire life.

todays movies can learn from this .....its a good all american story normal people can relate to, it didnt race swap the character, or make him gay, or have a political message and has a good traditional family message and values , and that why so many people like it, and it no one dislikes it

Hans literally spells out what they're stealing within the first 5 minutes of speaking with Takagi. If watching the movie doesn't give you the answer ill go ahead and mansplain it. Money. They're stealing untraceable bearer bonds which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why is she so stupid can anyone explain this to me?

“Women should run the country” nope

U are Dumb.

Gen Z it's like pronouns they are stealing them