Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine It's a Wonderful Topic!

Part of the reason it was cut back had to do with copyright regulations. The movie had fallen into public domain for years and it could be shown without having to pay royalties. Copyright protection was resecured and suddenly networks and TV stations had to pay to show it.

Rocky, EDE, thank you both for the film recommendations.

The Wikipedia article has a good explanation about the public domain issue.

I never knew a major network aired it on Christmas Eve, but then I'm otherwise engaged that evening.

I recently watched Casablanca. It is a great movie. The pacing of the movie is great. Things move along, but are not rushed. The only problem with it was that I knew the ending having seen the ending many many times.

Casablanca is incredible, though it *is* one movie which could benefit from the main female character being stronger.

What I love about Casablanca is how funny it is. That's something people never seem to talk about in all the "Best of" discussions.

to bring a few topics together:
Bogart and strong female lead: African Queen, ya buddy.

Bogart and Christmas: anyone else see We're no Angels? Love that movie.

The Bishop's Wife, mentioned by Rocky, this one is becoming more popular I think, seen it this year on a couple different message boards about Christmas movies but don't recall it mentioned in previous years. David Niven stars in one of my all-time favorite WWII movies so I definitely need to track down this one.

African Queen is pretty solid, despite the "Hollywood ending" compared to the book.

There's a book?

I read one of those once.

Wait, wait, what happened in the book?

The novel is by C. S. Forester, of Horatio Hornblower fame.

The movie follows the book pretty closely up until the end. The main difference is

Hm. Though not created for that purpose, I would've thought this topic would be Cobalt bait for sure!

He's busy working on his fanfic about that guy who pushes Mr. Potter's wheelchair around!

Well his one about Sam Wainwright's girlfriend/mistress/wife was riveting.

I was actually looking at the Wikipedia page of Frank Hagney earlier. He apparently appeared in over 350 movies and over 70 television programs over his career, but "is perhaps best known as Mr. Potters's wordless wheelchair pusher" in It's a Wonderful Life.

I find that amusing.

I always liked the little accounting guy at the end as he cheerfully adds up the donations. I don't think I realized until this last viewing that he worked at the Building & Loan. I thought he was with the IRS or whomever. Doubt that he has many lines himself.

That's one of the things that makes it a really great movie... that you pick up on all these little details on repeated watchings.

It's a Wonderful Life really wasn't a flop. It was 26th out of 400 films released in 1947. Disappointing, given Capra and Stewart, to be sure. It didn't make it's budget back, so it definiely wasn't a 'success'. But not a flop, quite. Still, it did lower Capra's position in top rank directors.

Donna Reed wasn't Capra's first choice. He tailored the script with Jean Arthur in mind (she was his favorite actress, with Stanwyck up there, too). I wonder how different the movie would have been with Arthur as Mary Bailey? Ginger Rogers, among others, was offered the role before Reed was cast.

One Christmas movie a lot of people have never heard of is Remember the Night. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as a shoplifter and Fred MacMurray as the D.A. who ends up taking her home with him for Christmas. It has it's share of 'corn', but it's well balanced by a pretty realistic ending.

Christmas in Connecticut, the original, is entertaining, too, if you appreciate set design.

Catching just that crucial last act tonight as I post. Even so, it's still absolute magic!

Such a beautiful ending. Gets me every single time. Tears.

This time, in an amusing way, it strikes me that the ending was an old-fashioned precursor to crowd-funding! I guess a modern remake might end with a GoFundMe drive!

True, and I suspect generally Frank Capra would be a huge fan of crowd-funding if he were alive to see it!

I love that moment outside his mother's boarding house, I think, after she fails to recognize George when realization begins to dawn on him that reality has really been altered. The expressions on Stewart's face--a mixture of horror and fear and untold other emotions--is just absolute money! It's a solid, silent, maybe quarter minute that just gives me goosebumps. That very real darkness in the movie that really is exemplified by this one moment is a major reason I love the movie so much.

This movie is so much more than all the countless saccharine holiday movies we've had to put up with in our lives. Many of these have obligatory "sad" moments to try to inject some heart into them. But in comparison to the very much earned release we get at the end of It's a Wonderful Life, these are usually very manipulative and artificial in their execution.

In other news, it seems the original Die Hard has gotten some push recently as a Christmas movie. Really?!?!

I think some of the support is tongue-in-cheek, but I'm convinced a good portion really think of it as such.

I'll take IaWL any Christmas, thank you!

I'd say Die Hard is as legitimate a Christmas movie as Home Alone.