The Greatest Gift

Frank Capra, the legendary pioneer Hollywood film director, claimed that his best film was "It's a Wonderful Life," now a perennial Christmas classic 72 years after its debut at Christmas time in 1946. The film was based on a short story, entitled "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern. It is a charming and moving story that can be read in less than an hour. It is still available in a little book that includes an afterword by Stern's daughter as well as beautiful specially commissioned artwork.

Capra claimed that the story was the one he had been looking for all of his life. After reading the story it is amazing to see how Capra used the core of the story to create a great masterpiece. Credit must go to Capra, his production crew and the marvelous cast he assembled to fill out and complete the story. It should be required study in any film course.

Although “It’s a Wonderful Life” has become one of the most popular films of all time, film critics seem obligated to dismiss it as an exercise in sentimentality. They overlook the fact that most “sentimental” films of that or any era are almost impossible to watch today. Critics rarely discuss the film on its merits as a film and tend to overlook Capra’s mastery of the film medium.

Even the most hard hearted critic will be hard pressed to keep the tears from flowing especially at the finale. Why can’t critics recognize that it’s not just sentimentality? It takes a real craftsman to elicit such a universal response? Not only did Capra regard this film as the greatest work of his illustrious career, but so too did its famous star, Jimmy Stewart.

Both Capra and Stewart had returned to Hollywood right after the end of World War II after distinguished service in the military. Stewart had piloted many bombing missions, and Capra had been responsible for making the famous “Why We Fight “ documentaries for the Army. “It’s a Wonderful Life” was the first film venture for each of them on their return to civilian life.

It is well known that before the war Frank Capra had become Hollywood’s most famous and acclaimed director despite the fact that he had come to America as a young Sicilian boy who could not speak a word of English. His family migrated to California to provide for themselves by farming. The young Frank worked to help the family but somehow managed to become the only one in the family to get a college degree. 

After a brief and uneventful stint in the Army in the waning days of World War I, he found himself out of work and with no prospects. In his autobiography he described how quite by accident he stumbled into a fledgling movie studio and began his career. He was in Hollywood almost at the inception and proceeded to learn the craft of filmmaking from the ground up.

All the things he learned during this apprenticeship are evident in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In the first place, he learned to make pictures that were really moving. His characters never just stand around just talking. Either they are moving or the camera is moving. Unlike many other films, Capra’s never grind to a standstill.

Just visualize the scene right after the marriage of George and Mary.  Ernie, the cab driver, is driving them to the train station as they embark on their honeymoon. They are joking with Ernie but  through the back window the camera shows men running in the street. We jump immediately into the scene of the run on the banks without any pause or introduction.

Speaking of George and Mary their earlier love scene where they both talk on the same telephone is perhaps the best and most famous in all of film history. No love scene in Casablanca, an equally sentimental film but a favorite of critics, can compare to this one for realism and emotion.

Capra was a pioneer practitioner of many of the techniques that we take for granted in films today. He began the film with a flashback and narrator. He used stop action to introduce the adult George Bailey. No film noir director ever used light and dark to greater effect than Capra. At the film’s finale the entire cast is  artfully brought back as if to take their bows. The camera goes from face to face in one of the most moving scenes ever shot.

“The Best Years of Our Lives,” a saga of returning war veterans, swept the Academy Awards in 1946 but it was a real travesty when Frederic March won the Best Actor award for his relatively wooden portrayal of a hard drinking banker. He wasn’t even the best actor in “Best Years.” In addition to the classic telephone love scene, I remember especially Stewart’s reaction to the news that his college-hero brother will not be returning to take over the running of the Bailey Building and Loan. In that brief scene his face goes through a whole gamut of emotions. That scene prepared us for the angry Stewart who berates his own children on Christmas Eve. Jimmy Stewart really grew up in this film.

The rest of the cast could have won an award for best ensemble. Capra had a knack of bringing out the best in his reservoir of great character actors. Was Donna Reed ever better? Capra introduced a young Gloria Grahame into this film and she was a stunning success. Who can ever forget her reaction to Stewart’s compliment on her dress? “Oh, this old thing. I only wear this when I don’t care how I look!" Of the others it will just be sufficient to notice Beulah Bondi’s transformation from a loving mother to a haggard old landlady.

Every scene in this great film was planned and directed by Frank Capra. It is a true work of art. Who can bear to watch any of the remakes? It takes great skill to make a “sentimental” film watchable and believable. 

Years ago I remember an episode of “Cheers” where the regulars were standing around the bar on Christmas Eve watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.” At that time no one owned the rights to the film and so it could be seen on practically every local channel all during the day and night. Characteristically, they were casting sarcastic jokes. At the end of the film they were all crying uncontrollably.

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Downton Abbey Downer

                                            

The third season of Downton Abbey, the popular British TV series, came to a shocking end last weekend on PBS stations all over America. Over the past three years millions of Americans have tuned into this fictional account of an aristocratic English family and their staff of servants.

  

I must confess that my wife and I have not been among the devotees. We watched the first episode three years ago and tuned out when we figured that it would just be the same old class warfare stuff so often seen on Masterpiece Theater. So we missed the whole saga until two weeks ago when we watched the next to last episode at the urging of our visiting daughter, a big fan. She admits that it is a high-class soap opera but likes the characters and has really gotten into their unfolding stories. In addition, the show is beautifully presented and photographed with outdoor scenery matched by the indoor furnishings of the Abbey as well as the costumes of the characters. Moreover, it is well written and beautifully spoken, something rare in TV today.

We watched and enjoyed the episode and got caught up in the story or stories of the characters both upstairs and downstairs. We looked forward to the final episode and planned to watch even though our daughter had gone back to California. I even added the first season to my Netflix queue. The episode was interesting enough as some of the intertwining story lines appeared to be resolved. Most of the melodrama centered on the family heir whose beautiful wife was finally going to give birth to the next heir.

  

They played it for all it was worth including the final anxious rush to the hospital. But all went well. To everyone’s joy she produced a baby boy and moments later was sitting up in bed beautiful as ever with the baby in her arms waiting for her husband Matthew to return from a family visit to Scotland. He rushes in beaming and we are presented with a kind of Holy Family tableau. Was it possible that the show could have such a happy ending? No.

For some reason Matthew had to leave his wife and baby and drive back to the Abbey. So we see him speeding back in a little convertible along a single lane country road with an ecstatic grin on his face. Next thing, a lorry (truck) comes over a rise in the road and smash! The camera pans to the shattered convertible and there lies this very attractive and sympathetic central character of the whole show dead as a doornail with blood streaming from his head.

It was a shocking end to the show and a real downer. My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief. Apparently, many shared our reaction. Stories on the web indicate a real outcry about the ending. Some suggested that in true soap opera fashion the character would miraculously rise from the dead having only been injured in the accident. Others believed that it was just business. A contract dispute meant that the main character would not appear in Season 4. The director of the show offered some lame excuse for his incredible lack of artistic judgment. British audiences, he said, are used to shocking endings.

It is hard to imagine how any creative artist would take the trouble to build up and create such a sympathetic leading character and then kill him off by mere accident at the end of a book, play, or film. Even a tragic dark Russian author would not have considered such an ending. It’s like Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa and then putting a mustache on the woman. It's not just an injection of realism. How many men are killed by accident on the day of s child's birth? If they wanted some grim realism, they could have ended with a newspaper headline announcing the election of Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

The legendary film director Frank Capra made some of the greatest films in history. He was an Italian immigrant whose family settled in California right before the First World War. By accident he got into the film business in Hollywood just as it was taking off. In his autobiography he describe how he learned the craft of filmmaking from the ground up. At the peak of his career he was the most famed director in Hollywood during what all regard as its Golden Age. He was the first director to get his name above the title of the film-- recognition that the film was his creation.

Frank Capra

Despite his fame and status, Capra never forgot his audience. Even his biggest hits were previewed in local theaters before they would be released. He and his associates would sit in the back and observe the reaction of the audience. If they laughed in the wrong spot, or failed to laugh when expected, Capra knew that he had done something wrong and the scenes were redone. Speaking of emotions no one could make an audience cry like Frank Capra. Some critics call his films Capracorn but few have been able to move an audience as he did. But he knew his audiences and though he might enlarge their understanding, he would never offend them.

A good example is “Meet John Doe” one of his greatest films. He had a wonderful story with a great cast that included Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. In the story set in the Great Depression, Cooper plays a washed up minor league baseball player who is built up into a national hero by a voracious newspaper and scheming politicians. He is turned into John Doe, an ordinary guy who plans to jump to his death from the city’s tallest building on Christmas Eve in order to protest all the world’s injustice.

Capra created a great cast of characters but he had real difficulty coming up with an ending. At least four different endings were shot and even though Capra was never completely satisfied, he trusted not his own intuition but the opinion of his preview audiences to produce one of the most powerful and emotional endings in film history. Here it is in stark black and white. ### 

It's a Wonderful Life

                       

Frank Capra’s masterpiece, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” has become one of the most popular films of all time. Nevertheless, film critics seem obligated to dismiss it as an exercise in sentimentality. They overlook the fact that most “sentimental” films of that or any era are almost impossible to watch today. Critics rarely discuss the film on its merits as a film and tend to overlook Capra’s mastery of the film medium.

Even the most hard hearted critic will be hard pressed to keep the tears from flowing especially at the finale. Why can’t they recognize that it’s not just sentimentality but that it takes a real craftsman to elicit such a universal response? Capra regarded this as the greatest work of his illustrious career, and so too did its star, Jimmy Stewart.

Both Capra and Stewart had returned to Hollywood right after the end of World War II after distinguished service in the military. Stewart had piloted many bombing missions, and Capra had been responsible for making the famous “Why We Fight “ documentaries for the Army. “It’s a Wonderful Life” was the first film venture for each of them on their return to civilian life.

It is well known that before the war Frank Capra had become Hollywood’s most famous and acclaimed director despite the fact that he had come to America as a young Sicilian boy who could not speak a word of English. His family migrated to California to provide for themselves by farming. The young Frank worked to help the family but somehow managed to become the only one in the family to get a college degree.

After a brief and uneventful stint in the Army in the waning days of World War I, he found himself out of work and with no prospects. In his autobiography he described how quite by accident he stumbled into a fledgling movie studio and began his career. He was in Hollywood almost at the inception and proceeded to learn the craft of filmmaking from the ground up.

All the things he learned during this apprenticeship are evident in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In the first place, he learned to make pictures that were really moving. His characters never just stand around just talking. Either they are moving or the camera is moving. Unlike many other films, Capra’s never grind to a standstill.

Just visualize the scene right after the marriage of George and Mary.  Ernie, the cab driver, is driving them to the train station as they embark on their honeymoon. They are joking with Ernie but  through the back window the camera shows men running in the street. We jump immediately into the scene of the run on the banks without any pause or introduction.

Speaking of George and Mary their earlier love scene where they both talk on the same telephone is perhaps the best and most famous in all of film history. No love scene in Casablanca, an equally sentimental film but a favorite of critics, can compare to this one for realism and emotion.

Capra was a pioneer practitioner of many of the techniques that we take for granted in films today. He began the film with a flashback and narrator. He used stop action to introduce the adult George Bailey. No film noir director ever used light and dark to greater effect than Capra. At the film’s finale the entire cast is  artfully brought back as if to take their bows. The camera goes from face to face in one of the most moving scenes ever shot.

Speaking of the cast, Jimmy Stewart regarded this film as his greatest performance. “The Best Years of Our Lives,” a saga of returning war veterans, swept the Academy Awards in 1946 but it was a real travesty when Frederic March won the Best Actor award for his relatively wooden portrayal of a hard drinking banker. He wasn’t even the best actor in “Best Years.” In addition to the classic telephone love scene, I remember especially Stewart’s reaction to the news that his college-hero brother will not be returning to take over the running of the Bailey Building and Loan. In that brief scene his face goes through a whole gamut of emotions. That scene prepared us for the angry Stewart who berates his own children on Christmas Eve. Jimmy Stewart really grew up in this film.

The rest of the cast could have won an award for best ensemble. Capra had a knack of bringing out the best in his reservoir of great character actors. Was Donna Reed ever better? Capra introduced a young Gloria Grahame into this film and she was a stunning success. Who can ever forget her reaction to Stewart’s compliment on her dress? “Oh, this old thing. I only wear this when I don’t care how I look!" Of the others it will just be sufficient to notice Beulah Bondi’s transformation from a loving mother to a haggard old landlady.

Every scene in this great film was planned and directed by Frank Capra. It is a true work of art. Who can bear to watch any of the remakes? It takes great skill to make a “sentimental” film watchable and believable. During the harrowing twenty minutes after George Bailey’s suicide attempt, who doesn’t believe that Henry Travers is a real angel?

Years ago I remember an episode of “Cheers” where the regulars were standing around the bar on Christmas Eve watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.” At that time no one owned the rights to the film and so it could be seen on practically every local channel all during the day and night. Characteristically, they were casting sarcastic jokes. At the end of the film they were all crying uncontrollably.###