George Bailey is much Christmas than Santa Claus. And yes, they are in contention with each other. Whenever 1 TV presumption is playing It’s a Wonderful Life, you tin stake that our country’s other black-and-white vacation classic, Miracle connected 34th Street, is conscionable a transmission away.
George lives connected arsenic our Christmas avatar astatine slightest successful portion due to the fact that helium represents truthful galore of our shared anxieties astir the vacation season. I emotion Christmas dearly—participating successful the ritual of decorating, being earnest with friends, indulging successful cookies, reconnecting with extended family, listening to vacation music, taking clip disconnected enactment conscionable to beryllium connected the sofa and ticker hockey oregon shot astatine my parents’ house, and exchanging gifts. But the strength of its consumerism and the import of its traditions besides person a wont of freaking radical out. There’s a batch of unit for Christmas to beryllium perfect, but besides truthful overmuch that tin spell “wrong,” and truthful overmuch that tin consciousness atrocious adjacent if there’s thing incorrect astir it. Does the location look nice? Am I eating excessively much? Is my formation going to beryllium delayed? Do the radical I emotion really similar the gifts I got them? How americium I going to wage these bills? Is my household judging immoderate facet of my lifestyle? Are we going to marque it done a fewer days successful adjacent proximity without a immense fight? How tin I grip each this aft losing a loved one?
Through George, It’s a Wonderful Life is the communicative of an American imagination held, lost, and past reincarnated. And Jimmy Stewart was the cleanable feline to embody it.
All of our Christmas worries could possibly beryllium contained by 2 terrifyingly elemental questions: Is my beingness what I privation it to be? And if it’s not, could I hole it? George, successful the portion of the movie that everyone remembers best, is simply a antheral laid debased by his answers to these questions. No, my dreams were endlessly deferred, and No, I tin lone spot it getting worse. He yearned for freedom, excitement, and self-determination—everything a antheral successful his state is expected to want. He’s threatened alternatively with the other of each those things: long, isolating days spent successful a compartment aft a situation condemnation for slope fraud. Through George, It’s a Wonderful Life is the communicative of an American imagination held, lost, and past reincarnated. And Jimmy Stewart was the cleanable feline to embody it.
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Jimmy Stewart was ever James connected his movie posters, but I tin ne'er get myself to telephone him that. It conscionable feels wrong, giving immoderate other layers of formality to an histrion who, peculiarly successful the archetypal fractional of his career, ever feels similar helium could locomotion retired of the screen, beryllium down adjacent to you, and marque small self-deprecating remarks astir his show arsenic you ticker the remainder of the movie together. As a romanticist lead, helium is invariably handsome and consistently charming, trying arsenic champion helium tin to travel the directions of his pure, loving bosom adjacent erstwhile the satellite does each it tin to unopen him down. He ne'er behaves perfectly—his characters volition beryllium excessively anxious oregon clumsy, oregon they’ll lash retired astatine women who attraction for them—but contempt and perchance due to the fact that of this, helium remains everybody’s buddy, carrying a Goldilocks quotient of masculine heroism that’s determination close betwixt Gary Cooper’s shy innocence and Cary Grant’s assertive worldliness. It’s a cliche to comparison Stewart with Tom Hanks—the younger histrion adjacent invited the examination straight erstwhile helium starred successful the The Shop Around the Corner remake You’ve Got Mail—but it’s excessively evident not to notation here. As Roger Ebert wrote successful Awake successful the Dark, praising Hanks and Stewart simultaneously: “The cardinal triumph of Tom Hanks arsenic a movie histrion is that, astir of the time, we judge helium thinks a batch similar us. It is the James Stewart quality.”
Nobody was amended astatine selling their ain inherent goodness to moviegoers. Coming from hardware-store roots successful Indiana, Pennsylvania—a municipality adjacent Pittsburgh that seems specifically engineered to dependable appealingly folksy to a ample information of Americans—Stewart started successful theatre and past moved retired West arsenic a young antheral successful the 1930s. His emergence to stardom wasn’t quick, but helium got determination aft a fewer years of lesser roles. In the slapstick comedies of Vivacious Lady or Capra’s You Can’t Take It with You, helium stays successful emotion with an unconventional miss who is truthful clearly perfect for him, adjacent though his parents don’t approve. In Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, he’s excessively naive for his ain bully but triumphs done the sheer unit of determination. In The Philadelphia Story, his quality is simply a small rougher astir the edges, but helium is nevertheless the representation of a gentleman, adjacent arsenic he’s caught successful the chaos of Grant and Katherine Hepburn’s relationship.
But aft moving arsenic an teacher with the Army Air Corps, and, acknowledgment to his ain persistent requests, flying 20 combat missions implicit Germany successful a B-24 during World War II, Stewart returned to the movies for a 2nd enactment that wasn’t played for laughs, astir notably successful his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock. These movies complicate the Jimmy Stewart audiences were utilized to seeing, giving him characters who are often frustrated and sometimes dangerous. None of them are much acclaimed than Hitchock’s Vertigo, which decidedly touches a nervus for maine arsenic helium truthful insistently tries to signifier Kim Novak into the pistillate helium primitively knew her to be.
Is this the gradual quality of a existent idiosyncratic wherever determination was erstwhile simply a comedic archetype? Maybe. The strength of Stewart’s advocacy for the Vietnam War, adjacent aft his adopted lad from his 45-year matrimony to his woman Gloria was killed successful action, provides a benignant of real-world touchstone for the nonaccomplishment of innocence and expanding paranoia we spot connected the surface implicit the people of his career. But adjacent done these darker turns helium ne'er stopped being Jimmy Stewart, his characters’ menacing sides glossed over. Audiences everlastingly retrieve him for that affable drawl and that basal decency we could each spot wrong him. I tin ticker Vertigo and beryllium precise creeped out, and past I tin crook connected The Philadelphia Story and consciousness conscionable arsenic overmuch emotion for Stewart arsenic I ever did. That’s the powerfulness that Jimmy Stewart possessed.
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It’s a Wonderful Life was Stewart’s archetypal movie aft his World War II hiatus, and it feels similar the nonstop midpoint betwixt the 2 Jimmys—the all-American lad and the unsettled man. He’s filled with wide-eyed excitement successful the archetypal fractional of the film: a selfless brother, caring son, an ethical boss, a trustworthy neighbor, and a dreamy entity of romanticist affection. But wrong him—just similar everyone else—is thing threatening and scary, that tin instrumentality implicit nether the worst of circumstances.
Yet, the George we spot done the immense bulk of It’s a Wonderful Life is a feline who’s got it made. There’s his drop-dead gorgeous spouse, a immense welcoming home, darling children, and a pillar-of-the-community occupation that gives him a cleanable conscience. He’s clever, sincere, respected, sweet. And if you’ve ever seen the Muppet mentation of It’s a Wonderful Life, you cognize it’s hardly a agelong to enactment the admirable, kind-hearted, universally cherished Kermit the Frog astatine the halfway of George’s story. He’s clever, sincere, respected, sweet. In a captious code to Mr. Potter, George says:
What’d you accidental conscionable a infinitesimal ago? They had to hold and prevention their wealth earlier they adjacent thought of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what?! Until their children turn up and permission them? Until they’re truthful aged and broken-down that—You cognize however agelong it takes a workin’ antheral to prevention 5 1000 dollars?
George goes connected to constituent retired that the “rabble” Potter references are the ones who bash “most of the moving and paying and surviving and dying successful this community,” and that his father—who saw them arsenic quality beings, not “cattle”—didn’t deliberation it was excessively overmuch to assistance them unrecorded their lives successful a decent home. Then George fires the arrows that sticks successful Potter’s broadside for the remainder of the movie: “In my publication helium died a overmuch richer antheral than you’ll ever be.”
In George’s telling, it’s our work to lend a manus to our chap quality beings erstwhile they could usage one. That’s what a municipality similar Bedford Falls should be. By extension, that’s what the state should be.
George’s acts of generosity, and the mode that they’re returned with specified an affectional punch astatine the extremity of the movie, springiness america a pathway to empathy—to seeing hard times for 1 of our neighbors arsenic hard times for each of us.
It’s an inspirational sentiment. And astatine slightest 1 FBI cause astatine the clip of the film’s merchandise thought it sounded similar socialism. As John A. Noakes writes successful “Bankers and Common Men successful Bedford Falls: How the FBI Determined That ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Was a Subversive Movie,” a Los Angeles cause wrote to J. Edgar Hoover aft uncovering responsibility with the movie’s people struggle betwixt the communal antheral and the “Scrooge-like” Mr. Potter—a caricature of a capitalist concern mogul. It couldn’t person helped that 2 of its screenwriters, the joined mates of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, “were precise adjacent to known Communists,” and that anterior enactment connected the publication included a draught by the legendary Dalton Trumbo, aboriginal blacklisted aft refusing to attest earlier the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Clifford Odets, a erstwhile subordinate of the Communist Party whose vocation was tarnished aft helium cooperated with HUAC (to a debatable extent).
But Noakes disagrees with the characterization of the movie arsenic lefty propaganda, and for antithetic reasons truthful would galore of the millions who instrumentality to It’s a Wonderful Life as a Christmas tradition. George Bailey occupies a comparatively privileged, uncommon presumption successful society, Noakes argues, and what the movie chiefly laments, successful his view, is mid-twentieth period America’s capitalism becoming much faceless, much corporate, with little powerfulness successful the hands of an idiosyncratic entrepreneur, arsenic mega-conglomerations with planetary scope near the small feline successful the dust. George is the prima here, helium says, not the community.
That statement felt breathtaking to maine erstwhile I work it, due to the fact that it challenged maine to much cautiously see my assumptions astir the goodness astatine the bosom of the film. But I support going backmost to that speech. I look guardant to it each clip I watch, and I consciousness this rising warmth successful my thorax erstwhile I deliberation astir however galore different radical crossed the state perceive to it annually. “Working men are owed immoderate measurement of safety, dignity, and comfort.” And adjacent though I personally would grow that sentiment to all people, it’s inactive a bully start. To George, determination are benevolent choices that businessmen beryllium to those who their enactment touches. I can’t assistance but link George Bailey’s explanation of a person’s existent wealthiness with the mentation of Barack Obama who made himself an overnight governmental superstar with a code astatine the 2004 DNC, who defined America’s greatness arsenic thing little measurable than the tallness of skyscrapers, the powerfulness of the military, oregon the numbers connected the banal marketplace ticker:
That is the existent genius of America, a religion successful the elemental dreams of its people, the insistence connected tiny miracles. That we tin tuck successful our children astatine nighttime and cognize they are fed and clothed and harmless from harm. That we tin accidental what we think, constitute what we think, without proceeding a abrupt sound connected the door. That we tin person an thought and commencement our ain concern without paying a bribe oregon hiring somebody’s son.
That’s the imaginativeness of America that George advocates, and I can’t ideate a amended antheral to merchantability it than Jimmy Stewart, for galore superficial reasons and immoderate much profound ones. He’s a achromatic man, crucially for the era. He’s besides undoubtedly masculine, but not extremely so. He doesn’t person the stoicism of John Wayne oregon the world-weary strength of Clark Gable. He saw combat successful the skies, but it makes consciousness that George Bailey didn’t spell overseas for the war. I can’t representation Jimmy Stewart holding a weapon and shooting idiosyncratic cold, adjacent a Nazi. In fact, they made a full classical movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, centered astir the thought that Stewart didn’t rather person it successful him to slay a hardened criminal, adjacent if helium made radical privation to judge helium could.
In the end, George Bailey’s inherent goodness isn’t capable to prevention the world. Wonderful Life ends with Mr. Potter conscionable arsenic almighty arsenic before. But George’s acts of generosity, and the mode that they’re returned with specified an affectional punch astatine the extremity of the movie, springiness america a pathway to empathy—to seeing hard times for 1 of our neighbors arsenic hard times for each of us. I don’t judge immoderate large uplifting task gets accomplished without that halfway value, and truthful I’m grateful for the kickstart—that Jimmy Stewart arsenic George Bailey could possibly ignite much than a fistful of radical to commencement reasoning astir who really wishes them harm, and who’s simply a neighbour successful request of a hand.
George is the relation model, possibly present much than ever, and it was Jimmy Stewart’s task to bring him to life. Being truthful bully astatine that occupation made Stewart, successful his way, our leader of the holidays. His operation of down-to-earth intelligence, up-right dependability, and unshakeable consciousness of close and incorrect each cohere into the cleanable transportation mechanics for precisely the connection we privation and request to perceive successful December.
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Excerpted from Every Time a Bell Rings: The Legacy of It’s a Wonderful Life, America’s Most Beloved Holiday Film by Emily St. James and Lauren Theisen. Copyright © 2026 by Emily St. James and Lauren Theisen, utilized with support from Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.
English (US) ·