It's a Wonderful Life
is a 1946 Christmas film that was a box office flop when it was first released,
but whose popularity has slowly grown since then until it has become one of the
most popular festive films of all time. It is one of the best movies I've ever
seen. The setting is the fictional town of
Bedford
Falls in
New
York USA
and the central character is one of its residents, a man called George Bailey,
played by James Stewart. The plot follows his life from childhood to when he
reaches maturity, in the contemporary late 1940's. By then he is married to the
woman he loves and has four children. Despite this, he feels very dissatisfied
with his life and bitterly regrets opportunities lost in the past, to travel
the world and become wealthy. When a professional crisis strikes he decides to
commit suicide, but the film ends happily of course. It is a very absorbing
film and I find it very uplifting, as do many other people. It also includes
the fascinating concept of parallel universes and alternate realities. This is
the earliest story of that kind that I'm aware of. It predates by many decades
other works with that conception such as
Never
Let Me Go, see:
https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2017/11/never-let-me-go-film-review.html,
and my own books, the Roswell Trilogy, see:
http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2018/12/roswell-redeemed-is-here.html.
Therefore I was shocked to discover that
It's
a Wonderful Life had been accused of spreading communist propaganda during
the Red Scare. What's more, the person who is believed to have denounced the
film was none other than Ayn Rand. During the 1940's and 50's the
United
States of America was struck down by an
hysterical fear of "communists!". That word had a very different
colloquial use to that of today. It didn't necessarily mean an orthodox Marxist;
it could be applied to anybody who was not a table-thumping redneck. With
retrospect, it turns out that there was some justification for that fear. The
Venona project was a counterintelligence operation by the Signal Intelligence
Service, later the NSA, that exposed the
Cambridge
spies; Blunt, Burgess, MacLean and Philby along with the espionage ring within
the
Manhattan project to develop
the nuclear bomb. Yet that was just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority
of Venona intercepts were never deciphered. The agents who sent and received
them were never caught. Some may still be alive today and walking free. Even the
man whose very name was coined for institutional paranoid suspicion, Senator Joseph
McCarthy, has been absolved somewhat, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wljpYZ8wejA.
Yet none of these facts legitimize the depths and extremes of the "anti-communist"
obsession of that era. It was even suggested that Superman's red cape was
actually a red flag in disguise. A number of films emerged at the time which
capture that terrified mania. They are almost funny when viewed through modern
eyes, for instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWHDNPdoCg,
and:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3QIf0VZLEQ,
and:
https://www.facebook.com/olgrizzoutdoors/videos/128233345139293. The only excuse I can think of was that this was the early Cold War and the
threat of nuclear holocaust had just emerged; something so horrific that it
caused mass insanity among the population in a way that those born under the shadow
of the bomb could never comprehend. A number of cinema actors, writers and
directors were subpoenaed by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Most
refused to testify and were found in contempt. The "Hollywood Ten" as
they were called were blacklisted from
America's
famous movie industry. These included some household names such as Arthur
Miller, Humphrey Bogart and Lionel Stander. This film is a good history of the
subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ-dKru9RWM.
I have taken an interest in Ayn Rand during the last few
years, see background links below. According to her biographer Barbara Branden,
Rand agreed to assist the HUAC because she was concerned
about the threat from "communists!", but she was pro-free speech and
so opposed the blacklist. As part of her testimony she attacked the film
It's a Wonderful Life. Her suspicions were
first raised because of two of its screenwriters, Frances Goodrich and Albert
Hackett. Neither were politically active "communists!", but they were
acquainted with people who were "communists!". Even though that
statement could apply to a good proportion of the American population, it
didn't put
Rand off. She claims that the principle
antagonist in
It's a Wonderful Life
Henry Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore, was an obvious caricature of a greedy capitalist. Potter is indeed an off-the-shelf portrayal of a selfish and avaricious
man. He is also a thief who does not return some money he finds that was lost
by George Bailey's uncle; which causes the crisis that leads to George's
attempted suicide. However, George's resistance to Potter's reign of terror is
not one of organized socialism. In fact he runs a credit union that encourages
people to become homeowners. He creates an entire housing estate of self-built leasehold
properties for the people of
Bedford Falls.
This is not a story of the left triumphing over capitalism, but rather
individual or small-scale capitalism triumphing over corporate feudalism. The
film stresses the importance of family values, patriotism and community
tradition; ones considered the core of mid-twentieth century American identity.
It also has a distinct spiritual theme. The message of the movie is that people
suffering from low self-esteem should think twice. You might be more valuable
than you believe you are. Source:
http://www.openculture.com/2014/12/ayn-rand-helped-the-fbi-identify-its-a-wonderful-life-as-communist-propaganda.html.
Frank Capra was never accused of "communism!" and was not even a
liberal. He co-wrote the screenplay as well as directing the film and he said
himself about his masterpiece that he wanted "to strengthen the
individual's belief in himself and... combat the modern trend toward atheism."
That could be Lenin talking I'm sure you'll agree!... In his quest, Capra
agreed to collaborate with Goodrich and Hackett, and indeed Goodrich and
Hackett agreed to collaborate with him. They did so very successfully. That
doesn't sound like a conspiracy of reds-under-the-bed to me.
It's a Wonderful Life has been harshly
criticized by leftwing pundits for its religious themes and Christmas culture
as well as its promotion of private property and individualism. It is generally
regarded as a very conservative movie. A dislike of inequity and structural
violence is not exclusive to the left. This article by Theodore Dalrymple makes
that very clear. It is an analysis of the Russian author Ivan Turgenev's story
Mumu, see:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/how%E2%80%94and-how-not%E2%80%94-love-mankind-12177.html.
I think this strange negative fixation on
It's
a Wonderful Life supports what I've said about Ayn Rand in the background
links below. She was highly intelligent and capable of fascinating insights,
but she also sometimes suffered from very warped perceptions. Maybe this was a
result of her self-imposed isolation. Her social life revolved entirely around
her family and close-knit circle of ideological supporters. She refused to
appear on television and radio interviews with any of her opponents and could
dissolve into a fit of rage when she encountered anybody who disagreed with
her. Her behaviour is reminiscent of the modern SJW. She spent her whole adult life
living within her own safe space. She once even castigated Barbara Branden for
admiring the view outside her home. I think in some ways Ayn Rand was an
emotionally immature person. It's odd that the same individual was also capable
of producing truly great pieces of literature, with skilful style, gripping
plots and astonishingly thought provoking concepts.
