Big Hollywood » jimmy stewart

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’: The Stories Behind the Yuletide Classic (Part 2)

Stephen Schochet — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:08:27 +0000

Jimmy Stewart was at times morose and insecure as filming began on the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Since he went off to serve, Hollywood had found new leading men, such as Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck, who both were seven years younger than he was. Some of “Life’s” early scenes called for the now graying Stewart to be just a few years out of high school. He felt ridiculous and considered plastic surgery, then thought better of it. But Jim was helped greatly by his co-star Donna Reed (Jean Arthur, Olivia de Havilland, and Ginger Rogers were among several actresses considered for the role of Mary Baily).

—–

Before the romantic scene where George and Mary tearfully and sensuously declare their love for each other, Reed encouraged her leading man to do it in only one unrehearsed take. Capra later joked that Stewart was so nervous during the tender sequence he was forced to wrap a phone chord around the celluloid couple so Jim wouldn’t run away.

“The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else does.” — German Philosopher Immanuel Kant

Stewart was also helped by the actor who played the film’s villain, the wheelchair-bound Lionel Barrymore, who reminded him that movies had the power to make people happy around the world. The old man’s pep talks helped Jim regain his confidence in his acting chops, and Capra gave the Indiana, Pennsylvania-born Stewart great latitude in playing the role of the small town resident whose big dreams would never be fulfilled. Just before filming the sequence where the Bailey’s Bedford Falls neighbors came to take their money out of the building and loan, Capra advised the future grandma on TV’s “The Waltons,” Ellen Corby, to ask Stewart for $17.50, half the amount that the script called for. The leading man responded by staying in character and impulsively kissing Corby on the cheek.

In one of the films darker moments Stewart, who during the war was no stranger to nearly overpowering fear and had often prayed for the safe return of himself and his men before bombing missions, started sobbing on camera when he turned to God for help. As the show continued, some of Stewart’s cast mates, who at first were questioning the rusty movie star’s professionalism, became convinced that he and George Bailey were one and the same; Jim went on to deliver an Oscar-nominated performance.

“It bears out my feeling of the picture business, that it’s not a production line business—but magic” – James Stewart, on “It’s a Wonderful Life”

A brief aside: The 66-year-old Barrymore, who for years famously played Ebenezer Scrooge on the radio and suffered from crippling arthritis, showed no sign of his legendary ferocious temper on the Wonderful Life set. A few years earlier Lionel, had been directing a movie in which the actors kept blowing their lines, which resulted in several retakes; Barrymore had felt an explosion coming on. Still smiling, the enraged filmmaker excused himself, went upstairs to the sound control room and let loose a barrage of foul language. None of the cast members were spared his wrath. When he finished, he felt better and calmly returned to the set. To Lionel’s delighted surprise, his performers excelled for the rest of the day. Later a jubilant Barrymore told a crew member that patience always wins. The man replied, “That little broadcast from behind the glass booth didn’t hurt any either.”

In the 1930s director Capra had toiled at Columbia Pictures, which was ruled by the autocratic Harry Cohn, considered by some to be the meanest man in Hollywood. The mogul kept the entire studio electronically bugged, displayed a huge portrait of Mussolini in his office, and used an electrified chair to give unsuspecting victims sudden jolts.

Capra had sat in it once, received a shock, and angrily smashed the chair to bits. Yet the Sicilian-born director and the rough-and-tumble former streetcar conductor from New York mostly got on along well. They had made several classic hits together including the 1934 Academy Award winner It Happened One Night (1934) starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, before Columbia’s decision to cancel a biopic about the composer Chopin had led to the frustrated Capra leaving the studio. When filming began on “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Capra was excited to have his independence but nervous with his own money on the line. Known for making movie sets fun places to work, Frank was at first crabby and irritable with his cast and crew.

Filming a snowy Christmas movie in over one hundred degree heat in Encino did not help morale; many of the heavily dressed actors fainted. But there were nice moments. One scene required Donna Reed as Mary to throw a rock through an old mansion window and make a wish. Capra had a marksman ready off camera, but to his delight Reed shattered the glass on her own. She turned to him and said,” Why so surprised? Don’t you think an Iowa farm girl would know how to play baseball?”

“The importance of the individual is the theme – and no man is a failure. If he’s born, he’s born to do something, he’s born not to fail.”
– Frank Capra

As the shoot progressed, Capra regained his confidence. He disdained special effects when Clarence Oddbody the angel (Henry Travers) did his magic, preferring to tell the story through his actor’s faces. The director started to believe he was making the greatest movie ever. Eventually “Life” became a joyous project to work on; like earlier Capra films, the company went on picnics and sang in between camera setups.

“It was the most gentlemanly way of going broke, and the fastest way anybody ever devised.” – Frank Capra, on Liberty Films

Too dark; the country wanted to watch comedians such as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Too dated; “Life” came off like a Depression film rather than a post-war movie. Cinema attendance dropped drastically in 1946 overall, as re-united couples often preferred spending quiet evenings at home. For whatever reason, unlike Capra’s blockbuster hits in the 1930s, the three million dollar production failed to make a profit.

Capra made one more movie under the Liberty Films banner “State of the Union,” 1948, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), and then chose to fold his entrepreneurial tent, opting instead for the security of a Paramount Studios contract. Years after the sale, Capra mourned the loss of his artistic independence and admitted he was never again the same man or talent that he had been.

The newly energized Stewart, with his acting confidence restored, hinted to his agent that Reed was to blame for the movie’s disappointing box office performance (“Wonderful Life”’s trailers had emphasized the love story instead of the Christmas theme) and superstitiously turned down the opportunity have her as his leading lady again. Donna Reed, who later said she’d never worked harder on a movie, felt completely exhausted after “Wonderful Life” and wondered if her career was finished.

“What is remarkable about ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is how well it holds up over the years; it’s one of those ageless movies, like ‘Casablanca’ or ‘The Third Man,’ that improves with age” – Roger Ebert, 1999

“Wonderful Life” got mixed reviews in its initial release and like any classic movie was continuously reexamined. Some critics found the film terrifying, citing moments where Stewart’s George Bailey, seeming barely to be able to restrain himself from committing physical violence, verbally abused his wife, children and their teacher.

Salon.com critic Rich Cohen expressed the view that the nightmarish Pottersville, which displaces the more idyllic Bedford Falls after the angel grants George Bailey’s wish to have never been born, was actually the real world that we all live in. Others saw the film as a damning statement on capitalism, ignoring that fact Mr. Potter harms George Bailey by resorting to thievery, while George’s friends make a free market, charitable decision to bail him out. (Socialism was arguably on display during the scene in which a dressed-to-the-nines Reed and Stewart fall into a pool after doing the Charleston; the retractable floor which a jealous Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer used to sabotage the two future newlyweds’ dance was a real-life Franklin Roosevelt New Deal project built for Beverly Hills High School.)

“I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.” –Frank Capra

Years passed. From that point on Capra, unwilling to either risk his own money or work for somebody else, directed only a handful of movies after “Wonderful Life.” He grew frustrated both by the rising power of movie stars combined with studio-imposed budget restrictions. In his 1971 autobiography, the always sentimental Capra, who forty years before had talked the foul-mouthed, tough-minded Harry Cohn into distributing Mickey Mouse cartoons, publicly despaired about the lack of wholesome movies coming out of Hollywood.

Although he continued to take on a variety of roles, James Stewart deliberately set out to create a stronger screen image. He shared Capra’s disdain for unrealistic war movies, preferring instead hard, gritty Westerns like “The Man From Laramie” (1954), which helped to make him rich and surpass John Wayne as the nation’s number one box office star. Donna Reed restored her career by winning an Academy Award for playing a prostitute in “From Here To Eternity” (1953) and then became one of television’s most wholesome mothers. She became a staunch anti-Vietnam War activist, putting her politically at odds with her more hawkish former leading man. In 1966, Brigadier General James Stewart flew on a non-publicized bombing mission, suffered the loss of his son Ronald killed in action two years later, and later publicly expressed contempt for those opposed the Vietnam conflict.

Meanwhile, “It’s a Wonderful Life” fell into the public domain in 1974 because no one renewed its copyright. The almost forgotten film, considered by many to be old-fashioned in it’s time, was shown repeatedly on cable television stations during the holiday season, achieved an enormous following, and became a perennial Christmas classic.

“It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Capra told the Wall Street Journal in 1984. “The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I’m like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I’m proud… but it’s the kid who did the work. I didn’t even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea.”

Meryl Streep Is Our Finest Actress? Think Again

Steve Dowty — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 15:04:09 +0000

This month will see the opening of Meryl Streep’s next Oscar-nominated performance, as the title character in “The Iron Lady,” Phyllida Lloyd’s “re-imagining” of Dame Margaret Thatcher’s life, career, and meaning. The controversy over the film has centered not on Streep’s performance, but rather on the question of whether or not the film represents a leftist hatchet job; and even before seeing it, there are plenty of indications that might be the case.

For instance, Xan Brooks of the leftist Guardian finds Streep’s performance “astonishing and all but flawless; a masterpiece of mimicry” – apparently because Streep allows Brooks to indulge himself in his memories of Thatcher as cartoon villain:

Streep has the basilisk stare; the tilted, faintly predatory posture. Her delivery, too, is eerily good – a show of demure solicitude, invariably overtaken by steely, wild-eyed stridency.

There seems indeed to be plenty here for a leftist to love; but those who knew Thatcher are less impressed. Baron Tebbit, for instance–who famously was victimized by Brooks’s own paper when they printed the spurious quote, “No-one with a conscience votes Conservative”–has said this of Streep’s portrayal:

However, [Thatcher] was never, in my experience, the half-hysterical, over-emotional, over-acting woman portrayed by Meryl Streep.

Which brings up considerations far more interesting than simply the latest heavy-handed Hollywood attempt to hijack the political narrative. For instance–and we’re delving into Hollywood blasphemy here–is Meryl Streep a good actress? And, if so, by whose standards?

She’s certainly a popular one, at least among the voting members of the Academy. Streep owns the record for most nominations by any actor or actress, with 16. She has carried the statuette home twice, and is the odds-on favorite to do so a third time next year. Indeed, she has already been given the Best Actress Award by the New York Film Critics Circle–last month–for a film that hasn’t even opened yet.

But the public votes with money, and Streep’s films are not notably successful financially. Several of her most recent performances–for instance, her entire 2007 output in “Lions for Lambs,” “Evening,” “Rendition,” and “Dark Matter”–could be fairly described as disappointments. She is not a major box office magnet, and in her most successful film, the musical “Mamma Mia,” it was not the presence of Streep that drew crowds, but the deathless music of Abba.

Her popularity has always been higher among the Hollywood elite than among ordinary moviegoers. She has been called (over and over) America’s greatest living actress; but in an eerie parallel of leftist politics, the praise seems to be mainly an attempt by a self-anointed elite to force the idea upon a reluctant public. It could be the public tends to side with Pauline Kael, who remarked of Streep that she acted only “from the neck up” and said further that Streep “makes a career out of seeming to overcome being miscast.” It’s true that Streep is famously cerebral in her approach to her roles; it’s also true that there is almost never any Meryl there. Where Jimmy Stewart was always Jimmy Stewart, no matter the name of his character, Meryl Streep is never the American girl from New Jersey–she’s Polish, or Irish, or Danish, or Australian. She’s a bitter Bronx nun, or a chilly Manhattan editor, or a drunken bum. She’s Julia Child. Or she’s Margaret Thatcher–but she’s never, even a little bit, Meryl Streep. (This works to her benefit, because it always seems to be someone else who is struggling to be convincing.)

The reason for this is that Streep is perhaps the exemplar of the modern Hollywood theory of acting, which holds that the perfection of the craft lies in the total immersion of the actor in the character. This is “The Method,” which began to take over Hollywood in the late 40s, and really hit its stride when Marlon Brando burst onto the scene, alternately mumbling and screaming, in 1951. Since then actors have competed to become as invisible as possible, hiding behind accents, tics, quirks, foibles, or disabilities, or simply mimicking the voice and mannerisms of a real person.

In fact, flat-out impersonation has become so popular in Hollywood that in the last decade eight Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress have been given for impressions of modern figures–characters for whom there is ample video, audio, and film available to make them familiar not only to the actor but also the audience. Jamie Foxx, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Marion Cotillard, Sean Penn, and Colin Firth all won Oscars for their services in helping Hollywood tell the world the true meanings of the lives of Ray Charles, Truman Capote, June Carter Cash, Idi Amin, Queen Elizabeth II, Edith Piaf, Harvey Milk, and King George VI. All since 2004.

This is unprecedented in the history of the Academy Awards, yet it shouldn’t have been too hard to predict. If “losing oneself in the character” is the sine qua non of acting, what better way to judge an actor’s effectiveness than a note-perfect impersonation? (Besides, it’s simply the Hollywood penchant for remakes manifesting itself among actors rather than producers. Even actors are running out of ideas.)

Streep is indeed a gifted and meticulous mimic, perhaps the best of her generation; but in the end, that makes her a peer of Frank Caliendo, not Bette Davis. What Streep–and the rest of Hollywood–has forgotten, is that submerging oneself in the character is only half the job. The action has to be believable as well. Indeed, the illusion of spontaneity is far more powerful than the illusion of identity. Actors are routinely praised for “bringing a character to life,” but audiences pay to see stories brought to life. When Streep acts, no matter the role, every single word and gesture looks perfectly studied, considered, and prepared, as though she’s trying to give the story a manicure. She hasn’t the knack of convincing the audience that what they’re watching is actually happening. We can’t believe that what we’re seeing is real, and often it’s precisely because the excellence of the mimicry calls attention to the essential falsity of the situation.

By way of contrast, Jimmy Stewart never completely left himself out of his characters (which was okay, because we liked him). He was always, in his voice and mannerisms, Jimmy Stewart, even when he was called George Bailey or Rance Stoddard or Elwood P. Dowd. But Stewart had the ability to make any film seem like a hidden-camera documentary, capturing events as they happened. Even if the characters never rise much beyond the level of Archetype or Everyman (and here’s another interesting question: what’s wrong with that?), it’s the ability to achieve the impression of spontaneous action that made great actors of Stewart and others like Lionel Barrymore:

If you require an example of a modern actor, who never hides his real self behind a thick crust of mannerisms, yet always manages to convince us the action is authentic (and the character, as well), I offer you Robert Duvall as Euliss “Sonny’” Dewey:

On the other hand, if impersonation is the height of acting achievement, why not three Oscars for this?

Maybe the Academy Award is out of reach. But there’s always the New York Film Critics Circle awards. “The Three Stooges” isn’t slated to open until next year, but it’s never too early.

Morning Call Sheet: ‘Mad Men’ Everywhere, ‘Riddick 3′ News, the GOP Debate and Happy Friday!

John Nolte — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:38:13 +0000

–“EVERY NETWORK AIMING TO HAVE ‘MAD MEN’ CLONE THIS FALL”–

The only thing I can add to Ed Driscoll’s coverage is a question: Why? Why would every network look to clone “Mad Men” — a television show that only draws a few million viewers? Listen, I love “Mad Men.” It’s one of the finest shows ever produced, in my opinion. But if I was a network exec interested in capturing the widest audience possible and the largest profits for my stockholders, I would not be copy-catting a low-rated television show, I would be copying “NCIS,” a show that captures five and six times the audience “Mad Men” does.

Hollywood is copy-catting “Mad Men” because Hollywood likes “Mad Men.” This has nothing to do with the audience or making money. This is nothing more than Hollywood indulging itself, which they do when it comes to whatever the latest insider fad is — which they do to shape our culture and politics.

Boys with toys.

–THIRD “BRIDGET JONES” MOVIE GREENLIT?–

The first one was a gem, the second a complete embarrassment, and the luster has long won off star Rene Zellweger.

But both films were huge hits worldwide, though, so why not? Also, Colin Firth is an Oscar-winner now.

–”RIDDICK 3″ BEGINS CASTING–

Lots of plot news on part three from our friends at Screen Rant. Over the past couple weeks, the pretty wife and I have rewatched both “Pitch Black” and “The Chronicles of Riddick” and not only found them to be as entertaining and enjoyable as the first time we saw them (though they are wildly different movies — which is actually very cool), but perfect late-night viewing after a hard day of home remodeling.

Escapist fare at its best.

You can ask for nothing more.

—–

——

LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Watched the GOP debate on Fox News. Brett Baier and Chris Wallace were especially good questioners (as expected) in ways no one in the left-wing MSM (but I repeat myself) would ever go after Obama or any Democrat. I liked that Newt Gingrich fought back against the questions designed to get the candidates going after one another, but I disagree with him. There’s plenty of time to attack Obama and right now the President is doing a pretty effective job at hurting his inept self. Right now, what I want to see is this field vigorously debate their differences — I want to see them thrown off balance, taken out of their comfort zones, and challenged on every aspect of their respective records and statements. Good, tough pointed questions and a robust debate makes for better candidates. Period.

Overall, I like our field. They’re an impressive bunch filled with good ideas, love of country, and an understanding that Obama is an utter failure determined to bring the country down around him. Governor Perry getting in will only make for a better race and if Governor Palin chooses to run it will elevate events even more.

We’re 15 months out and I already like what I’m seeing.

——

——-

TODAY’S QUICK HITS

WHAT TV SHOWS ARE MOST WATCHED BY MEN?

KYLE SMITH REVIEWS THIS WEEKEND’S RELEASES

SUDDENLY OCTOMOM FINDS HERSELF IN THIRD PLACE AFTER O.J.

LIKE, OHMYGAWD, LIKE OH MY OH-SO-VERY-GAY GAWD.

WHY FRANK DARABONT WAS FIRED FROM “WALKING DEAD”

—–

CLASSIC PICK FOR SATURDAY AUGUST 13, 2011

TCM:

6:15PM EST: Naked Spur, The (1953) – A captive outlaw uses psychological tactics to prey on a bounty hunter. Dir: Anthony Mann Cast: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan. C-92 mins, TV-PG, CC.

James Stewart and director Anthony Mann made a series of superbly tough Westerns in the 1950s, and for my money this is the second best, my favorite being 195r’s “Bend of the River.” They’re all outstanding, however, and Robert Ryan makes for a formidable villain in what eventually amounts to a psychological war between the two men with a luscious Janet Leigh caught in the middle.

92-minutes. Man alive, it’s amazing how much story and character Hollywood used to be able to burn through in 92 perfectly paced, gripping minutes.

–Please send tips/suggestions/requests to jnolte@breitbart.com

Classic Hollywood on Wheels: I Drive Therefore I am… Free

Robert J. Avrech — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 21:59:16 +0000

Here's a perfect illustration of the iconography of freedom. Marilyn Monroe displays a picture of Abraham Lincoln, The Great Emancipator, in a sleek convertible with the open road beckoning.

Automobiles represent freedom.

Try and remember when you were a teenager yearning for your driver’s license so you could hop into daddy’s car and go, go, go. It didn’t matter where, you just wanted to burn rubber and escape into the far horizon.

The brilliant, exhilirating and touching American Grafitti, 1973, is the ultimate expression of American car culture. Almost every single scene takes place in a car.

Los Angeles was the first America city built to accomodate the automobile. And the movie stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, most born dirt-poor, expressed delight in their sudden prosperity and fame by purchasing and posing with their dream machines.

Contrast cars with trains.

Trains and subways are an expression of the collective. Individual identity is erased. You are at the mercy of a state run system that turns the citizen into a small cog manipulated by unmotivated, inefficient government bureaucrats.

That’s why Progressives-Liberals-Leftists are obsessed with high-speeed rail. The freedom of the road is repellent to statists who want to regulate/control diet, education, light bulbs, health care, your very geography.

Need I mention that Nazis just adored trains AKA cattle cars. And hey, the Italians boasted that Mussolini made the trains run on time.

At a certain point, one must acknowledge the convergence of philosophy between post-modern liberalism and iron-fist facism. Both ideologies assert the power of the state as the final arbiter of human affairs. Hence, the government replaces G-d and family as the center of man’s universe. It’s no surprise that the Nazi party’s formal title was The National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Anyhoo.

Hollywood produced great stars who proudly posed with their autos, symbols of glamour, affluence, and freedom.

Silent film comedienne Mabel Normand shows off her custom built Mercer Runabout 22-72, equipped with fold-a-way makeup kit and vanity table. The car was a gift from Mabel's boyfriend, producer Mack Sennett, 1920. The night before their wedding Mabel discovered Mack in bed with actress Mae Busch. The wedding was cancelled. Mabel boozed, became addicted to cocaine and was involved in several high-profile Hollywood scandals. Her brilliant career tanked and she died at the age of 37.

Rudolph Valentino loved cars and spent hours tinkering with engines. He owned several very expensive custom built vehicles. Rudy proudly displays his Isotta-Franschini limousine, built to his exacting specifications, 1923. I'm reading Evelyn Zumaya's new, groundbreaking biography, “Affairs Valentino.” Along with details of Rudy's love of the automobile—and his horrendous driving—I'm gaining a whole new perspective on this remarkable figure of motion picture history.

Rita Hayworth, b. Margarita Carmen Cansino, presents a distinctly unglamorous but fetching vision of the girl next door as she poses with her 1941 Lincoln Continental. When Hayworth first came to Hollywood she was painfully shy, could not look strangers in the eye and barely spoke above a whisper. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons confidently predicted that Hayworth would never make it in the movies.

Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn was expelled from school for fighting and seducing a school laundress. Flynn loved America, became a citizen and attempted to enlist at the start of World War II. An enlarged heart, malaria, reliance on morphine for chronic back pain, and venereal disease firmly classified him as 4-F. Known for his swashbuckler image and party-hard lifestyle, Flynn looks ready to cruise Sunset Strip in his seriously cool Auburn Speedster.

Robert Montgomery was born to privilege, but his father committed suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge leaving the family penniless. Montgomery was, no doubt, relieved to be able to afford this Cadillac Sport-Phaeton. An active Republican Montgomery was outspoken against Communist influence in Hollywood.

Jimmy Stewart was best when playing the everyman American. His 1938 Plymouth reflects this unpretentious personae. Stewart flew as a command pilot in a B-24 on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. Back in civilian life, he refused to publicize his heroic war record in order to garner publicity.

Director Josef von Sternberg, b. Jonas Sternberg, gave Marlene Dietrich this 1931 forest green Rolls Royce as a gift. Her chauffer, Briggs—perfect name—carried a set of revolvers to protect his famous employer. When Dietrich traveled to Europe, she sent her Rolls and Briggs in advance. David Niven notes in his excellent autobiography, “The Moon's a Balloon” that Dietrich supplied Briggs with a mink trimmed uniform, which, I suppose, qualifies Briggs as Hollywood's first metrosexual chauffer-bodyguard.

‘Too Big to Fail’ Surprisingly Fair and Entertaining

Tim Ross — Mon, 23 May 2011 11:34:28 +0000

I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail.

The cast was right out of a Robert Altman film, there was a large number of well known actors including William Hurt (Paulson – Sec. Treasury), James Woods (Fuld – Lehman Bros), Paul Giamatti (Bernanke – Chair, Federal Reserve), Bill Pullman (Dimon – JPMorgan Chase), Ed Asner (Buffet – Berkshire Hathaway), Billy Crudup (Geithner – President, Federal Reserve), Matthew Modine (Thain – CIT Group), Tony Shalhoub (Mack – Morgan Stanley), Topher Grace (Wilkinson), Cynthia Nixon (Davis), and many others. They all looked and played their parts very well with the exception that there seemed to be no effort made toward sounding like the people they played. It was difficult to get past the notable voices of the actors. Paul Giamatti sounds like Paul Giamatti and nothing like Ben Bernanke. Hurt sounded nothing like Paulson. Crudup nothing like Geithner. Perfection wasn’t necessary, but it seemed as though there was little to no effort made at all by the actors to at least sound a little more like the real people they were portraying and less like themselves.

The story opens on a shot of Ronald Reagan. It is news footage of a speech he gives on deregulation. Credits play as we see an image of Clinton signing a piece of legislation as the audio of newsmakers make mention that this is Congress’ bill being singed. Alan Greenspan is seen and states, “Don’t regulate for regulation’s sake,” which is followed by Bush proclaiming everyone should live out the American dream and own their own home. Miscellaneous clips talks of high profits and subprime loans, and then mortgage meltdown and government bailout.

At this point, I am thinking this film is going to be about blame… and that blame is going to be deregulation ushered in by Reagan, the Republican Congress during the Clinton years, Bush 43, and Reagan through Bush’s Federal Reserve appointee, Alan Greenspan.

This prompts me to check the cast and crew to see who they support and if they are bringing their agenda to this story in their hopes to rewrite history and put Republicans in a negative light and Democrats in a positive light before the election in 2012. And, of course, the Director and the Writer are both ardent Obama supporters. All those at HBO support Obama like Co-President Eric Kessler, Co-President Richard Plepler, President of HBO entertainment Sue Naegle, President of HBO Films Len Amato and Executive Producers Paula Weinstein, Carol Fenelon, and Ezra Swerdlow. Even the Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau and Casting Director Alexa Fogel have contributed to Obama’s 2008 campaign. And the Obama supporting list of actors is long too: Topher Grace, William Hurt, Matthew Modine, Cynthia Nixon, and Amy Carlson. As if that’s not enough, there are many other ardent left-wingers like Paul Giamatti, Bill Pullman, Tony Shalhoub, and Ed Asner.

Then the story opens on James Woods playing Dick Fuld, Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers… an ardent Democrat and Obama supporter. James Woods stands out as the political maverick in the cast. In a recent interview with New York Magazine, Woods is quoted as saying, “I’ve always said that the next Obama slogan should be, ‘Barack Obama: Putting America Out of Business,’ because that’s what he’s doing.” So I decided to turn off my bias filter and give this story a chance.

As the story unfolded, I saw that the villains in this film weren’t the Republicans, rather it was a single villain… the total and complete financial collapse of our nation, or as Bernanke puts it, “[replaying] the depression of the 1930s. Only this time… far, far worse.” So, regardless of any one American’s political affiliation watching this film, total and complete financial collapse is an enemy we can all collectively desire to defeat.

The heroes, however, that’s a little more complicated. The actual heroes of the story are Republicans Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury), Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve), and Independent Timothy Geithner (President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). They artfully maneuver their way through the minefield of economic collapse. Bear Stearns has already collapsed, Lehman Brothers is on the brink, Merrill Lynch next, and with all this going on, AIG – the safety net for all these creditors – was in the process of imploding from its own lack of liquidity and inability to meet its obligations. If AIG falls, all the banks fall. People would pull their money out of their banks and there would be no George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) trying to stop the “run on the bank” by convincing his depositors to take only what they need from his honeymoon stash. America, as we know it, would be in ruins.

Every maneuver in their quest to stabilize the markets is met with unpredictable reactions. Once they believe they’ve averted disaster, the pundits, investors, and citizens react differently than expected. It’s a reminder of Nobel winning economist F.A. Hayek’s precept that, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

But in the end, as we all know, it was capital injections in the form of a Troubled Asset Relied Plan (TARP) that would “save the day.” In short, the plan would see the U.S. government purchase assets and equity from all financial institutions, even if they didn’t need it, in order to stabilize and strengthen the financial sector. As Bernanke put it, the upside would be stabilizing banks faster, the downside would be nationalizing a few banks. Their plan to soften the blow was that they would force private banks to participate in this plan under law, but that the government would not have a voting interest or the ability to tell the banks how they use the money injected into their coffers… leaving the question to the viewer, “They will lend it out, won’t they?”

But, was TARP the right solution? If one believes it was, then the heroes of this story are without a doubt Republicans Paulson and Bernanke. But, if one believes it wasn’t the right solution, then the Republicans are just kicking the can down the road. Regardless, the story is a quest for a private solution, according to Paulson.

As Republican public relations guru Jim Wilkson (Topher Grace) says at one point, “You just can’t hand the banks massive piles of cash. Nobody’s going to go for it. To the Republicans, it’s nationalization. To the Democrats, it’s a bailout. And the banks are going to go ballistic.”

The story is well crafted and builds suspense out of the unexciting topics of finance and economics. There were parts that bothered me, like making the Republican Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, look like an immature boob, or Republican presidential candidate Senator McCain look like he is clueless on economic matters contrasted by Senator Obama’s grip on the subject, or simplistically blaming deregulation while omitting the fault of Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or that derivatives and subprime loans were born during Clinton’s presidency, or more importantly that in 2006 Republicans pleaded with the Democratically-controlled Congress to begin taking measures by pulling the reigns back on Fannie and Freddie to mitigate the impending economic disaster.

Those criticisms, however, were offset by so many of the lines delivered by Topher Grace’s character, Jim Wilkson, who best resembled the attitudes and feelings of most Americans during this time. At one point, it is suggested that the government purchases up the toxic assets of the banks, to which he responds, “Ohhh, call it cash for trash,” he also calls nationalization “the N-word” and that it is un-American, and he suggests that the government running the banks would be like the government running the Post Office, which they “run like a dream.” Another character addresses the issue that the government having the ability to dictate compensation would be the biggest “brain drain this country has ever seen.” And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is characterized as something like the head of the Mafia. Her character comes across as an elitist snob, which I particularly enjoyed.

The movie was a surprise. Although it wasn’t 100 percent balanced, it was enough for this right-winger to actually enjoy it. And the filmmakers did a pretty decent job packing in a lot of characters and a lot of story into a short amount of time. If Obama-loving HBO can pull off the upcoming Sarah Palin story, Game Change, and the Dick Cheney movie, Angler, with the same deftness and fairness, I will be pleasantly surprised. Better yet… I will be astonished.

Wanted In America: A Man Who Is What He Seems

Terrence Moore — Sat, 21 May 2011 11:27:34 +0000

One of the touchstone traits of manliness is that the true man is what he seems. There is no deceit about him: no hidden agendas, no artificial props, no “image” or “cover” designed to suit the public’s imagined wants and hide the actual man’s real character. It is undeniable that such an uncalculated manliness often offends: in its lack of political correctness and its plainspoken confidence. “Why does he always think he is so right? Hasn’t he read the latest opinion poll?” We used to call this manly virtue integrity: literally, of being whole and undivided, of being the same throughout. What you see is what you get. Integrity enables another virtue: frankness or candor, that is, saying what you believe and is on your mind without dissimulation or contrivance. For this reason one of the Founding Fathers’ most lauded virtues was candor. After all, these great men proclaimed their Independence by submitting facts to a “candid world.” This virtue of integrity, which now goes by the opaque moniker “transparency,” was better understood in the age of the Western hero. The characters played by John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and, for that matter, Ronald Reagan, did not say much. But what they said they meant, and they would back up what they said with their very lives.

But we do not live in the age of the Western. Those of us in our thirties and forties grew up in the age of the action hero. The action hero is the figure who does not do the merely human things well but performs superhuman deeds that defy the imagination. He does not simply draw a gun faster than another man. Instead, he races through explosions on a motorcycle and dives out of planes without a parachute and yet invariably emerges from the ruins unscathed. Of course, the action hero has half a dozen stunt doubles and computer graphics and millions invested in the movie to pull it all off. But it’s all worth it: for the illusion, for the moment of suspended disbelief. When you meet the actual man who plays the part, though, you find him pretty underwhelming.

If Ronald Reagan is the political figure who stands for the age of the Western, of simple integrity, Arnold Schwarzenegger is most assuredly the political figure who reveals the lie behind the action hero: that he is not what he seems. Arnold’s whole career has been built around lies. The first lie is his body. Yes, he lifted weights. But what really gave him the absurd title of Mr. Universe were the steroids that changed him from a muscular man into a comic strip. The second lie is the part he played—for there was really only one part, that of impossibly muscular kick-ass guy. It was never human. In his most famous film, Terminator, he did not even pretend to play a human. Only in the later comedies did Arnold join the ranks of the human. The problem with the action hero is that he is not really a hero. A true hero must face death and failure. He must fight for the good and be capable of losing it. He must risk being hated for doing the right thing. John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart played heroes. The first Rocky movie was about a hero. Conan and Terminator are essentially video games on screen. The adolescent audiences do not think for a moment that Arnold will die; they just want to see the cool action scenes. The third lie was Arnold’s political career. He came into office as not just a conservative but with the rhetoric of a fiscal libertarian. Yet when the very first unions stood up to him, he failed to use his fame and considerable political capital. He caved. Ronald Reagan, you will remember, stood up to the airline traffic controllers when they threatened a strike. On the way out of office, Arnold gave silly exit interviews about how everyone expected him to be the “Governator” rather than just an ordinary governor. The expectations were just too high, he complained. But our memories aren’t that bad. We know that the promise of a “Governator” was what got him into office in the first place.

And finally we come to the lie of his marriage. For years we have had Arnold and Maria, with the help of the press, flaunt this impossible marriage before us: the staunch conservative who marries into the Kennedy clan and maintains his political views, but who just can’t do without the love of this woman. There were rumors during the first campaign: about inappropriate comments and groping directed at almost any attractive woman he was around. But he was an actor, after all, a sex symbol. We should excuse him. And now the truth be told: a love child with an employee of the house.

The just complaint of Maria Shriver is, interestingly enough, the complaint that countless women in this nation also have right now. It is the complaint that the Tea Party is fueled by. “Give us a man who is what he seems,” they say, whether referring to a husband or a political candidate. “Give us a fellow who is in good shape but not hopped up on steroids. Give us a political candidate who is not the creature of a slick campaign manager. Give us a man we can trust. Give us a man who won’t say one thing to get us to marry him (or to get into office) and do just the opposite when he has gotten what he wants.” In short, give us a man.

Countdown to the Oscars: Looking Back at Hollywood’s Worst Communists

Sun Tzu — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:56:22 +0000

This is the most recent installment of exclusive interviews with Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, on his book revealing how communists, from Moscow to New York to Chicago, have long manipulated America’s liberals/progressives. Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century is based on an unprecedented volume of declassified materials from Soviet archives, FBI files, and more.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, Hollywood is celebrating its Academy Awards, a look back at great actors and actresses and films.

Kengor: For me, it’s a moment to look back at Hollywood’s worst communists, communist sympathizers, Stalinists, and duped liberals and progressives—as well as the good guys (and gals) that fit none of those categories.

Big Peace: Fair enough. This should be fun. Let’s start with communists.

Charlie Chaplin comment, “Thank God for
communism!” will make you see (him) red.

Kengor: How about the Hollywood screenwriters who liberals still insist were innocent lambs? Dalton Trumbo, Communist Party code “Dalt T;” Albert Maltz, party no. 47196; Alvah Bessie, no. 46836; John Howard Lawson, no. 47275. Or, if you turn to page 191 of my book—if you don’t have a copy yet, shame on you—you can view Arthur Miller’s party application. Miller wrote The Crucible, about how Joe McCarthy pursued “liberals” unfairly suspected of being communists—“liberals” like Miller, Trumbo, Maltz, Bessie, Lawson.

Big Peace: As you say in Dupes, Hollywood produced “quite a cast.” Let’s narrow the focus to the Academy Awards.

Kengor: Among films that have canonized communists, Julia (1977) celebrated the scowling Lillian Hellman and her mystery lover/writer, Dashiell Hammett, who we now know was a CPUSA member. Hellman wrote a bitter play called Scoundrel Time, about Joe McCarthy. In Hellman’s universe, it was Joe McCarthy, not Joe Stalin, who was evil. Winning Oscars for Julia were Jason Robards and Vanessa Redgrave. Fittingly, Lillian Hellman was played by Jane Fonda, recently retired from her real-life role as Vietcong go-go girl. “If you would understand what communism was,” Fonda pleaded with a student audience, “you would pray on your knees that we would someday be communist.”

Big Peace: Another film from that period that celebrated American communists was Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981).

Kengor: That film lionized American Bolshevik John Reed. Reed today is buried in the wall of the Kremlin, a structure responsible for upwards of 60-70 million deaths. Maureen Stapleton won an Oscar for her role in that film as “Red” Emma Goldman, a woman so radical that Woodrow Wilson’s Justice Department deported her to Russia.

Big Peace: Which Academy Award winner made the worst statement about communism?

Kengor: I would roll out the red carpet for Charlie Chaplin. “Thank God for communism!” said the silent film star. “They say communism may spread all over the world. I say, so what?” The Daily Worker thrust that comment onto its front page. Communism, of course, did spread around the world, killing 100-140 million. How’s that for a “so what?”

Big Peace: You have several Oscar winners in Dupes whose names were raised as potential communists by a party organizer in Los Angeles who testified under oath to a grand jury and to Congress.

Kengor: The party organizer was John Leech. Most of those he named turned out to be proven party members. Among those who denied Leech’s charges were Jimmy Cagney, who won an Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy, Fredric March, who won it twice, and Humphrey Bogart, who won for The African Queen. I think Cagney was at least momentarily interested in the Communist Party.

Big Peace: We talked previously about your fascinating material on Humphrey Bogart, profiled in a feature by Big Hollywood (click here).

Kengor: In the Soviet Comintern Archives on CPUSA, I found a “Bogart” at the Workers School in New York in 1934. With great care, and with all the declassified documents, I consider whether this was Humphrey Bogart. I found no smoking gun, but it’s extremely intriguing.

Big Peace: We do know that Bogart was a dupe.

Kengor: He was a self-admitted dupe, ashamed at how the communist screenwriters lied to him and other celebrities that formed a group called the Committee for the First Amendment. They flew all the way to Washington to defend their “progressive” friends, only to learn that the screenwriters were closet Stalinists. Bogart was enraged, snapping, “You [expletives] sold me out!” Yes, they did. The Reds had no concern for the reputations of these actors.

Other duped liberals who threw their support behind these communists, and won Academy Awards, were Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, and Judy Garland.

Big Peace: Perhaps the biggest Oscar winner is also one of your biggest dupes: Katharine Hepburn.

Kengor: Yes. One of the sorriest episodes in Hepburn’s illustrious career came when she delivered, in flame red dress, a speech at a May 1947 Progressive Party Rally. The speech was unerringly close to the Soviet line. Why wouldn’t it be? It was written by one of those “liberal” screenwriters: Dalton Trumbo. People’s Daily World reprinted the entire text. Hepburn hit a home-run for the comrades.

Big Peace: Burl Ives won an Oscar for The Big Country (1958). Tell us about Ives.

Kengor: Burl Ives also sang some wonderful Christmas tunes. He was in a folk group called “The Almanacs,” which alternately included Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and (among others) Will Geer—“Grandpa Walton” on The Waltons, a wild left-winger, and Columbia University grad, naturally. Some of these guys joined the party. “The Almanacs” were exploited by the seditious communist front-group, American Peace Mobilization, which appeased Hitler because Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin. They were the musical entertainment for the mobilization’s signature event in New York in April 1941. Go to pages 142-157 of Dupes, which presents materials from that rally—including Soviet orders to sucker “social justice” pastors, which occurred with tremendous success.

Big Peace: On the plus side, you highlight duped liberals who learned and changed, including in Hollywood. Sticking to Oscar winners, give some examples.

Kengor: If I were giving awards for best converted dupes, male and female—who also won Oscars—they would go to Melvyn Douglas and Olivia de Havilland. Douglas warned his fellow liberals about being duped. Ditto for de Havilland, who we discussed previously (click here). Unlike Katharine Hepburn, de Havilland, who played “Melanie” in Gone With the Wind, refused a pro-Soviet speech written by Trumbo.

Big Peace: Also on the plus side, list some Oscar winners who remained committed anti-communists throughout their career.

Kengor: Top billing goes to John Wayne, of course, who won for True Grit, and declared that Hollywood needed a good communist “de-lousing.” Others: Charlton Heston, Red Buttons, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Loretta Young, Bing Crosby, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Stewart, Shirley Temple. William Holden, who, with Ronald Reagan (click here), crashed a meeting of Hollywood communists in 1946. Gary Cooper, who won two Oscars, testified before Congress as a friendly witness on communist infiltration in Hollywood. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert both won awards for It Happened One Night (1934).

Finally, I tip my hat to Haing Ngor, real-life survivor of Pol Pot’s Cambodian holocaust. Ngor won an Oscar for playing “Dith Pran” in The Killing Fields (1984). After all that, he was murdered in California in 1996.

Big Peace: Most of those we’ve noted are deceased. Give us some names of dupes or potential dupes among recent Oscar winners.

Kengor: George Clooney won for Syriana (2005). Mercifully, he didn’t win for Good Night, and Good Luck, another film where anti-communists are the demons. Barbra Streisand won for Funny Girl (1968). Of course, Sean Penn won in 2003 and 2008. Penn fits the theme of my book well, as he’s somewhat of a bridge from Cold War dupes to War on Terror dupes.

Among the non-dupes who won recent Oscars, there’s Jon Voight (Coming Home, 1978). His role in a major film on Pope John Paul II was wonderful, and would never garner modern Hollywood’s approval.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, thanks for a unique take on the Academy Awards.

Kengor: My pleasure.

Jimmy Stewart’s ‘Thunder Bay’ — Hollywood Prophecy

Humberto Fontova — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:36:45 +0000

In the 1953 movie “Thunder Bay,” Jimmy Stewart plays the complicated protagonist, Steve Martin, the hard-bitten, ex-navy oil engineer who built the first offshore oil platform off Louisiana in 1947. “The brawling, mauling story of the biggest bonanza of them all!” reads the Universal ad for the studio’s first wide-screen movie.

Much of the brawling by Stewart and his henchmen was against the local Cajuns who fished for a living. Their livelihood, it seemed obvious at the time, would soon vanish amidst a hellbroth of irreversible pollution. The movie covers a time period of barely one year yet ends on a happy note of conciliation as the fishermen reaped a bonanza almost as big as Jimmy’s itself. The oil structures had kicked in as artificial reefs and made possible a bigger haul of seafood than anything in these fishermen’s lifetimes.

Alas, brawling by the real life Jimmy Stewart characters later cranked up to a level that dwarfed anything in the movie—but against a much more fanatical, underhanded and devious foe: environmentalists.

If bona-fide science has crowned Global Warmists with ten foot dunce caps, then half a century of scientific evidence has crowned anti-offshore drilling activists with fifty foot dunce caps. Astoundingly, over the ensuing decades the verdict of this 1953 movie (that offshore oil drilling far from an environmental disaster was actually an environmental bonanza) has been pounded home with a vengeance. To wit:

With 3,203 of the 3,729 offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off her coast, Louisiana provides almost a third of North America’s commercial fisheries. A study by LSU’s sea grant college shows that 85 percent of Louisiana’s offshore fishing trips target these structures. “Oil platforms as artificial reefs support fish densities 10 to 1000 times that of adjacent sand and mud bottom, and almost always exceed fish densities found at both adjacent artificial reefs of other types and natural hard bottom,” says a study by Dr Bob Shipp, professor at the Marine Sciences department of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, and currently, the vice-chair of the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council. “Evidence indicates that massive areas of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico were essentially empty of snapper stocks for the first hundred years of the fishery. Subsequently, areas in the western Gulf have become the major source of red snapper, concurrent with the appearance of thousands of petroleum platforms.” (italics mine).

More recently, the red snapper catch from the northwestern Gulf (Louisiana, studded with oil platforms) is estimated 6 to 7 times greater (italics mine) than the catch from the eastern Gulf (bereft of oil platforms.)”

That this proliferation of seafood came because – rather than in spite – of the oil production rattled many environmental cages and provoked a legion of scoffers.

Amongst the scoffers were some The Travel Channel producers, fashionably greenish in their views. They read these claims in a book titled “The Helldiver’s Rodeo.” (and Ted Nugent’s blurb sure didn’t help against their scoffing!) The book described an undersea panorama that (if true) could make an interesting show for the network, they concluded, while still scoffing.

They scoffed as we rode in from the airport. They scoffed over raw oysters, grilled redfish and seafood gumbo that night. More scoffing through the Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. They scoffed even while suiting up in dive gear and checking the cameras as we tied up to an oil platform 20 miles in the Gulf.

But they came out of the water bug-eyed and indeed produced and broadcast a Travel Channel program showcasing a panorama that turned on its head every environmental superstition against offshore oil drilling. Schools of fish filled the water column from top to bottom – from 6-inch blennies to 12-foot sharks. Fish by the thousands. Fish by the ton.

The cameras were going crazy. Do I focus on the shoals of barracuda? Or that cloud of jacks? On the immense schools of snapper below, or on the fleet of tarpon above? How ’bout this – WHOOOAA – hammerhead! We had some close-ups, too, of coral and sponges, the very things disappearing off Florida’s (that bans offshore oil drilling) pampered reefs. Off Louisiana, they sprout in colorful profusion from the huge steel beams – acres of them. You’d never guess this was part of that unsightly structure above. The panorama of marine life around an offshore oil platform staggers anyone who puts on goggles and takes a peek, even (especially!) the most worldly scuba divers. Here’s a video peek at this seafood bonanza.

And oh!…as a fanatical fisherman/scuba-diver I almost forgot to mention this trivial detail: the oil production platforms off Louisiana’s coast also produce 80 percent of the oil and 72 percent of the natural gas produced in the U.S.—and without causing a single major oil spill in half a century of this process. This record stands despite dozens of hurricanes – including the two most destructive in North American history, Camille and Katrina – repeatedly battering the drilling and production structures.

25 Greatest Christmas Films: #1 — ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946)

John Nolte — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:03:51 +0000

There aren’t many films that transcend their art and time and generations. A box-office disappointment when released, It’s A Wonderful Life was so forgotten its copyright lapsed causing it to be looped endlessly on small independent television stations everywhere desperate for free programming. Inevitably this forgotten classic was rediscovered by a new generation. A generation under siege by a film industry that now scoffs at such simplistic ideas as reminding us of the rich benefits that can be reaped by our own simple human decency.

Fifteen-years ago it was all the rage to worship It’s A Wonderful Life, and then the inevitable backlash began by the contrary-is-cool crowd and those offended by spiritualism and sentiment. Whatever. All I know is that after dozens of viewings each new one is like the first and without fail the story stays with me for days.

And who are we to argue with time? Like Beethoven and Sinatra, the story of a good man blinded by disappointment, driven to suicide, and saved by God’s grace will live for as long as there’s a civilization. Because the message is about the simplest and yet most important of things — it’s about why when things are at their worst that’s the most important time to step outside the hurly burly of life’s setbacks and inventory our blessings.

It’s A Wonderful Life is about perspective.

George Bailey wants to shake the dust of Bedford Falls off his shoes and stake a place in the world in order to validate his existence through the building of bridges and monuments. Constantly thwarted by his own decency and love for a beauty who looks just like Donna Reed, he never goes anywhere, and instead grudgingly spends his life engaged in a bitter war of attrition with Old Man Potter to keep a crummy old savings and loan afloat. So blinded is George Bailey by life’s misfortunes, he never notices the monuments he’s erected inside those around him through the trust and dignity and friendship he offers in the small homes he builds. And that blindness nearly costs him his life.

Imagine a man like George Bailey; a man with a town full of faithful friends eager to show their gratitude for his lifetime of decency and generosity of spirit… Imagine how blind he must be to think he has nowhere to turn other than to the bottom of that cold black river.

You can watch the film and marvel in its perfect script, unrivaled series of iconic scenes, and the towering performance given by Mr. Stewart… And you can watch the final scene set in a modest living room filled with family and loved ones and realize, just like George finally does, that it’s all up to us, that a chance at a wonderful life is almost always within our own grasp.

George Bailey’s dark and desperate path to that realization is a reminder that our own blessings are not found in the world or given to us by others, but rather in who we are and what we’re capable of as God’s creatures. Everything that matters and that is beautiful in life costs nothing more than what we’re born with: our ability to be decent and gracious and kind to one another.

There’s nothing wrong with building monuments and bridges and having goals and ambition, but what does any of that matter if you can’t fill a living room with family and loved ones?

God sent Clarence to give George a long slow look around, and in that respect It’s A Wonderful Life is our own guardian angel… Making it the greatest Christmas movie of all time by a pretty wide margin.

Merry Christmas.

Read the full countdown here.

Eight Great Movies ‘For’ Thanksgiving

Kurt Schlichter — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:47:31 +0000

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. Sure, Canada and a couple other nations have adopted their own weird versions of it too, but the notion of a nation setting aside a day to give thanks for its blessings could only arise in a nation that has been so abundantly blessed. In its land, its people and its animating spirit, America has much to be thankful for even in a time of war, economic blight, and a government that too often seems to see its blessings as curses and its greatest strengths as flaws.

–

But America’s abundance does not apply to movies about Thanksgiving. Certainly some exist, but if you review a list of movies about Thanksgiving, the sad fact is that there are very few good ones. Many are PC retellings of the original Thanksgiving story – one guess as to who the villains are (Hint: It’s the dudes with buckles on their hats). Others are tiresome melodramas about “quirky” families that reaffirm their bonds over plates of turkey, with “quirky” — meaning “annoying.”

There simply is not a worthy list of Top Movies about Thanksgiving to be made, but there is a solid list of Eight Great Movies for Thanksgiving. These are films that embody, in some way, what Thanksgiving really means. You are free to disagree with the choices – as some Marines recently did regarding another list – but the freedom to think for yourself is but one of many things to be thankful for. Maybe these movies don’t all feature turkey and trimmings – though a couple of them do – but you can’t go wrong with them this Thanksgiving Day:

1. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: No, this is not a movie. So sue me. Anyone who grew up in the 70’s or 80’s remembers this classic cartoon version of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang’s turkey day. But this is not just for kids. One of the interesting things about Charles Schultz’s kid characters is how utterly mercenary and oblivious they can be, latching onto the crassest materialism and taking what they have completely for granted. Their behavior is really awful – much like the behavior of many adults. But leave it to good ole Charlie Brown and his quietly intelligent pal Linus to get them to focus on what’s important. There is a reason that, even today, every kid my kids have a play date with has a DVD of this treasure on the shelf between the Dora the Explorer and the Robo-transmorphatron adventures.

–

2. Bolt: You know, Disney sure comes in for a lot of grief – some of it deserved – but this animated story of a little girl and her loyal dog is fantastic on every level. It’s a technical marvel – the visuals are stunning. But it’s more than that. The ending is a powerful evocation of a family learning to appreciate what is important. Throughout, it’s sad, funny, and stirring, plus it carries a powerful message about bravery and sacrifice. When Bolt refuses to leave his little girl as a building burns around them, all I could think of is how great it was to finally see a movie that honors courage without turning it into some sort of ironic joke.

–

3. The Wizard of Oz: This is a Thanksgiving perennial on those non-communist Ted Turner networks. This vivid fantasy is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and still kicks butt over just about everything that’s been released since. You can even see its cultural impact in the Avatar trailer, where the grizzled Marine commander announces to his troops: “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” There are flying monkeys, melting witches, dwarfs and/or midgets – plus a wonderful lesson about being thankful for what you have been given. What more could you want?

–

4. The Shawshank Redemption: This grim prison drama is included for one reason – the scene where the clever Tim Robbins makes a deal with the guards to do a hot, dirty job for them and ends up enjoying a bucket of cold Cokes on the roof with Morgan Freeman and their pals. That scene provides some useful perspective about the meaning and value of material goods, enjoying the fruits of one’s labors, and the importance of freedom.

–

5. The Sound of Music: Yeah, it’s a little on the sugary side. And yeah, I have a beef with it because it gave my mother the bright idea to inflict the first name of one of the lederhosen-clad yodelers upon me. But this is a true family film in every sense of the word – it both celebrates family and you can safely watch it with your family without having to worry that you’ll end up having to explain some manner of perversion to your five-year old. The widower Baron von Trapp falls for the beautiful governess he hires to wrangle his Teutonic task force during the first two thirds of the film. The last act focuses on their attempt to flee Austria after the Nazis decide to “invite” the Baron to take a commission in the German navy. Christopher Plummer’s righteous anger as he tears down a swastika flag will thrill anyone with a love of freedom, and his composure as he faces down the young brownshirt is awesome. The von Trapps do, of course, escape (though not necessarily to “Climb Every Mountain”) and in reality they ended up in America. We can all be thankful that we are lucky enough to live in the place where the world’s oppressed want to be.

–

6. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: We can be thankful both for a government where, despite all the corruption and cronyism, our voices will eventually be heard. And we can be thankful for men like Jimmy Stewart, not only a great actor but a veteran who flew perilous bomber missions over Germany when he could have safely flown a desk.

–

7. Blackhawk Down: Why list a war movie on a list of Thanksgiving films? Because we should all be damn thankful that we have men (and women) out there like the Americans who fought it out against overwhelming odds in Mogadishu in October 1993. The fierce loyalty those troops showed, braving incredible odds to rescue their comrades from the Somali militia hordes, should give us pause to reflect on the price of the great material and spiritual bounty our nation enjoys. America didn’t just happen – it was earned. Today, tens of thousands of Americans are overseas continuing to earn it this Thanksgiving. And if you are so inclined, you might want to say “Thanks” with a donation to The Wounded Warrior Project.

–

8. Planes, Trains and Automobiles: The best John Hughes “adult” movie, and possibly his best movie overall. Steve Martin is the uptight businessman trapped in a hilarious odyssey of misfortunes with John Candy’s lovable slob as he desperately tries to make it home to his family for Thanksgiving. It’s funny. It’s really, really funny, as literally everything that can go wrong goes astonishingly wrong. Cars catch fire, wallets are stolen, deer are resurrected and buns are mistaken for pillows. But beneath it all is the kind of heart missing from so much of the soulless, cookie-cutter dreck that passes for comedy today. The ending truly sums up the spirit of Thanksgiving and highlights the kind of generosity of spirit that comes naturally to most Americans. And there is another thing to be thankful for – the joy that John Candy brought to all of us during his far too short life.

This year, I’m particularly thankful to be in the USA for Thanksgiving. Whether you are home with your loved ones, or serving our country overseas, Happy Thanksgiving.