#11. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

There may not be more “iconic” Christmas movies than “It’s a Wonderful Life” but there are better ones; “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “A Christmas Story,” “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” “Gremlins,” there’s a Christmas scene in “Rocky V.” Yes, I am going to facetiously mention every movie that even references Christmas as being a better Christmas movie than “It’s a Wonderful Life” to illustrate the point that I did not enjoy this film very much. Yes, I admit that it is partially because I just don’t go for the overly sappy stuff, but it is much more than that.

In previous Frank Capra films on this list I have complained about a tendency to force morality and idealism down our throats- in this movie he flat-out assaults us with these principles. In order to buy “It’s a Wonderful Life” you have to buy the ideology that is at the heart of the film. Guardian angels, the difference between forgivable and unforgivable sins and the whole “if you kill a butterfly in the past it alters the course of the future” theory are all key elements to the storyline in this farce of a movie that really does nothing more than spend two hours downplaying the seriousness of suicide and the circumstances that drive people to such desperation.

From the very first scene I thought I was playing the world’s worst version of “Asteroids” as some crappily animated stars (meant to represent Holy spirits) discuss the plight of George Bailey (James Stewart) who is about to “throw away God’s greatest gift.” The allegorical religious beings decide to appoint a Guardian Angel to George. It seems Heaven is short-staffed because the only warm body they have available is a blundering, sweet-but-stupid low-ranking angel (because apparently Heaven is also a class-based society) named Clarence (Henry Travers). The deal is that if Clarence can prevent George from committing suicide, he will get his wings and become a full-fledged angel.

In order to explain how George got to this point, and of course to introduce the backstory, the narrative extemporaneously kicks into a flashback mode. Essentially we are given example after example of how life took a shit on George Bailey. He nearly dies as a young boy rescuing his brother Harry from drowning in a frozen pond, loses the hearing in one of his ears as a result, ends up working for a drunken pharmacist who slaps him around (*point of clarification; I can only confirm that the pharmacist actually drinks one time when he finds out his son is dead, but I am assuming that since he had the alcohol right there and hit the bottle as soon as he got the bad news then there is probably some semblance of dependency) and gets repeatedly screwed over by Harry.

In something of an insult to the intelligence of the viewer, when Jimmy Stewart first appears onscreen, we are expected to believe that 40 year old Jimmy Stewart is 21 year old George- crackly old voice and all. George is supposedly getting ready to take a long trip to Europe before coming back to go to college, which he has had to put off for years while he waits for Harry to graduate high school and take over George’s job in the family business, the Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan. This entire segment takes up a huge chunk of the film but still encompasses a very short period of time and in the process introduces far too many characters and plot devices to be believable- as it represents just too many major events all at once. At Harry’s graduation party George reconnects with Mary (Donna Reed) which was very predictably foreshadowed at the beginning of the film when she tells him she will marry him someday when they are very young, There is a great deal of excitement as George prepares for his trip, enters a dance contest with Mary, seemingly begins to fall in love with her as he promises to give her anything she wants- all the while various schoolmates of George and Harry are paraded through the storyline AND George’s father has a fatal stroke… all in the same night.

It is somewhere around this point in the film where you realize that George is just an unrealistically “good” guy. I am not one of those people who believes that everyone is in their present circumstances because of poor decision making or that a certain degree of self-sacrifice is not a good thing, but the position George is guilted into following his father’s death are just too much to take. He gives up his dream of traveling to take over the family business, despite the fact that his uncle, the other Bailey Brother would be the logical successor, but this idea is dismissed as he is just too old and simple. George not only allows Harry to take advantage of him by suddenly deciding to go to college, again with the empty promise of taking over in another four years, but George even gives him the money that was to be used for his trip to Europe. In fact the more I think about it the more I think Harry just plain hustled George from beginning to end.

George’s selflessness again becomes his undoing when he devotes himself to his father’s vision of establishing an affordable housing project- at great personal expense when he finds himself fighting an uphill battle against the bank’s majority shareholder Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) who is the most unconvincing, cartoonish villain I’ve ever seen. As an obvious knock-off of Ebenezer Scrooge, Potter is obsessed with having a monopoly on all the financial institutions in their town, Bedford Falls, so that he can essentially be a high interest loan shark and eventually turn the town into a second Las Vegas. There is no complexity to Potter, nor is any reason given for his evil, thus we are just supposed to assume it is inherent, making him a very one-dimensional and unserviceable antagonist.

As the movie jumps ahead yet again George rolls over once more for Harry by allowing him to welch on his promise yet again to take a job working for his new wife’s father. Mary has just come back from college and we are to assume her and George have not seen each other since the fateful night of the dance contest/graduation party/death of his father/night they fell in love. Partially out of frustration with his circumstances, partially because he hears she has other potential suitors and partially for inexplicable reasons, George is very cold to Mary when he goes to see her, despite the fact that she clearly has been carrying a torch for him (this is depicted very well and is one of the only true ‘highlights’ of the film) as evidenced by Mary’s needlepoint of George lassoing the moon (a reference to the conversation where he promised her anything) and her putting on a record of “Buffalo Gals” which they danced to that same night. In fact it takes a fit of jealousy when another man calls for Mary to make George give into his feelings for her, which sets the stage for a theme that will recur throughout the movie; George being a bipolar dick to Mary.

“You call this a happy family? Why do we have to have all these kids?” (George Bailey “It’s a Wonderful Life”)

George and Mary finally cut through the bullshit and get married and while on their way out of town for their honeymoon they see a potential riot in the making outside Bailey Brothers. In what is implied to be the stock market crash or something similar, there is a run on the banks and all the townspeople want to withdraw their money and essentially clean out the bank. George then does some guilt tripping of his own by reminding them that he and his family got them into their homes and ultimately gives away all of his and Mary’s honeymoon money to the customers in order to cover their bare necessities and prevent the bank from being rupt. In what I’m sure was supposed to be viewed as a real stand up and cheer moment cementing George as a cinematic hero, I am ultimately left shaking my head at this scene and muttering “chump.” Not because he goes above and beyond the call of good heartedness, but because his anger and frustration at the state of his life later in the film, and the way he angrily takes it out on his family make you just want to strangle him and tell him to stop being so damn accommodating and grow a pair of testicles.

The principal conflict of the film arises when George’s uncle Billy loses an $8,000 cash deposit which again threatens to close the bank once and for all. Not only is Billy irresponsible and completely incapable of having any sort of managerial authority anyway, he loses the money in the most despicable of ways; by accidentally giving it to Mr. Potter when he stops to have a conversation with him that he shouldn’t even be having but decides he wants to gloat about Harry Bailey winning the Medal of Honor in World War II; yep, yet another disorganized time jump and yet another endeavor Harry engages in while his poor doormat of a brother slaves away at the bank. This sets the stage for both the final calamity George can take before deciding to kill himself, but also one of the biggest plot holes I’ve ever seen in any movie anywhere; the fact that Potter more or less stole the money is never explored again- not even just that there are no legal repercussions, but that the Baileys never go after him for stealing it.

George goes home, savagely berates his whole family, gets drunk, decides he is worth more dead than alive and that he will just kill himself and let Mary collect his life insurance (I guess they still paid out for suicide in 1946). With no real warning the movie is apparently not in flashback mode anymore, as Clarence appears on the bridge George wants to jump off to kill himself and saves him. As Clarence explains the whole guardian angel thing to a skeptical George, it becomes clear that Clarence can only convince him by showing him what his life would be like if he had never been born. To ensure that they rip off “A Christmas Carol” sufficiently, there is a whole “ghost of Christmas past/future” motif going on as George is shown how bad off everyone would be without him. Bedford Falls is called Pottersville, everyone is either a drunk or a streetwalker, all the businesses are seedy, people are homeless and Mary is inexplicably homely and unmarried.

George decides he has everything to live for and goes back home just in time to find out the citizens of Bedford Falls have heard about his situation and all pooled their resources together to give Bailey Brothers the first comprehensive bank bailout. Because George realizes his life is so great and he suddenly stops hating his family and his life, Clarence is awarded his wings and everyone lives happily ever after… I have a lot of problems with this.

1) If all these people have known George was in financial peril all this time but didn’t want to kick down any money to help him out until he is about to kill himself then there is no good reason why they couldn’t/shouldn’t have helped him out sooner.

2) Is it even legal to float your bank with money your friends gave you once an auditor has gone through the books, determined there was negligence and is on the verge of shutting you down and arresting you for bank fraud? What is the FDIC’s take on this?

3) Why is this considered such a happy ending? Once George pays back the $8,000 he will still have to constantly be struggling to stay afloat and battling it out with Potter who has seemingly endless resources.

4) I’ve said it before, but how is this ending remotely satisfying if the main antagonist, especially one who has practically single-handedly driven the protagonist to suicide receives no comeuppance whatsoever? I’m not saying they had to kill Potter or have him go to jail for theft and be relentlessly ass-raped by a cellmate who it turns out is someone he has wronged in the past, but he should at least be stonewalled for good by the other shareholders in the bank who all unanimously love George.

5) How is someone who is enfeebled as Uncle Billy still allowed to work in the bank in the capacity he does? He is such a liability that he should just be paid his salary to stay in a retirement home instead of being allowed to run the bank’s day-to-day operations with his sophisticated string-on-a-finger filing system.

6) Does being a charitable person really excuse being an abusive husband and father? I think not. Way to pick and choose your morals Frank Capra.

7) Is Heaven such a fucked up place that angels are playing high-stakes games of roulette with people’s lives and hanging wings over other angel’s heads to get them to do God’s work? Fuck Heaven.

I know this stuff can all be explained away by the simple phrase “it’s just a movie,” but should we really have to settle for that? Especially in what is considered by at least one body of legitimacy to be the 11th greatest movie of all time? And does the fact that the movie oozes sentiment, morality and exploits primal emotional reactions really make up for the fact that it is just a badly made movie? Between the horribly animated beginning, the unsatisfactory ending, the poor character development, inconsistent pacing, hole-laden plot, reliance on one specific religious manifesto as fact for the story to even be serviceable and the fact that it goes from a flashback, past-tense format to a third-person omniscient, present-tense narrative without skipping a beat- I have no doubt that this film would have gotten an F in any filmmaking class.

#12. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Whenever I tell people how much I love Hollywood and how L.A. is one of my favorite places to visit, they always roll their eyes and assume that I love the façade of L.A. They insist that if I REALLY knew L.A. I would hate the place. The fact of the matter is, I know and love both sides of L.A.; the glamorized, idealistic version you see on “The Hills” and hear about in Beach Boys songs as well as the shady, dark version you see in “L.A. Confidential” and hear about in Eagles songs. I love everything about that place; going to the Hollywood Bowl, eating from taco trucks on Wilshire, enjoying the beaches and marinas and going to every seedy souvenir stand along the Walk of Fame. Likely because of the fact that it depicts both versions of L.A. “Sunset Boulevard” is probably my all time favorite movie. Well that and because it finds a lot of humor in dark places.

In a very wonderful way, “Sunset Boulevard” is also an unorthodox movie. The opening title card is a painted curb of the street the film takes its name from, despite the imagery of opulent houses and sunny L.A. outdoor shots, the musical introduction is ominous and gloomy. After the credits the film then employs a bizarre post-mortem voice-over which sets up a flashback narration (not unlike another Billy Wilder-directed film “Double Indemnity”). From the snide tone of the voiceover as well as the sarcastic comments, it is evident that the narrator referring to the dead man floating in a pool is himself, meaning that they have essentially spoiled the ending for us. It is a risky revelation but it works simply because of the absurd circumstances under which we get from point A to point B.

As the story progresses, the narrator confesses that he is the film’s principal character, Joe Gillis (William Holden) a self-professed B-movie writer. Joe spends the early scenes of the film eluding a pair of repo men who are after his car, a result of his lack of recent work. He eventually winds up at Paramount studios attempting to hock a terrible sounding baseball movie that is so bad it is even criticized by one of the young staff script readers Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson). After being practically laughed out of the Paramount offices and being turned down for a loan by his agent, Joe resigns himself to the possibility of returning home to Ohio to his newspaper job (the first of many references to the seductive nature of the illusion of Hollywood).

While contemplating his next move Joe sees the repo men at a red light- resulting in a low-speed chase through the residential neighborhoods just outside Hollywood. Joe finds a safe hideout in a seemingly abandoned mansion on 10086 Sunset Blvd. The house is actually a metaphor for old-Hollywood and specifically its owner Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a long-forgotten actress from the silent film era. Both are shells of their former selves, both have faded in their outward appearance but continue to keep up a decadent front and both are tragically lonely and isolated- the house geographically, Norma mentally and emotionally. In many ways, the house is a character unto itself, hence the importance of the film’s title.

Norma’s creepy German valet Max (Erich Von Stroheim) mistakes Joe for the animal undertaker they are waiting on. From here on the film gets pretty weird and progressively gets even weirder. I feel like at this point it would be totally cliché to refer to Norma Desmond as “eccentric,” because she is more like batshit crazy and her elaborate funeral for a dead chimpanzee is merely the tip of the iceberg. Once Joe straightens out the case of mistaken identity and Norma discovers he is a screenwriter she reveals she still has use for him even though he isn’t the monkey mortician. In an effort to stage a delusional return to the screen, Norma has been working on a script to be built around her but needs a professional writer to help her finish the job. Her motives are quite transparent given the fact that she refuses to let Joe leave her home and even insists on moving him in with her- all of which he is basically forced into agreeing to given his circumstances.

Before long Norma has paid off Joe’s creditors (with the exception of the people repossessing his car- in fact it is implied that she tipped them off to its location so as to take away any means Joe has of leaving) and essentially becomes his benefactor. His immediate discomfort is evident, especially considering that everyone seems to think he is a male prostitute working for Norma- and she does nothing to dispel this suspicion. Perhaps the most compelling aspect of this movie’s storyline is the complexity of Norma’s character. Though she is a sociopath and a control freak, she is also a very sympathetic character given the obvious abundance of mental illnesses she suffers from. Her desperate fear of loneliness, severe insecurity, numerous suicide attempts, refusal to live in the present and fragile emotional state don’t excuse, but at least explain her insane behavior.

Another interesting element to the plot is that there is no clear-cut protagonist, at least not in the sense of a character who has more positive qualities than negative. Norma is manipulative and narcissistic, Joe uses Norma and continues to accept payment for working on her script despite his knowledge that it will fail and even begins a relationship with his only real friend’s fiancé, who happens to be Betty, the Paramount script reader from the beginning of the film, who would probably qualify as the “good” person in the scenario were it not for the fact that she pursues Joe aggressively while her fiancé is out of state for work. Additionally, she is also using Joe for his writing ability as the two are working on their own script separate from the one he is helping Norma with- meaning he is being exploited by both a poor young girl as well as a rich old woman because he allows himself to be.

“There is nothing tragic about being 50. Unless you’re trying to be 25!” (Joe Gillis, “Sunset Boulevard”)

The most amazing, surreal and artistic segment of the whole film comes when Norma makes her “triumphant” return to the Paramount Studios. Cecil B. DeMille plays himself in a cameo as the movie transitions into a quasi-documentary, showing the behind-the-scenes workings of a film set and art begins to oddly imitate life; DeMille is directing a film, a non-fictional studio is the set, Gloria Swanson, herself a huge actress from the silent era who was unable to transition with the advent of talkies reminiscing about the golden era of Hollywood. The movie-within-a-movie as well as the brilliant effects integrated by the presence of the motion picture equipment push the film’s creativity over the top. The metaphor of fame and the fickle nature of the public is illustrated when Norma sits in a director’s chair and the lighting tech shines a spotlight on her- causing all the actors and stagehands to flock to her, fawning about how it is “the great Norma Desmond.” However, once DeMille orders the crew back to work the spotlight moves off Norma and she is again abandoned by all the hangers-on. To add insult to injury, the reason DeMille’s people invited Norma to the studio was because they wanted to rent her car for a film and not because they are interested in her script like she thinks.

The inevitable crumbling of the primary characters’ lives is a monumental one. Norma discovers that Paramount has no interest in her script, the 17,000 fan letters a day she got are all sent by Max, who is revealed to be not only her manservant but her ex-husband and the director who discovered her, and that Joe is in love with Betty. Betty discovers that Joe has been living with Norma as a gigolo, mainly because Joe tells her in an effort to ensure she breaks up with him as he has decided she is too good for him and all the baggage he comes with. Joe, as we all know from the beginning, gets shot to death by Norma in a jealous rage.

When the police come to arrest Norma, her final delusion plays out. Given the gossip-value of the story of a B-movie screenwriter being murdered by a former A-lister in a creepy old mansion, the tabloid photographers and news stations all show up for the circus. Her fragile mental state, exacerbated by her nervous breakdown after killing Joe, leads her to believe that the cameras are there to film her big return to cinema. She eerily descends the stairs of her home to the waiting authorities and newsmen and utters the famous “Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup” line as the focus turns blurry, giving us a glimpse into the hazy, dreamlike state her life has descended into. In a very dark and tragic way, Norma has her “happy ending” as she is clearly not cognizant of what is actually happening and likely never will be. Ultimately though, the four most prominent characters all meet grim fates that have since come to be recognized as stereotypical worst-case scenarios of what happens to people who come to Hollywood with idealist dreams; Joe dies, Norma goes insane, Betty has her heart broken and Max has no identity of his own.

However, as cynical and jaded as the story is on the surface, in many ways “Sunset Boulevard” still glamorizes the Hollywood life. Despite their tragic fates, all the main characters touch their dream in some way or another and find varying levels of success. Also, a glimpse into the palatial interior of Norma’s home does nothing but encourage people to repeat the cycle and keep pursuing a career in the motion picture industry. And let’s face it, is a major motion picture released by a major studio REALLY going to bury the motion picture industry THAT severely? Come on now.