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Amongst all the great Christmas films ever made, Its a Wonderful Life is, without a doubt, the very best of them, and Frank Capra’s best film, period. All of his films portrayed his positive, life affirming philosophy towards the world, but this film defined that philosophy, and while it has had more than half a century’s worth of competition, it still stands as the greatest Christmas film ever made.

Yes, your inner child says “Not it’s not, that would be A Christmas Story, thank you very much!” and your inner cynic wants to laugh the whole thing off and say that Lethal Weapon is the greatest Christmas movie. Both wrong. This film is the best holiday film of all time for quite a number of reasons. Not How the Grinch Stole Christmas, not Die Hard, It’s a Wonderful Life.

The film manages to succeed on so many level because it is fearless. From the first act, it deals with subject matter and themes that are much darker than you expect to see in a holiday film. It is because of this courage, the bravery to start at such a low point, that the movie is so triumphantly positive. Heck, the movie’s second act starts with an attempted suicide!

It is because of this ugliness, this darkness and pessimism, that it is so heroic to see Stewart’s George Bailey overcome the odds and learn to love his life again. True optimism only counts in the face of adversity. Anyone can be positive in one of those weepy made for cable Lifetime movies where nobody ever really faces any true challenges, but Bailey faces the worst challenges of his life, and learns to face them with a sense of hope.

The movie ranks alongside Rocky as one of the greatest “happy tears” films of all time. If you’re not shedding them by the end of the film, then sorry, but… What the heck is wrong with you? Any real, live human being can’t help but at least feel a little moisture in their eyes when the bell rings and the angel gets its wings. It is simply a matter of optimism triumphing over negativity.

What many people don’t know is that the film just completely flopped upon release. Capra has always been a popular director who could rake in a lot of money for the studios, and this one flopped so bad that it almost sank his career. Luckily, the movie eventually made a killing, becoming an all time best seller on video and DVD, and always raking in a lot of viewership when it plays on cable each year.

One more interesting point: They say that Stewart was Capra’s only choice for the role of George Bailey, but that’s not true! In fact, his “only choice” was Henry Fonda, but Stewart was a second choice, when push came to shove. We can say Fonda would have been great in the role, but it’s hard to imagine anyone but Stewart playing the character to such perfection.

There were actually several alternative endings written, and one or two filmed. If you’ve ever seen the Saturday Night Live episode where Bailey leads the whole town to Potter’s home to give him his comeuppance… That was actually based on an ending that was filmed by Capra! The one filmed for the movie probably wasn’t quite as goofy, but nevertheless, it WAS filmed!

Your achy knees lessened in a week or so, and now, 6 months later, you’ve even playing tennis again. On Line Movie Downloads Verify the number of downloads permitted, best will beunlimited movie downloads. It was Nancy with her beautiful blond tresses that stole the spotlight, but it was Howards guitar that powered the group.