“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways….”
—Psalm 91:11
“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
—Hebrews 1:14
The best movies tend to watch you the more you watch them.
Watch a great film enough, and it becomes more than just a film; it’s a constellation that serves to watch over, minister to, and guard us through the ever-changing seasons of life.
Classic Christmas movies can especially evoke reactions in a repeat viewer that reveal more about the viewer than the movie itself. Christmastide can be the most wonderful as well as the most despairing time of the year. Yet, each Noel, the same films play in the background for the lonely and the loved alike – the same stories flickering on our screens as spirits or ghosts, uplifting or haunting us with all the memories the holiday can bring.
For me, Frank Capra’s film “It’s a Wonderful Life” has served this role, watching me on many Christmases past.
Upon my first watch as a teenager, alongside friends and family on a beach trip, I was charmed by the movie’s sweeping perspective of one man’s life all wrapped up in the saving grace of God and his angels.
As a hopeless romantic, I particularly loved George and Mary’s love story and wished that dearly for myself – that I could one day lasso the moon, even if begrudgingly.
I also felt the sting of George Bailey’s regrets growing into despair. Seeing him as a good man who didn’t deserve his suffering, a man who had done nothing but the right thing only to play into the hands of cruel fate, I prayed the prayers of his family and friends would be heard.
After seeing what life was like had George Bailey never been born, my heart leapt with happiness as God granted George his old life back, bringing a happy ending of friends, family, bell rings, new wings, riches, and song.
Fast-forward five years into my early 20s. I remember thinking George Bailey was an economic illiterate who foolishly engaged in fractional reserve banking, and that Pottersville looked like a fun place for a bachelor to live fast and loose – a rip-roaring good time full of booze and women, supplied by the market after being demanded by men being all too men.
Upon another watch a few years later, I could see that Frank Capra was obviously a downright dirty commie, his movie just another Hollywood trick to help bolster the class war of the Reds and their “progressive” fellow-travelers.
As a 1947 FBI memo states:
With regard to the picture ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type’ so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.
Scrub forward a few years into my early 30s, and I was once again watching the film, this time alone.
The charm I once felt for it had completely faded.
I was no longer in love with George and Mary’s love story, as I was less a hopeless romantic and more just hopeless.
Left on a lonely island of self-imposed exile, I saw George Bailey as a weak wretch of a man who didn’t appreciate his own free choices – and thus didn’t deserve saving in his discouragement – those who wish they were never born get what they deserve.
More so, whether George Bailey was deserving or not, I felt there was no God, no stars or galaxies watching over us here on earth, and certainly no angel named Clarence coming to save any of us in our regrets.
I bristled at the sentimentality and simple-minded appeals to prayer, having seen prayers seemingly answered in my own life by the decay and death of someone I loved the most.
And when I heard Zuzu’s, “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings,” I felt as though I was a man out in the cold – looking in on a welcoming family warm by the fire, yet refusing to knock on the door – too proud in my “free” choice to stand alone in the snow.
Now, 37 years old, I haven’t watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” in years.
Yet, as strange as it sounds, the spirit of its story has been watching me, serving me, ministering and guarding me through lonely and loving Christmases past.
“In media interviews at the time, Capra did not portray it as a holiday film,” writes Stephen Cox in a 2006 LA Times column. He continues:
In fact, he said he saw it as a cinematic remedy to combat what he feared was a growing trend toward atheism and to provide hope to the human spirit. In a moment of possible revisionism decades later, Capra said that he also realized that with the holiday season comes an inherent vulnerability in all humans, and that this uplifting tale might just ride on that sentiment.
“When’s the last time you’ve seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’?” I asked my 89-year-old roommate, my grandfather.
“Oh, it’s been years since I’ve watched it,” he says, “but I remember it being a great movie.”
“Well, that’s what I’m writing about this week,” I said. “Would you like to watch it again tonight when I’m done?”
“Sure.”
“Good, I have a feeling I need to watch it again. I think I’ll like it more than ever now.”
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. – 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, as well as any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.