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The hero, of course, is George Bailey (Stewart), a man who never quite makes it out of his quiet birthplace of Bedford Falls. As a young man he dreams of shaking the dust from his shoes and traveling to far-off lands, but one thing and then another keeps him at home—especially his responsibility to the family savings and loan association, which is the only thing standing between Bedford Falls and the greed of Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), the avaricious local banker.

George marries his high school sweetheart (Donna Reed, in her first starring role), settles down to raise a family, and helps half the poor folks in town buy homes where they can raise their own. Then, when George’s absentminded uncle (Thomas Mitchell) misplaces some bank funds during the Christmas season, it looks as if the evil Potter will have his way after all. George loses hope and turns mean (even his face seems to darken, although it’s still nice and pink in the colorized version). He despairs, and is standing on a bridge contemplating suicide when an Angel 2nd Class named Clarence (Henry Travers) saves him and shows him what life in Bedford Falls would have been like without him.

Frank Capra never intended It’s a Wonderful Life to be pigeonholed as a “Christmas picture.” This was the first movie he made after returning from service in World War II, and he wanted it to be special—a celebration of the lives and dreams of America’s ordinary citizens, who tried the best they could to do the right thing by themselves and their neighbors. After becoming Hollywood’s poet of the common man in the 1930s with an extraordinary series of populist parables (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, You Can’t Take It With You), Capra found the idea for It’s a Wonderful Life in a story by Philip Van Doren Stern that had been gathering dust on studio shelves.

For Stewart, also recently back in civilian clothes, the movie was a chance to work again with Capra, for whom he had played Mr. Smith. The original trailer for the movie (included on the Criterion disk) played up the love angle between Stewart and Donna Reed and played down the message—but the movie was not a box office hit, and was all but forgotten before the public domain prints began to make their rounds.

It’s a Wonderful Life is not just a heart-warming “message picture.” The conclusion of the film makes such an impact that some of the earlier scenes may be overlooked—such as the slapstick comedy of the high school hop, where the dance floor opens over a swimming pool, and Stewart and Reed accidentally jitterbug right into the water. (This covered pool was not a set but actually existed at Hollywood High School). There’s also the drama of George rescuing his younger brother from a fall through the ice, and the scene where Donna Reed loses her bathrobe and Stewart ends up talking to the shrubbery. The telephone scene—where an angry Stewart and Reed find themselves helplessly drawn toward each other—is wonderfully romantically charged. And the darker later passages have an elemental power, as the drunken George Bailey staggers through a town he wants to hate, and then revisits it through the help of a gentle angel. Even the corniest scenes in the movie—those galaxies that wink while the heavens consult on George’s fate—work because they are so disarmingly simple. A more sophisticated approach might have seemed labored.

It’s a Wonderful Life did little for Frank Capra’s postwar career, and indeed he never regained the box office magic that he had during the 1930s. Such later films as State of the Union (1948) and Pocketful of Miracles (1961) have the Capra touch but not the magic, and the director did not make another feature after 1961. But he remained hale and hearty until a stroke slowed him in the late 1980s; and he died in 1991. At a seminar with some film students in the 1970s he was asked if there were still a way to make movies about the kinds of values and ideals found in the Capra films.

”Well, if there isn’t,” he said, “we might as well give up.”

Joyeux Noel

PG-13, 110 m., 2006

Diane Kruger (Anna Sorensen), Benno Furmann (Nikolaus Sprink), Guillaume Canet (Lieutenant Audebert), Dany Boon (Ponchel), Bernard Le Coq (General Audebert), Gary Lewis (Father Palmer), Daniel Bruhl (Horstmayer), Alex Ferns (Gordon), Steven Robertson (Jonathan), Robin Laing (William). Directed by Christian Carion and produced by Christophe Rossignon. Screenplay by Carion.

On Christmas Eve 1914, a remarkable event took place in the trenches where the Germans faced the British and the French. There was a spontaneous cease-fire, as the troops on both sides laid down their weapons and observed the birth of the savior in whose name they were killing one another. The irony of this gesture is made clear in the opening scenes of Joyeux Noel, in which schoolchildren of the three nations sing with angelic fervor, each in their own language, about the necessity of wiping the enemy from the face of the earth.

The Christmas Eve truce actually happened, although not on quite the scale Christian Carion suggests in his film. He is accurate, however, in depicting the aftermath: Officers and troops were punished for fraternizing with the enemy in wartime. A priest who celebrated mass in No Man’s Land is savagely criticized by his bishop, who believes the patriotic task of the clergy is to urge the troops into battle and reconcile them to death.

The trench warfare of World War I was a species of hell unlike the agonies of any other war, before or after. Enemies were dug in within earshot of each other, and troops were periodically ordered over the top so that most of them could be mowed down by machine-gun fire. They were being ordered to stand up, run forward, and be shot to death. And they did it. An additional novelty was the introduction of poison gas.

Artillery bombardments blew up the trenches so often that when they were dug out again, pieces of ordnance, bits of uniforms, shattered wooden supports, and human bones interlaced the new walls. A generation lost its leaders. European history might have been different if so many of the best and brightest had not been annihilated. Those who survived were the second team. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves is the best book I have read about the experience.

Carion’s film, a 2006 Oscar nominee, is a trilingual portrait of a short stretch of the front lines, a small enough microcosm of the war that we’re able to follow most of the key players. We meet some of them as they volunteer for service. There is a German tenor named Sprink (Benno Furmann), who leaves the opera to serve in uniform. Two Scottish brothers sign up, Jonathan and William (Steven Robertson and Robin Laing), who agree, “At last, something’s happening in our lives!” They are joined by their parish priest, Father Palmer (Gary Lewis), who follows them into uniform as a stretcher bearer. The French are led by Lieutenant Audebert (Guillaume Canet), whose father (Bernard Le Coq) is the general in charge of these lines. Audebert throws up before leading his men into battle, but that’s to be expected.

On Christmas Eve, the Danish singer Anna Sorensen (Diane Kruger) is brought to a support area to sing for German officers and the crown prince, but she insists on being taken to the front lines. She says she wants to sing for the ordinary troops, but her real hope is to see Sprink, her lover. Reaching the lines, she is surprised to find that thousands of little Christmas trees have been supplied by Berlin and form a decoration on top of the German trenches.

The Scots and the French are equally surprised by the trees, and by the sound of singing as Sprink and Sorenson sing “Silent Night” and “Adeste Fideles.” Slowly, tentatively, soldiers begin to poke their heads up over the ramparts, and eventually they lay down their arms and join in the cratered No Man’s Land to listen to the singing, and then to the bagpipes of the Scots, and then to celebrate mass. The next morning, Christmas Day, there is even a soccer game. Precious bits of chocolate are shared. And they bury their dead, whose bodies have been rotting between the lines.