Frank Capra’s 1946 Classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, viewed by millions this Christmas and every Christmas, has a fascinating history. Based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s 1939 short story, The Greatest Gift, the film, now an icon of Americana and considered one of the greatest of all time, was a total loser at the box office, never coming close to recouping its 6.3 Million in production costs.
The film’s primary theme is that family, friendships, and civic and social virtue are morally superior to crass wealth, and (secondarily) that one should never discount the impact of a single individual upon the lives of others. Others have divined a more profound sociopolitical message from the plot, particularly the depiction of “Pottersville” and its analogy to 20th (and 21st) century capitalism. Possibly because of its ambiguities of interpretation it did not become a “classic” until the 1970’s, a time when Americans were tearing themselves up over the moral ramifications of the War in Vietnam and the unmasking through the Watergate hearings of the criminally malevolent Nixon Administration.
However there was one American institution that saw very clearly what this film was all about. Just after the film’s initial release, the Federal Bureau of Investigation saw Capra’s message as inherently anti-American, and particularly, anti-consumer, Communist propaganda.
According to Professor John Noakes of Franklin and Marshall College, the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.
The depiction of Mr. Potter, the film’s rapaciously capitalistic villain, and the portrayal of other wealthy folks in the film, was singled out in a partially redacted memo by the FBI as wholly subversive:
“With regards 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. In addition, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show wealthy people as mean and despicable characters.”
As pointed out here, the FBI’s vilification of It’s A Wonderful Life was part of the national “witch-hunt” for Communists organized by the FBI and manifested in the 1947 hearings before the infamous House Un-American Affairs Committee (HUAC). The FBI was aided in its task by individuals deemed “friendly” to capitalism such as Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, and, significantly, Ayn Rand, the ideological darling of the Libertarian right and our current Republican House Speaker, Paul Ryan. Rand’s contribution to the hunt for Communists in Hollywood was particularly insidious:
Prior to her testimony, the FBI had consulted Rand for an enormous, 13,533-page report entitled “Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry” (find it online here), which quoted from a pamphlet published by her group:
The purpose of the Communists in Hollywood is not the production of political movies openly advocating Communism. Their purpose is to corrupt non-political movies — by introducing small, casual bits of propaganda into innocent stories and to make people absorb the basic principles of Collectivism by indirection and implication. Few people would take Communism straight, but a constant stream of hints, lines, touches and suggestions battering the public from the screen will act like drops of water that split a rock if continued long enough. The rock that they are trying to split is Americanism.
Rand and others created a “film regime” which dissected films for their purportedly “Anti-American content,” leading to the destruction of hundreds of Hollywood lives and careers in what has now become known as the “Hollywood Blacklist” of the McCarthy Era:
[Rand and other film critics} sought to root out “ideological termites” in the industry; they were especially distrustful of movies that elevated what Rand called, with contempt, “the little man.” One of the films identified as particularly pernicious to the “rock” of Americanism was Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life...[.]
From the FBI report:
“According to Informants [REDACTED] in this picture the screen credits again fail to reflect the Communist support given to the screen writer. According to [REDACTED] the writers Frances Goodrick [sic] and Albert Hackett were very close to known Communists and on one occasion in the recent past while these two writers were doing a picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Goodrick [sic] and Hackett practically lived with known Communists and were observed eating luncheon daily with such Communists ….
Interestingly, however, when the film was actually discussed during the HUAC hearings, a former Communist and screenwriter named John Charles Moffitt caused great consternation among the Committee members when he pointed out that if you bother to pay attention to the plot, the film’s hero, George Bailey is also in the banking business, which turns out to save the lives and livelihoods of the town’s residents, thus proving that great wealth can be used in a benevolent way to help society—exactly the opposite of how Ayn Rand and her ilk felt the film should be viewed.
As it turns out, “It’s A Wonderful Life” has been redeemed as a sentimental holiday classic, even as its portrayal of the excesses of big banks has proved prophetic. Michael Winship of BillMoyers.com, has the last word on the “controversy:”
[I]f anything, its portrayal of a villainous banker has been vindicated a thousand fold as in the last seven years we’ve seen fraudulent mortgages and subsequent foreclosures, bankers unrepentant after an unprecedented taxpayer bailout and unpunished after a mindboggling spree of bad calls, profligacy and corkscrew investments that raked in billions while others suffered the consequences.
It’s a wonderful life, alright, but not if you’re homeless or unemployed tonight, not if your kids are hungry and you can’t pay for heat. There are still a lot of Mr. Potters in the world. We know who you are and we’ll keep calling you out. God rest ye merry, gentlemen.