Christmas time is over but SOYMB blog guesses that many of
its readers watched once again Frank Capra’s classic Christmas movie, It’s a
Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart.
When the movie first came out, it fell under suspicion from
the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as communist
propaganda. Screenplay credits on It’s a Wonderful Life went to Frances
Goodrich and her husband Albert Hackett. A 1947 FBI memorandum went after the
writers Goodrich and Hackett:
“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 and Hackett practically lived with known Communists and were
observed eating luncheon daily with such Communists as Lester Cole, screen
writer, and Earl Robinson, screen writer. Both of these individuals are
identified in Section I of this memorandum as Communists.”
The memo goes on to cast doubt on the movie’s storyline, in
which Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey and his struggling savings and loan fight
on behalf of the good people of Bedford Falls against the avarice and power of
banker and slumlord Henry Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore:
“With regard to the picture ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’,
[REDACTED] stated in substance that the film represented a rather obvious
attempt 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, [REDACTED] stated that, in his opinion, this
picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people
who had money were mean and despicable characters. [REDACTED] related that if
he had made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this
individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank
Examiners in connection with making loans. Further, [REDACTED] stated that the
scene wouldn’t have ‘suffered at all’ in portraying the banker as a man who was
protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the
rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it
was shown. In summary, [REDACTED] stated that it was not necessary to make the
banker such a mean character and ‘I would never have done it that way.’ ”
Redemption came for It’s a Wonderful Life at the October
1947 House Un-American Activities Committee hearings from a former Communist
and screenwriter named John Charles Moffitt. When asked by HUAC Chief
Investigator Robert E. Stripling if Hollywood is in the habit of portraying
bankers as villainous characters, Moffitt takes the opportunity to try to clear
the reputation of Frank Capra’s movie ‘It’s A Wonderful Life:’ he tries to
argue that the film isn’t, in fact a Communist movie.
MR. STRIPLING. The term “heavy” has been used here as a
designation of the part in which the person is a villain. Would you say that
the banker has been often cast as a heavy, or consistently cast as a heavy, in
pictures in Hollywood?
MR. MOFFITT. Yes, sir. I think that due to Communist
pressure he is over-frequently cast as a heavy. By that I do not mean that I
think no picture should ever show a villainous banker. In fact, I would right
now like to defend one picture that I think has been unjustly accused of
communism. That picture is Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The banker in
that picture, played by Lionel Barrymore, was most certainly what we call a
“dog heavy” in the business. He was a snarling, unsympathetic character. But
the hero and his father, played by James Stewart and Samuel S. Hines, were
businessmen, in the building and loan business, and they were shown as using
money as a benevolent influence.
At this point, there was a bit of commotion in the hearing
room.
THE CHAIRMAN. Just a minute. Come away. Everybody sit down.
Will all you people who are standing up please sit down? And the photographers.
MR.MOFFITT. All right.
THE CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.
MR. MOFFITT. Well, to summarize, I think Mr. Capra’s
picture, though it had a banker as villain, could not be properly called a
Communist picture. It showed that the power of money can be used oppressively
and it can be used benevolently. I think that picture was unjustly accused of
Communism. “
But if anything, the movie’s 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. Then, of course there is Mr Smith Goes
to Washington, Capra’s and Stewart's other film, about systemic political
corruption.
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