Merry Christmas.
>> The holiday season is upon us, which means it's that magical time of year when
you can It's A Wonderful Life on every single channel.
>> Brother Ernie, you do your hair on my wedding night.
>> No, no.
No, cut, >> This film is arguably the high point of
Jimmy Stewart's illustrious career.
Earning him a best actor nomination and
still sitting atop Esquire's prestigious top 40 Christmas movies of all time.
>> Merry Christmas, reporters.
Where's Mary?
>> Comparatively, the book that inspired the classic film has far less notoriety.
If you try to find it on the Internet,
you might waste a lot of time on a fruitless search wishing someone had told
you ahead of time that the book is called The Greatest Gift.
>> The wee little book that inspired the movie was written by
Philip Van Doren Stern.
The thing is less than 40 pages with a nice, big font and a handful of drawings.
>> Looking at this tiny book you'll wonder how Frank Capra and
his writing team turned it into a 130-minute film.
Fortunately, we're about to tell you.
I'm Flin Gaves, >> And I'm Casey Redman.
And it's time to ask.
>> What is it you want, Mary?
>> No, no, just what's the difference?
Both the film and the book start on Christmas eve.
In the book George is looking over the edge of a bridge.
Well, in the movie we hear people in the town of Bedford Falls praying for
God to help George.
>> There are a lot of people asking for help for a man named George Bailey.
>> At that point things diverge massively.
The book's entire plot serves as just the last third of the film.
The rest of the movie story was invented for the screen.
Starting with the conversation between God, Joseph and an angel named Clarence.
Here we get some back story in a narrative vehicle that can jump
through time as we learn about our protagonist and
the history that brought George to the point of suicide.
>> You sent for me.
sir? >> Yes, Clarence.
>> While the movie introduces Clarence in the cosmos,
Doren Stern thrusts them into earthly matters immediately.
Also the author didn't bother to name the angel swooping in to help George
just calling him stranger.
We're going to keep calling them Clarence in both mediums because, it's easier.
Is everything, everybody cool?
>> So book and movie Clarence's purpose is to show George what his town would be like
if he'd never been born.
When George makes and is granted this wish, it delivers us into a Dickensian
world where George gets a terrifying what if glimpse of life without himself.
The book starts with this moment, everyone we meet is meeting George as a stranger
with their back story only coming through George's thought.
The movie keeps George's wish moment for the end,
which makes the audience care more about the world George's exiled from.
We get scenes from childhood, George saves his brother, Harry from drowning.
George keeps the grieving pharmacist, Mr. Gauer from accidentally poisoning a child.
George helps his hard working father stand up to greedy Mr. Potter.
Then we jump ahead to see Jimmy Stewart playing a Man of About 20, and
not necessarily looking or sounding the part.
(Music)
>> Anyway, these events from George's youth paint him as a wonderful man.
A person you have to care about because he cares so deeply about others.
It makes us eager to find out what went wrong.
But again, the movie adds a ton of new material to flush out the wee 40-page
booklet into a less wee feature film run time.
So a lot of little differences really starts to add up.
Things like how George doesn't leave Bedford Falls in the movie because his
father has a stroke and dies, leaving George to take over the family business.
But in the book, George's father is alive and well, look at him still kicking.
Although George spends the whole movie fighting with old Mr. Potter who tries to
push everyone out of business and very nearly causes George to kill himself.
In the book, there's no Mr. Potter.
>> Or how in the movie George can't hear out of one ear from when he saved his
brother from drowning in icy waters.
But in the book, they were swimming in August and he hears just fine.
>> There are lots and lots of these examples.
So, let's jump ahead to what happens after Clarence, the guardian angel arrives.
Movie Clarence dives into the freezing river, forcing George to jump in and
save him.
The angel then boldly refers to himself as an angel saying he's come from heaven and
making both George and the tower guard think he's nuts.
>> Angel, second class.
(Sound) >> Book Clarence isn't as on the nose,
just making it clear that he wants to help George.
He grants George's wish of never being born and
then gives him a satchel full of brushes so
George can pretend to be a traveling brush salesman when he meets people around town.
Keep a low profile.
>> Clarence lingers in the movie, walking along as George looks for his car.
The book makes no mention of George being absolutely
hammered when he first meets Clarence.
While in the movie he's already been in a bar fight, stumbled out into the snow, and
then crashed his car into a neighbor's tree.
It's all because Uncle Billy lost eight grand and George thinks he's going to jail
over it, an important motivation in the movie that's not in the book.
But more on that in a minute.
>> The tree that gets hit in the movie still has literary relevance,
as in the book George walks past it and
remembers when his car had scratched some of the bark off and left a scar.
That scar is now gone,
and it's the first indicator that something funny is going on.
As book George sees more evidence that something's amiss,
he realizes he needs to play Clarence's game and
pretend to be a stranger in order to figure out who's who and what's what.
>> Movie George is drunk and
angry, yelling at everyone about how they know him, and he knows them.
Of course,
he can get away with this in the film because we know what he's been through.
We know these people and we're also upset when they treat George like a lunatic.
But the two biggest differences between the literary and cinematic worlds of
Bedford Falls after George Bailey stopped existing or the town itself, and Mary.
>> Well, there's ought to be Martini's place.
>> The town is essentially the same in the book,
just that the people closest to George have changed.
In the movie the place is now called Pottersville.
And it's full of bars and dancing clubs.
I guess this is bad but it honestly looks kind of fun.
>> As for Mary, she's with a different man in the book.
Art Jenkins.
George's visit with her is cut short when Art comes home, and
that is what sends George looking for Clarence to make everything right again.
>> For Frank Crapa and the movie versio,n it had to be darker.
Instead of being married to a drunk abuser, she is unmarried and
works at the library.
Mary, not the books.
Movie Mary, beautiful as she was,
never found a man without George Bailey in the world.
And had to wear glasses.
When George tracks her down, not only does she look like a nerd,
she also does recognized him and thinks he's potentially a deranged killer.
Just like in the book, interacting with Mary sends George over the edge, and
he heads back to the bridge to pray for things to return to normal.
>> Give me back, I don't care what happens to me.
Get me back to my wife and kids.
>> At this point, the book leans pretty heavily into the gravity of suicide.
George was about to give away the greatest gift of all, the gift of life.
The movie mentions suicide being a terrible and illegal thing.
But the emphasis is on how Rich George's life was,
how many people he touched and lives he made better.
>> Ones life goes back to normal, book George cruises through town happily
revisiting all the places he went when he was a stranger.
The movie features a similar run but
with all the people we met over the last two hours of watching.
He even yells Merry Christmas to the evil Mr. Potter.
>> Happy New Year to you in jail.
>> Evil Mr. Potter might be the biggest plot point in the move that leads to
deviations from the book.
George is just generally sad in Doren Stern's story, upset about being stuck in
a dead end job, and never really having done anything with his life.
>> George deals with the malaise in the movie,
but the reason he's thinking about jumping off a bridge is that Uncle Billy
accidentally put an envelope with eight Gs in Potter's newspaper.
And Potter kept it because he knew it would ruin George's lending company.
He even called for George's arrest because Potter sucks.
So while movie George is stoked to be alive and running through
town like a maniac, there's still the issue of the missing money.
>> I'm sorry, but I've got a little paper here.
>> I bet it's a warrant for my arrest.
Isn't it wonderful?
I'm going to jail.
>> Conversely, everything is completely hunky dory in the book as he speeds home.
He's got no loose ends to tie up so he just gets to smooch his wife and be happy,
which is exactly what he does.
Then before he can launch into the story of his crazy night, he notices the brush
he gave her, back when he was a brush salesman who never existed.
What?
>> Doren Stern wanted us to think that angels might be real but
their brushes are 100% real, of that I am sure.
>> When movie George gets home happy as he is,
we still don't know how he'll get out of the jam.
That's when we get the famous heartwarming scene with
all the people from Bedford Falls whose lives George Bailey has touched coming in
to pour money on the dining room table.
All the fabricated backstory pays off in the biggest way with
everyone playing a part in Georges salvation.
Finally, instead of finding a brush left behind in the book, George finds
a copy of Tom Sawyer left behind and dedicated to George by Clarence.
Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends.
Thanks for the wings, love Clarence.
Bell rings, angel wings, happy tears.
>> Clarence's line really hits its mark and
defines the beauty of the film that doesn't exist in the book.
George never realized his plans from early adulthood.
Staying broke in Bedford because he couldn't stop helping people.
Then in the hour of his greatest need,
thanks to all the people who once needed him.
He sees what a wonderful life he's got.
>> And that's it.
Thanks for watching.
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And remember, every time you like a Cinefix video,
an angel gets its wings, see?
I don't have your wings here, Clarence.
Your wings are in that Cinefix video, and that movie list, and
that old episode of things you didn't know.
>> Merry Christmas, everyone.