Review: It’s a Wonderful Life
Set in the fictional small-town of Bedford Falls, Jimmy Stewart is good-hearted and well-liked George Bailey. While his younger brother Harry (Todd Karns) goes off to college, George’s family can’t afford to send him, so George (who saved Harry from drowning when they were younger) stays in Bedford Falls to work at the Building and Loan company run by their father (Samuel S. Hinds). Harry promises to come back and take over for George after a while, so George can go off to college and eventually see the wide world. Unfortunately, things don’t work out that way, and poor nice guy George is left to look after the business, which is being run roughshod over by scheming, black-hearted capitalist Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), who owns everything in town except The Bailey’s Building and Loan business. Thomas Mitchell plays absent-minded Uncle Billy, whose addled brain unintentionally causes calamity for the business. Donna Reed plays Mary, the good girl who has been waiting forever for Geor