Not only did that old geezer rob everyone blind his whole life, he also got away with that $8000 in the end. Friggin stinker needs to be punished!
shareIt's a Wonderful Life: The Lost Ending - recovered and aired on NBC in 1986:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw89o0afb2A
Heeyyyy now we're talkin 😂😂😂
shareOften times I tell people how some of the best villains in movies, tv or books are in the human form.....I'm with you...would have loved to see Potter get some sort of punishment - and his henchman, too...
shareI've always taken that ending to indicate that evil is never defeated once & for all, but has to be fought over & over again. George will be called upon to face Potter again, or else others like him, because that sort of self-centered greed for money & power arises in far too many people. Really, it's not unlike Superman's famous tagline about "the never-ending battle" ...
Though I agree that I'd love to have seen Potter get his!
The bad guys usually win in real life; especially the rich ones.
shareYes, for IAWL being seen as a sentimental fantasy by many, it's actually quite honest about the rich & powerful continuing on their self-serving ways, and needing to be fought again & again.
shareIt's pretty honest about George's dreams vs. his reality, too.
The message of the film, to me, is about George's values. If we choose to have good values in life (family, friends, love, community), we'll get this sunshiny, wonderful life. Even when times are bad, we're in a fairy tale, because we picked good things over bad things. Viktor Frankl kinda talks about this, too. As does Epictetus, if I remember my Greek philosophy correctly...
In fact, George Bailey doesn't get a fairy tale life because he doesn't have a Fairy Godmother wave a wand: he has to slowly, ploddingly cultivate his own fairy tale.
An excellent observation! And I'm delighted to see both Viktor Frankl & Epictetus evoked in your post.
IAWL is a masterful midlife story, showing what happens when a man has done what he feels to be right all his life, sacrificing for the greater good, and has reached the point of looking back & asking, "What did it all mean? What now?" And the memories of forsaken dreams come flooding back in a sudden moment of despair, as his world is suddenly empty & meaningless, even to his own loving family. What does any of it mean at that moment? Indeed, one could even see the benign Clarence & the hellish vision of Pottersville as what flashes through his mind as he's about to drown, coming in an instant of clarity & crucial choice for him.
Yeah, IAWL is kind of a metaphor for a midlife crisis. Of course, George makes the right choice: with Clarence's help, he realizes that he made the right choices for the greater good, but *also* that his choices led him to a pretty wonderful life.
shareSeriously, Potter getting away with it all is the most realistic thing in the whole movie.
shareI actually liked that, because it hits the message of the movie home harder. Potter's money doesn't matter, because he's still lacking the love and fulfillment of a life like George Bailey's. That wonderful moment at the end of the film will never happen for a "Mr. Potter", and that's what really matters anyway. What's his money amount to? Some shiny rocks? Paper in a bank vault?
At the end of the day, his punishment is his greed, and that's a powerful message; it's one we need more of, I think.
I've heard that Potter is based off Ebenezer Scrooge from a Christmas Carol. And that he is Scrooge if he was never visited by the spirits of Christmas. Also I think people raising enough money to pay off the examiner so that George doesn't go to jail is going to make Potter angry. He doesn't get what he wants. We'd like Potter to go to jail for stealing George's money but the important thing is he didn't get what he wanted.
shareI think it’s fitting, not so much as a “the bad guys win in real life” thing but in a more actively optimistic view of just being happy for what you have, because no matter how many evils there are in the world, we have our friends and family always, and a wonderful life can spring from that.
And also, really, did Potter NEED that money in and of itself? He keep it SOLEY to see Bailey’s crumble, and he actually failed in that. It may not be active “comeuppance” for keeping money that wasn’t his, but I’m sure he was crushed when he heard of what happened.