Although the holiday season is behind us, I believe there are some remarks long overdue concerning the suppression of It’s a Wonderful Life, arguably America’s most beloved Christmas film of all time.
I first became aware of the movie nearly half a century ago when I was around 20. A local station happened to air it, in no connection with Christmas. It’s a Wonderful Life was, at that time, just another piece of forgotten cinema, not regarded as “a holiday classic.”
Yet even though I was a jaded agnostic youth, I found myself weeping uncontrollably as the life of Jimmy Stewart’s character fell apart. And I was a person who almost never cried at the movies. But there was something so endearing about George Bailey, it transcended the emotional barriers of all but the most hardened cynic.
When the movie was over, I knew I had experienced something special, several cuts above “standard Hollywood fare.” For me, the breaking point was when George began kicking and smashing things in full view of his children. It was a display of vulnerability that just wasn’t seen in Hollywood, where heroes were perennial tough guys with none of the everyday human “chinks in the armor” that the rest of us have.
Late in his life, Hollywood paid tribute to Stewart at a special dinner. I’ve been unable to find a video of that televised event, so please pardon me for going on memory here. Dustin Hoffman actually broke down and wept as he recalled Stewart’s performance in It’s a Wonderful life. But the remarks by actor Telly Savalas etched themselves most in my memory.
Savalas had largely grown up as a streetwise New Yorker (a background that would later serve him well when he took on his most famous role, that of Lieutenant Theo Kojak). According to Savalas, he and his buddies entered the theater showing It’s a Wonderful Life in their accustomed manner—sneaking in the side exit without paying. However, the film’s impact was so great, that when it finished they all sheepishly went to the ticket window and paid for their admission. It’s a Wonderful Life had a way of bringing out personal integrity, and personal integrity is something you just don’t mess with.
By the 1980s it seemed like everyone had discovered the film. During the Christmas season, it would air hundreds of times on local television stations. I took my father and sister to see it on the big screen at the famed Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Mass.
Then, disaster struck. After legal battles over controversial copyright issues, NBC acquired control of the film in 1994. Since then, NBC has twisted the screws tight. Not only is no one else permitted to televise the film, but NBC usually only screens it once a year—on Christmas Eve, riddled with so many commercials that people are discouraged from watching. As the film reaches its climax, ads are inserted with increasing frequency, disrupting the movie’s emotional flow. It got so bad that one year my son turned off NBC and inserted an old VHS tape we had of the movie.
Some will say that permitting only one annual screening makes the film “more special.” That’s kind of like saying you should only hug your children once a year because it makes hugs more special.
The unique restrictions on the film do not make sense from a business or marketing perspective. If you have a product that is in high demand— whether it is sneakers, a smartphone, or an energy drink—you produce more of them, to meet the demand and increase your profits. Because It’s a Wonderful Life is in high demand, NBC could easily increase its advertising revenues by showing it more often, or lease screening rights to other broadcasters. The movie is, in fact, ranked as the number one most inspiring film of all time by the American Film Institute.
I realize that we live in a multimedia world, and that people still have the option to buy a DVD or download. One could argue that is NBC’s marketing strategy. But to market a product, you need to make it visible.
This past Christmas Eve (2018), I was curious to know what was going on with It’s a Wonderful Life. I found it was not airing as usual on NBC. Instead, it had been back-doored onto a secondary channel, NBC10, which most people probably didn’t even know.
In short, It’s a Wonderful Life is being progressively flushed down an Orwellian memory hole until future generations will hardly even know of the film’s existence. Since no business model can logically explain NBC’s antipathy toward its own intellectual property, we must look elsewhere for an explanation. Anyone familiar with the realities of today’s Hollywood knows that ideological agendas, not box-office profits, are the true bottom line.......
Poster Comment:
Taking guesses on why this goes in the Israel/Zionism category. Look how far back cancel culture really goes -- and this isn't even the halfway point!
#1: Lod To: NeoconsNailed, 4um (#0)
Thanks for the post.
Lod posted on 2021-11-12 22:18:06 Reply Private Reply
#2: Pinguinite To: NeoconsNailed (#0)
As for commercials, they destroy any movie experience. It was normal back in the 70's when the only movie option was to go to a theater or check the weekly TV guide for when a decent movie would be aired, with commercials. Nowadays they can be watched commercial free by various means which is the only way I'll tolerate watching any movie that is worth my time.
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-12 23:53:13 Reply Private Reply
#3: NeoconsNailed To: Lod (#1)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 02:56:36 Reply Private Reply
#4: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#2)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 03:00:05 Reply Private Reply
#5: Pinguinite To: NeoconsNailed (#4)
That it was. But one other thing about TV movies is they had do have the entire show, with commercials, be exactly some increment of 30 minutes so the show begins at the top of the hour and ends either at the top of the hour or the half hour. And that meant extra commercials or some editing of the original movie simply due to time constraints.
You absolutely should. Seeing it for this Christmas would be, perhaps, fitting. There is an extended version with extra clips I've seen, but I don't think that adds anything, and makes the movie drag a bit. I don't even recall what the additions were. Just the original version, and watch it commercial free. And don't watch it on YT unless the video quality is top notch or that will be a distraction. Do a torrent download if need be.
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-13 03:07:40 Reply Private Reply
#6: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#5)
Can't find a hint of those flickettes online. Don't tell anybody but I actually like today's clever hi-tech commercials -- those that aren't insultingly peecee, of course.
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 03:20:02 Reply Private Reply
#7: Pinguinite To: NeoconsNailed (#6)
Some content can be illegal to share so be sure not to download anything illegal. (In the USA, IP downloading and sharing such content can be tracked, traced through your net provider and potentially result in litigation).
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-13 08:35:25 Reply Private Reply
#8: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#7)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 09:02:16 Reply Private Reply
#9: Pinguinite To: NeoconsNailed (#8)
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-13 10:16:11 Reply Private Reply
#10: BTP Holdings To: Pinguinite (#7)
How do we determine what content might be illegal?
I do not download any movies or anything similar. What about other posters? ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2021-11-13 10:31:19 Reply Private Reply
#11: BTP Holdings To: Pinguinite (#9)
I can see how hosting only torrent data and not actual copyrighted movies might be difficult to prove copyright infringement. ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2021-11-13 10:36:53 Reply Private Reply
#12: BTP Holdings To: Pinguinite (#2)
Jimmy Stewart was a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WW II and flew 20 combat missions against Germany. ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2021-11-13 11:41:53 Reply Private Reply
#13: Pinguinite To: BTP Holdings (#10)
As I am not a licensed attorney, I cannot suggest you carry out any particular action to stay within the law. Please talk to a qualified attorney directly for such advice, assuming one can be found.
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-13 12:52:05 Reply Private Reply
#14: BTP Holdings To: Pinguinite (#13)
The roots of the word attorney. ;)
www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word- for/attorn.html
www.wordhippo.com/what-is...ord- for/tear_asunder.html
BTP Holdings posted on 2021-11-13 13:14:15 Reply Private Reply
#15: randge To: NeoconsNailed (#4)
A lot of good lessons were built up around it, but after several sessions, they had to give up showing it. It was found that, although the premise and context of the film is transparent to most of us, young people from other places find it entirely alien. A whole ton of history and circumstance had to be explained to them. They just didn't get it.
And looking around at the youngsters growing up around us here, I believe with each passing year fewer and fewer of them will get it either.
I'm sure that goes for Mr. Smith as well.
randge posted on 2021-11-13 14:05:13 Reply Private Reply
#16: Esso To: randge, 4um (#15)
Love and the law in a terrific tangle! It's Frank Morgan's heart-warming best! In a small corrupt town, an honest crusading lawyer running for mayor gets unexpected help from a tourist who happens to be a Supreme Court judge.
Esso posted on 2021-11-13 14:10:20 Reply Private Reply
#17: Lod To: Esso (#16)
Thanks for putting it up here again, great stuff.
Lod posted on 2021-11-13 14:18:12 Reply Private Reply
#18: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#9)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:03:14 Reply Private Reply
#19: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#18)
Guilty! You are guilty, NN! All goyem are guilty!
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:06:28 Reply Private Reply
#20: NeoconsNailed To: randge (#15)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:09:08 Reply Private Reply
#21: Dakmar To: randge (#15)
"The Best Years of Our Lives" was really a much better film, at least when considering movies for grown-ups :) IAWL is like a fairy tale.
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:15:24 Reply Private Reply
#22: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#19)
en.wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Trial_of_Billy_Jack
"Billy managed to use his Karate on Posner, who gets killed by the kick to the throat" -- such shocking anti-semitism back then :]
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:19:57 Reply Private Reply
#23: NeoconsNailed To: BTP Holdings (#12)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:22:31 Reply Private Reply
#24: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#22)
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:25:27 Reply Private Reply
#25: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#23)
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:30:21 Reply Private Reply
#26: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#24)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:32:04 Reply Private Reply
#27: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#26)
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:39:27 Reply Private Reply
#28: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#25)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:39:52 Reply Private Reply
#29: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#27)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:41:26 Reply Private Reply
#30: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#28)
Don't let anyone control you, they are all evil.
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:41:31 Reply Private Reply
#31: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#29)
Is Obama? lol. Is Trump? Democrats seemed to think Virginia Governor race was against Trump. We should really fuck with them and run Richard Nixon for NYC Mayor in 2022. You aren't gonna kick Dick Nixon around anymore! My god, their stupid heads would really explode!
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:47:49 Reply Private Reply
#32: randge To: NeoconsNailed (#20)
Good question.
From all over. Probably the Far East, Middle East & Latin America.
But even kids from Euro countries find these kinds of situations and relationships remote, as I see it even in young people in the US.
The focus of Western Civ has moved on since the days when we were young crackers.
randge posted on 2021-11-13 17:49:07 Reply Private Reply
#33: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#30)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:49:35 Reply Private Reply
#34: NeoconsNailed To: randge (#32)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-13 17:50:22 Reply Private Reply
#35: Dakmar To: NeoconsNailed (#33)
"They walked in line" was just a song recorded by Joy Division in 1978 or so, the video was from a much later Polish film that someone synched up. I love how prescient a "fuck you" to authoritarians the whole thing came together.
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 17:59:03 Reply Private Reply
#36: randge To: NeoconsNailed (#34)
randge posted on 2021-11-13 19:58:53 Reply Private Reply
#37: Pinguinite To: NeoconsNailed (#18)
TPB hosts torrents of all kinds. Not just movies but music, software, Games and whatever else. YT is useful in some cases in regards to movies, but often the quality of those movies on YT is lacking, like with low resolution video. If it's a foreign movie, then you can usually find torrents with appropriate subtitles, though subtitles can also be found separately on the net and loaded into a movie player.
Napster was an actual web site that people could upload & download content with. it was not a torrent site as torrents weren't invented yet. And because it was centralized AND actually stored and shared copyrighted material, it was shut down.
I'm not in favor of stealing copyrighted material, I should point out. People who produce great entertainment should be rewarded for it. But there is some grey area due to circumstances and types of content, at least as I see it. Where I am, people would set up shops to sell movies of what ever type. They would burn you a DVD on the spot.
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-13 23:02:25 Reply Private Reply
#38: Dakmar To: Pinguinite (#37)
What is hilarious to me is that people used to go to great lengths to pirate this stuff, sneaking 640 color capable recorders or tiny VCRs into movie theaters to get at best an image that pixilated like crazy when attempting to display more than 6"x4". Crazier still is that some people (New Yorkers, best I can tell, there was a Seinfeld episode about this), made it worth their while to attempt this, because they felt they had to see every new release.
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 23:27:06 Reply Private Reply
#39: Dakmar To: All (#38)
Dakmar posted on 2021-11-13 23:30:41 Reply Private Reply
#40: Pinguinite To: Dakmar (#38)
Torrents rarely have such poor quality though as one wants to bother sharing junk. Usually it's original DVD quality stuff there.
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-14 01:43:49 Reply Private Reply
#41: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#37)
I think you're selling YT short -- to each their own gray area, I guess.
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-14 20:19:20 Reply Private Reply
#42: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#38)
LOL -- people are larcenous anymore. Interesting about the tech. I'm dying to know what it's called when ppl distort A/V content in YT by enlarging it crazily, running it thru an dot matrix type thing etc as if to thwart copyright only halfway. The dot thing is sometimes used attractively eg the moving background here
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSuQ-AyiicA
Tucker's show used to start with gorgeous flowing red, white and blue graphics done that way -- maybe still does -- but it is hell on old YT stuff :-s
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-14 20:29:10 Reply Private Reply
#43: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#40)
ROFL!! Somebody check the nasal magnitude on those criminals pls.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qaqvVKkRSw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB2w51F0t74&t=3906s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptZDe07CE_M
I defy anybody to find this COMIC MASTERPIECE anywhere but YT:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdYmoUdcMQ0&t=1499s
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-14 20:52:38 Reply Private Reply
#44: NeoconsNailed To: Dakmar (#35)
variety.com/2020/music/ne...pton-covid-19- 1234843728/
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-14 21:03:07 Reply Private Reply
#45: Pinguinite To: NeoconsNailed (#43)
People who make and release crappy copies of movies do more damage to the movie reputation than those who pirate high quality digital copies of it. Oh, and another problem with those movie camera copies is they sometimes don't cover the full screen. The left & right edges of the big screen are cropped off. Then someone can bump the video camera during the movie. It's absolutely a crime.
Any movie worth watching should be enjoyed as it was made. High quality in both audio and video and completely commercial free. That my 2c.
Pinguinite posted on 2021-11-15 13:32:22 Reply Private Reply
#46: NeoconsNailed To: Pinguinite (#45)
NeoconsNailed posted on 2021-11-15 15:30:07 Reply Private Reply