It's A Wonderful Life

The story begins on Christmas Eve, 1946, and George Bailey is in a dark place. The prayers of his family and friends alert Heaven to George’s state of mind, and Clarence Odbody, an Angel Second Class, is sent to Earth to save George — and thereby perhaps, after 200 years of trying, to earn his wings. To prepare for his mission, Clarence is brought before Joseph, the head angel, to see a review of George's life to date, highlighting all the good he has done for others: As a boy, George saved the life of his younger brother Harry in an ice sledding accident, a heroic act that cost him the hearing in his left ear. Weeks later, George prevented his boss, local druggist Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner), from poisoning a child accidentally while grief-stricken from his son's death.

From childhood, George's most compelling ambition is to see the whole world; he plans to become an architect and design magnificent bridges and skyscrapers everywhere. However, as George matures, he continues to extend help to whoever needs it at the sacrifice of his dreams: He puts off going to college until Harry graduates from high school to take over the family business, the Bailey Building & Loan Association, essential to many of the disadvantaged in Bedford Falls. On Harry's graduation night, as George fantasizes about his future to childhood sweetheart Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) in front of a dilapidated old mansion, the brothers' father suddenly dies. An avaricious and opportunistic board member of the Building & Loan (and owner of most of the town), Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) seizes this opportunity to gain control of the Board of Directors and end the "nonsense" of home loans for the working poor. George makes a reluctant but impassioned plea to keep the company independent, moving the board members to agree, but only if George remains to run the business.

Harry goes on to college, but George's hopes of being able to leave Bedford Falls on Harry's return are dashed once again: Harry unexpectedly brings home a new wife whose father has offered Harry a promising job in his company. His mother persuades a depressed George to call on Mary, also back from college; while he's there, Mary is telephoned by their mutual school friend Sam Wainwright, who has gone on to wealth and success in the plastics industry and is doing much of the traveling George always dreamt of. George and Mary are forced to share a telephone handset during the call, and in an emotional catharsis of his frustrations, George finally expresses his love for her. On their wedding day, as the Great Depression looms, George and Mary see a run on the bank that leaves the Building & Loan in serious danger of going under. Potter, sensing another opportunity, offers all its customers "50 cents on the dollar"; George argues vehemently for his customers to remain with the institution, and Mary offers money from their honeymoon fund to lend the townspeople enough to sustain them. The plan is barely a success; at closing, the Building & Loan holds exactly $2.00. Later Mary (with the aid of cabbie Ernie and Bert the cop) sets up an elaborate mock tropical honeymoon in the old mansion, which is gradually renovated into the couple's new home. With the family of the local bar owner Martini among its first tenants, George starts up Bailey Park, an affordable housing project that according to Potter's own financial advisor is an unabashed success: Its homeowners are rescued from paying high rent for squalor in Potter's Field, and its homes "are worth twice what [they] cost … to build." Potter tempts George with a glamorous job at eight times his current salary; at first intrigued, upon realizing Potter is trying to buy him, George vehemently refuses the offer. His ambivalence is accentuated by a visiting Wainwright's increasing success and upon entering his humble home — where Mary surprises him with news of her pregnancy.

Over the next several years, George and Mary have three more kids. When World War II erupts, George is unable to enlist due to his bad ear; he stays at home to assist in the war effort while his brother Harry becomes a Navy pilot, awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down 15 enemy aircraft, including two kamikaze planes that were about to crash into a Navy troop transport.[4][5] On Christmas Eve, entering the bank lobby to make an $8,000.00 deposit for the Building & Loan, Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) encounters Mr. Potter and, bursting with pride, shows him the newspaper article about his nephew Harry, about to be honored by the President. Absent-mindedly, he leaves the deposit money in the newspaper that he drops in Potter's lap; Potter discovers the money moments later and abruptly leaves. This is also the day the bank examiner has come to inspect the Building & Loan's records; he arrives to find the money missing and George and Billy ransacking the place looking for it. Returning home in anguish, George perceives his entire life as a massive failure: His wife and children, exuberantly preparing for the evening's festivities, send him into a rage, and he unfairly chastises Zuzu's teacher over the phone for getting Zuzu sick. He then tends to Zuzu and, in an emotional shift, tenderly places her flower's petals into his pocket; emotionally overcome, he leaves the house as Mary phones Uncle Billy. In desperation, George appeals to Mr. Potter, telling him he (not Billy) lost the money; Potter implicates George's "generosity" — specifically his charity to troubled childhood friend Violet. When George asks for a loan, offering his $15,000 life insurance policy, Potter laughs mockingly: "You're worth more dead than alive!" Aghast, George stumbles over to Martini's bar where he prays for guidance, admitting he is not a praying man; instead, the schoolteacher's husband, upon discovering George in the bar, punches him in the face, cutting George's lip. George staggers out of the bar and, in a snow storm, crashes his car into a tree; he runs to the nearby bridge over the river, intending to commit suicide.

Before George can jump into the river, however, Clarence the angel jumps in first. After a shocked George saves him, Clarence reveals himself to be George's guardian angel and that he saved George from committing suicide. Clarence pleads with a reluctant George to let him help, so he can finally earn his wings. George concedes that killing himself wasn't going to better things and instead wishes he had never been born. At that instant it stops snowing outside, and Clarence allows George to see life as it would have been if George Bailey was never born: Bedford Falls is called Pottersville and is mostly a slum; Main Street is dominated by pawn shops and sleazy bars; Bailey Park was never built and is part of a desolate cemetery; George's home remains a run-down, abandoned mansion. George sees the people he knows and loves, but in this alternative world, none of them recognize him and their lives are hard and grim: His mother, a widow running her house as a room and board, and Mary, a spinster librarian, are both lonely, embittered women. Uncle Billy has been in an insane asylum for years; Harry has been dead since he fell through the ice in childhood, because George wasn't there to save him. (Consequently the men on the transport ship were all killed.) Violet is a dancer whom George sees arrested for pickpocketing, Mr. Gower was convicted of poisoning the child that George had saved and is now a panhandler, and Martini no longer owns the bar. Ernie and Bert, although still friends, are much darker characters, and are suspicious of George, thinking he is insane when he claims to know them.

After finally realizing Mary and the others do not remember him at all, George returns to the bridge and calls upon Clarence, and then to God, to let him live again. It begins to snow again; Bert spots George and tells him the whole town is looking for him. Ready to fight, George realizes Bert now recognizes him, then notices his mouth bleeding and Zuzu's petals in his pocket: George has returned to present-day Bedford Falls on Christmas Eve, at the instant he witnessed Clarence. Screaming his ecstasy to buildings and people alike (even Potter), George runs home and bursts through the door, welcoming the bank examiner, a sheriff, a reporter and a photographer ("I'm going to jail!"). Calling out to his family, he basks in their sorely-missed recognition. Mary urges him to prepare for what is coming: Caroling "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," his friends and family have rallied to collect huge amounts of money to save George and the Building & Loan from scandal and ruin. As a final coup, Mr. Gower has telegraphed Sam Wainwright in London, who has offered to wire an immediate advance up to $25,000. In the midst of the festivities, Harry arrives, having quit the banquet in his honor, and toasts, "To my big brother George: the richest man in town"; with that, everyone spontaneously cheers and breaks into "Auld Lang Syne." Seeing how many lives he has touched, and the difference he has made to the town, George Bailey realizes that despite his problems he really has a wonderful life. The film ends with George finding Clarence's Tom Sawyer book, with an inscription: "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings!" George and Mary then hear a bell ring on their Christmas tree; Zuzu exclaims, "Look, daddy! Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an Angel gets his wings." George quietly agrees, "Attaboy, Clarence," as "Auld Lang Syne" rings out.