No discussion of American Christmas film classics would be complete without serious consideration of my personal favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life. I watched it for roughly the 28th time last night. Each year it's a new mystery as to which scenes will call forth my annual tears. I'll never forget watching it with Maria, just a month after we were married. George's overwhelming affection for Mary after his resurrection elicited a full deluge from me.
But the highlight of last night's viewing wasn't my emotional response. Rather, I noticed the contingency of the entire plot on hats. This dependency on toppers is more than the fleeting fancy of a headgear aficionado. Consider George's friend, Ernie, whose character would be lost had Capra worked with the bare fashions of today. We first meet him "sitting around on his brains" in his taxi, chilling with Bert the cop. When his friend-turned-rich-tourist becomes a patron, Ernie puts on his hat, "for the carriage trade." In a simple gesture, Ernie goes from friend to servant. Ernie's dependence on his chapeau doesn't end with our introduction to him. In George and Mary's honeymoon suite, we see a stovepipe transform Ernie to the doorman of the Waldorf Hotel. Ernie tilts his lid, and George empties his into Ernie's hand. What do today's fashions have to offer in comparison?
But I'm arguing for the contingency of the entire plot. Certainly the role of a dicer in a supporting actor's garb fails to constitute "entirety" in any sense of the word. Thus, let us turn now to two features of the skimmers of the movie's leading man. First, remember the scene below? Remember what brought George back to the Hatch residence after Mary kicked him out? You guessed it: his sky piece. This raises a number of questions. Would George and Mary have married apart from that forgetten item? What of the children? Who would have scoured around town collecting money for the business? There's no question. Many a family in Bedford Falls had a roof over their heads because George wore a fedora over his.
Secondly, George wears a dicer in nearly every outdoor scene leading up to his jump off the bridge. After that crucial moment, he traipses around Pottersvile, and later Bedford Falls, bearing full brow, as it were. This subtle wardrobe alteration illuminates the tension of the plot. At first glance, George's naked attic aids in his appearance as one on the brink of insanity. This is a result of his unkempt hairdo, and the simple fact that no one in their right mind would go about Bedford Falls in December without some kind of a rim. But the absence of a bean pod also communicates something deeper. George has served the "common, ordinary rabble" his whole life. Like them, he's adorned his head with the symbol of the everyday working man. Now, having flipped his lid before his family, George is faced with a fatal choice: he may either blow his top and head toward destruction, or remove his helmet and bow his head in submission to the One who called on all to love their fellow man.
That such an essay as this can be written is just one more reason that "It's a Wonderful Life" should always set the standard of a classic holiday movie. So, whether you've seen it once or a hundred times, be sure to tip your hat to It's a Wonderful Life this Christmas season.
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