The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
A Deep Dive into "It's a Wonderful Life": Why This Movie Matters
Dive into the heartwarming world of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" as we explore its timeless themes of hope, community, and the impact of each individual's life. In this captivating episode, we revisit the classic film starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, delving deep into its memorable moments and the powerful message it carries. You'll discover behind-the-scenes trivia that reveals the magic of its production, including stories about iconic scenes and character dynamics.
This exploration goes beyond mere nostalgia, asking critical questions about the meaning of wealth versus happiness and the profound influence we have on one another. Throughout our engaging discussion, we bring a fresh perspective, reflecting on how this film's themes remain relevant today, even addressing the social issues depicted within it.
As we share anecdotes and ratings for the film, we challenge our listeners to think about their own lives and the connections they foster within their communities. Join us on this joyous journey as we celebrate a holiday classic that's more than just a movie—it's an inspiration that continues to resonate with audiences of all ages. Don't forget to subscribe, share your favorite moments, and let us know how "It's a Wonderful Life" has touched your heart!
On the couch. We're laughing, crying, feeling it all, breaking down the big screen, the hits and the flaws. Grab your seat, press play. Let's take the pic. Lights camera action. Episode of the Couch Critic.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, nathan, and on today's episode you're in for a treat. This is actually someone who's been on the show before, so I'm super excited about having her back on. Lucinda, go ahead, introduce yourself. I just told everyone your name, but tell us.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's all right. My name is lucinda sage mid gordon. I have a podcast called story power and it's almost five years old this summer. Um, and my sister, celeste, and I just started a YouTube channel called Classic Cinema with the Sage Sisters, where we take one movie and we analyze it and I do a little bit of educational things, because I used to be a theater instructor and so it's really fun. That's two things I do there are others, but I'm not going to bore you with all of those.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome. And, speaking of classics, that's exactly what we're talking about today. On my journey of Christmas movies, I've been through movies that I would never think would be considered Christmas movies, like Lethal Weapon, and now we're to a movie that I think everyone considers a Christmas movie. Everyone watches it every single year. It is a classic and it is. It's a wonderful life. Now, it's a wonderful life. Stars Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, donna Reed as Mary Hatch, lionel Barrymore as Mr Potter potter and henry travers as clarence.
Speaker 2:I I've watched this movie like hundreds of times, a lot, and I don't know if it's because I'm getting older I'm, I have kids now I'm but I just find myself becoming very emotional when I watch things, and I I told my wife again I had seen this movie multiple times, but for some reason, at the end of this movie, I I wasn't sobbing, but I totally was tearing up, tears were coming down my eyes.
Speaker 2:I just it's just such a good movie and, and one of the things I like to do on the show is I like to give our listeners a little bit of trivia, some things that they may not know about this movie, and one thing I found out, and I'm sure, lucinda, you can share a plethora of things too, but one thing I thought was really interesting, and I don't even know if you know this, but apparently the director hired a marksman to shoot out the window in the classic house scene and they were all ready to do it, and then Donna Reed picks up the rock to throw it at the window, and she actually does it herself, because apparently she had played baseball in high school and I just thought I did.
Speaker 2:I never knew that. I thought that was really, really cool A little, a little bit of nice trivia for people out there who may not have known that. Now, lucinda, you are nodding your head, so did you already know that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I love to go to internet movie database and read all the trivia about movies, and so, yeah, I read that, but, uh, more than once. But I also think it's interesting that this was her very first starring role and so, you know, I mean I might have been a little nervous and missed the glass, you know, if it was my first movie, but nope, she, she nailed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great, yeah, and I mean I mean starring alongside Jimmy Stewart, who was obviously known. He had just returned from war, apparently before this movie, and which is another trivia you kind of spoiled. You spoiled my my little trivia questions, lucinda, by telling people where I get my stuff from. But that's okay, I'll, I'll forgive you this time, um, but I again. Another thing I didn't know is jimmy stewart was extremely nervous about that kissing scene where they're talking on the phone because he had just come back from war and yeah, I mean, but it's just like just those little moments, it's just so iconic and and and that's one of the reasons why I was excited about having you on, because I remember when we talked about casablanca and all the things that you added to that episode. So I'm just gonna let you go ahead and tell, tell the listeners just like everything that you know about this movie, like behind the scenes and and all the history behind it okay.
Speaker 3:So one behind the scenes thing which is really fun, and I have to get uncle billy's actor name just a minute, I'm gonna look that up. It's thomas mitchell, and you know that scene when they're having the party for Harry and his new wife and Uncle Harry goes out with George. He's going to leave and he's pretty drunk and he goes off camera and then there's this big noise and he goes. I'm all right.
Speaker 2:I'm all right. I'm all right.
Speaker 3:Well, a prop person had knocked something over, and Thomas Mitchell was so on it that he just I'm all right and Jimmy starts laughing.
Speaker 3:Because of that. I'm going to start coughing, excuse me. So I love that scene and yeah, that's a professional right there and he was kind of. He might have been doing it to try to save the guys you know, the prop guys, bacon, because you know he could have been yelled at. I don't really know george cukor, the director, I don't know much about him, uh, but he might have, you know, yelled at the guy because he ruined the shot, but that's, of course, the shot they kept, so so it's really great.
Speaker 2:And I know, I know Jimmy Stewart is not is not a stranger to having to improvise because I believe in a Philadelphia story, I believe, that he had to improvise. I guess either he or Cary Grant hiccuped during a scene and kind of caught each other off guard and they had to continue with that. So yeah, I mean Jimmy Stewart is, I think, the quintessential classic actor. He had such a range. He could be in a slapstick comedy one minute and then an Alfred Hitchcock drama the next.
Speaker 2:I mean he could just do anything and there that probably probably haven't aged well, like if if Mary hadn't met George she would have been an old maid and things like that. But other than that I think the acting holds up the performances are just things that actors today look at and try to replicate but can't really do because you can't be.
Speaker 3:You can't be jimmy stewart, I mean right well and I think that the ensemble works really well together. Uh, like, it's so interesting to me that lionel barrymore plays, uh, mr potter, and he's so he's such a nasty guy, but years before he was in a, a movie called you can't take it with you, and it's. It's all based on a play and he plays the grandfather of the family or the mate, the patriarch of the family, and they're really quirky and and they all have their hobbies that they're doing and stuff, but nobody really works. He used to be like working on wall street and one day he went up in the elevator and the elevator opened and he goes no, I'm not doing this anymore. And so he stopped working and and everybody just sort of does their thing and and then it's so opposite to Mr Potterter, you know who wants wealth and he wants everything. It's like he wants everything in the town to be his. You know his little domain.
Speaker 3:So it's real, that's really interesting and I think it's also interesting that he I can't remember if he had really bad arthritis, but he was in a wheelchair for a number of years and they always kept casting him because he's such a fantastic actor and they just incorporated the wheelchair into the movies. Now, in in the movie that I was just mentioning you can't take it with you he wasn't in a wheelchair, that was before he was in a wheelchair, but yeah so, and the themes of the story are very interesting too, because we really none of us know the impact that we have on other people, and so the fact that he gets george gets to see that is amazing. And I don't know if you still do this. But uh, I have a favorite quote from this movie that I think sort of starts george off on his final transition to realizing it's a wonderful life, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no sure.
Speaker 3:And that's near the end, when Uncle Billy has accidentally put the $8,000 into the newspaper that he hands to Potter, who's so unscrupulous, he finds it and does he deposit it for them? No, he keeps it, and, and George and Uncle Bailey have been everywhere trying to find the money and he finally George, comes to Mr Potter and he's trying to say, you know, just give us a little time to find this money. And of course Potter's going, george, that George said to him. He says you once called me a warped, frustrated old man. Well, you're a warped, frustrated young man. And that makes George feel like he's just worthless. And that's when he goes out and he's goes to the, he's gonna jump off the bridge because he thinks he hasn't done anything of value. And then he finds out, yes, he has done a lot of things of value.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, it's just the reason it's iconic, I think, is because of that, because you know well, there's also the whole thing of do you gather wealth and gain happiness, or do you gain happiness from creating a community of people who support each other? And so there's that dichotomy too in the movie. And another thing that I think is so amazing about this movie is that it, it was the. It was chosen in 2006 on american film institute as the number one inspirational movie, and they, they redo those every so often. I don't know if it still is, but that says something, though. 2006,. This movie was made in what? 1948? It was after the war 46, 47, 48. And so, yeah, that says a lot, yeah.
Speaker 2:The message of this movie is just what makes it like you said. It makes it a wonderful film and and that's why, um, that's why that's one of my likes as well is just the message is so relevant because I mean especially I mean you. You are a teacher as well and we don't know the impact we have as teachers on our students. Sometimes we may not see the fruit of our labor, but we have to trust that we are making a difference. Even on those rough days, even where we don't know where the next meal is going to come from, we know that we still are put here on this earth to make a difference, even if it's just a one person. And that kind of goes to kind of like my dislike. I and it has nothing to do with the film itself. I honestly think this is a perfect film. I honestly do from the message, from the performances.
Speaker 2:Everything my dislike comes from the fact that every now and then, a studio or a streaming service decides to take a movie and destroy it. I don't know if you've heard anything about this, lucinda, but Amazon decided to. For some reason, they thought that this movie needed to be shortened, which I will say, that is, that it may be. One of my dislikes is that at times it does seem a little bit long. But I also understand in the context of the film why they show everything they do. Do they want?
Speaker 3:in my opinion.
Speaker 2:They want the audience to feel the frustration that george feels that just when you think he's getting ahead, something else happens, and something else that that forces him to stay in a place where he has wanted to leave the entire film.
Speaker 2:so in that context I understand, but I don't know if you've heard about amazon's abridged version of it's a Wonderful Life. Have you heard of this? No, tell me. Tell me what they cut from the film. And as a person who doesn't like remakes or doesn't like when people touch classic films, I was very hesitant to watch it. But I knew I was going to talk about it eventually on the show. So I took a look at it and it's essentially the entire film, up into the point where Clarence saves George from jumping off the bridge. They go into that little cottage area with the lighthouse worker and George says well, it's not like you have $800, $8,000 on you, do you? And it cuts straight to George running in the street with excitement and basically it takes away the whole seeing what life would be like without him seeing the impact he had on all these people and it basically goes to what you said Do we get happiness from wealth?
Speaker 2:goes to what you said do we get happiness?
Speaker 3:from wealth, and that's essentially like what this movie is saying, like the miracle the quote-unquote miracle that Clarence gives George is here's all this money from the community yeah, I don't know what it is about people who cut films or even miniseries, because I've seen other ones where, it just so happens, they cut out the most essential part of the movie or the miniseries, the part that where the character turns toward what he's going to be in the end His. You know he's gonna be in the end his. You know he's making his decision or she's making her decision. Yeah, I don't know what it's like. People people who don't study films are the ones who are doing the cutting exactly well and I'm like it's like.
Speaker 2:You know the common saying if it ain't broke, don't fix it there's nothing to fix with this movie.
Speaker 2:The only thing I think people and at the time people actually sent hate mail to the director just based on the fact that he does not give closure to mr potter. Mr potter doesn't get caught, he doesn't go to jail for basically setting george up and accusing him of embezzlement. He basically gets away for for framing george for something. But I think the the whole the fact that he gets the money back probably even more so kind of deeters, you know, deters people away from caring as much about mr potter. But I just think it's a great film.
Speaker 3:I just think it's it's perfect, it's just perfect yeah, and I mean nobody knows what happened to that. I mean mr potter knows and his servant know that he's got the 8 000 tons, but nobody else knows what happened to it, so he's not gonna get caught unless he says oh, by the way, here's the, you know, but he gets way more than eight thousand dollars, because I mean his friend, I cannot remember the, the, the guy's name who has the, the plastics factory that he wanted, um like twenty five thousand dollars right yeah, he sends him twenty five thousand dollars, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he sends him twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3:for him, that's probably a drop in the bucket.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But he does it because he realizes that George has made a huge impact on the people in that town. And one more fun trivia thing that I found out today is that George Cukor based George's character on a real person. I did not know this and his name was let's see if I can find him AP Giannani, and he is the founder, was the founder, excuse me of the Bank of Italy, and then, when it came to America, it became Bank of America and it was the first bank in the United States to allow middle class people, people of the lower classes, to open a bank account?
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Before that, middle class people, lower class people, could not open bank account. Wow, before that, not middle-class people, lower-class people, could not open bank accounts. Only the rich could open bank accounts. So I didn't know that before and I thought that was fascinating.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I didn't know that either. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:So George is doing that, and that's what irks Mr Potter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he's helping people and and Potter is of the mind. I want people to have to rely on me to to get what they to get what they want, and so yeah it's just and and that even that that in itself is relevant to today. I mean, I'm not going to get into how that's relevant to today, but it is very relevant to today.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm not going to get into how that's relevant to the day, but it is very relevant to today's world. So that is, that is. It's a wonderful life, it's a wonderful film. It's it's to me, it's perfect cinema. So let's get right to our rating. So what I'm doing this season is since I'm doing all christ movies.
Speaker 2:I'm doing two ratings, so I'm doing a Christmas rating, which basically means how essential is Christmas to the movie that we're discussing. So can you take Christmas out of a film and it still be a good film? Um, for, for example, a charlie brown christmas to me, charlie brown christmas is a perfect five out of five christmas movie. Uh, the movie elf is a perfect five out of five christmas movie. So, based on that, is it's what? What would you give? It's a wonderful life as a christmas movie. It's a Wonderful Life as a Christmas movie.
Speaker 3:I have to give it a five out of five because I have. I own the it's a Wonderful Life village that we always put up every Christmas and my mom gave me a sign that says it's a wonderful life. That's still on the wall all year round. So I have to give it a five out of five and we watch it every year.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so yeah, and so I'm assuming for just a general rating then, just based on a as a film itself, I'm assuming a five out of five as well oh yeah, I mean you can't go wrong with frank Capra, oh yeah, and all of the people in that movie.
Speaker 3:And even though I mean I think it was a hard movie for James Stewart to do because he was right out of the army and I guess Lionel Barrymore had to talk him into doing it because he was kind of going through some PTSD and depression and stuff, but he did say this character was his favorite character that he ever played. Because, it's true, you don't know, even in war you don't know the good effect that you have on people. Yes, he killed people, but how many people did he save? Right?
Speaker 2:well, and then, of course, I'm gonna give a perfect five out of five for both christmas and general rating. It is just so good. So I just have to say to my friend, katie, who reviewed this movie a couple seasons ago you didn't know what you were talking about then. And you still didn't know what you were talking about then and you still don't know what you're talking about because this movie is classic. I still remember the fact that she didn't even remember who played George Bailey when she reviewed this movie and it still hurts my heart to this day just thinking about it. But I still love her and she does appear on the show every now and then. Still, I still give her that permission. So, lucinda, thank you so much for being on the show. Please again tell people how they can hear more from you in the future.
Speaker 3:Story Power is on almost all of the outlets. I even have. I even do a little gerrymandering with pictures and stuff for YouTube, but it's on Apple and Spotify and Amazon and it's on my website, sage Woman Chronicles on WordPress, and then Classic Cinema with the Sage Sisters is also on YouTube. I have only uploaded a few videos. We're still waiting to be approved because we use scenes from movies and you gotta get approved, you know, by youtube.
Speaker 3:Um for that. Uh, for the first two, I have two um of those in the can, but I have little like treat. Teaser trailers for those, you can find me on Facebook. Lucinda Sageman, gordon. Hyphen or no hyphen. Oh, it's alright. It's alright, I'm okay, I crash.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you again For coming on the show and I'm actually going to give a little hint Of what the movie I'm going to be talking about Next Tuesday, so I'm going to do a quote. Hint of what the movie I'm going to be talking about next Tuesday, so I'm going to do a quote. Don't don't guess if you know, but here's the quote right here. Why is there always someone who brings eggs and tomatoes to a speech?
Speaker 1:It's not just a movie, it's a way of life. We'll watch it together, day or life. We'll watch it together, day or night. So settle in close and don't miss a flick. This is the moment for the couch critic.
