Part 03: Henry F Potter, American AntiHero

Going in search of the reason why “up-side down” takes on It's a Wonderful Life have eclipsed traditional ones in recent years, this episode quickly becomes a history lesson about the U.S. government’s attack on the movie’s writers, and an examination of the state of heroes and villains today.  What does this phenomenon tell us about the nature of how our culture has changed?  We’ll look at the first to gain widespread attention, a Salon co-founder’s 9/11 era defense of Pottersville – the runaway capitalist reality where George Bailey was never born – and then the most popular, a New York Times reporter’s 2008 financial crisis tinged effort to prove George would have been prosecuted and his leadership ultimately ruined Bedford Falls.  Then, we go way back, to the surprising first critics of the movie, J. Edgar Hoover and Ayn Rand.  And we learn Jimmy Stewart’s daughter's take on what real heroism means, with implications for MAGA.  SaveGeorgeBailey.com

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I was on staff at Esquire magazine for a few years,
and I think when you are on staff at a
website that publishes pop culture content, you are encouraged to
come up with ideas that will get people angry or

(00:30):
excited or agitated or upset. Like you are encouraged to
come up with headlines that sound like this, that like
Pottersville is cooler than Bedford's Falls, these sort of, you know,
radical notions that what if you're looking at this film
that you love in the complete wrong way, they generate

(00:51):
clicks and add money and will put you up the
totem pole, because who wants to click on a yet
another essay that said It's a wonderful life is a
great movie when you can click on an essay that says, like,
wait a second, actually this movie you were watching, you
were watching it the wrong way all this time.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Buffalo girls, can't you come out tonight? Can't you come
out tonight?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Can't you come out tonight?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Buffalo girls, can't you come out tonight?

Speaker 5 (01:18):
And by the line, oh.

Speaker 6 (01:27):
Joy, you made me.

Speaker 7 (01:49):
So far in this podcast series, I've informed you that
you live in a part of the multiverse where George
Bailey was never born, and you met a town once
similar to Bedford falls in your universe, one that has
developed without the benefit of George's presence, kind of like Pottersville.

(02:12):
But your universe is not entirely without George thanks to
the movie Wonderful Life. George's story made it to you anyway,
and we angels have always felt that if you ever
lost your way, this movie might serve you all well,
if you ever stood at your own fork in the road,

(02:35):
as a kind of bridge between universes. The problem, it
turns out, is that the meaning of George's story is
far more open to interpretation than we ever thought.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Pottersville, you know, from a modern lens, doesn't look all
that bad.

Speaker 7 (02:58):
You heard dom Nero at the beginning an article he
wrote recently joined what has become a wave of alternative
takes on Wonderful Life, even though his tongue was firmly
planted in his cheek. Things that we create often take
on a life of their own.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
And I want to, you know, put the big caveat that,
of course, like I can tell that, you know, mister
Potter is very obvious, kind of Donald Trump's sort of
figure that he is like this, this conqueror kind of
type who who preys on the underprivileged. That that is
just so obvious, Like, of course I know that, and

(03:38):
I accept that. So a lot of this essay that
I wrote is kind of tongue in cheek. And my
editors at the time saw this one and said, oh
my god, it's so funny, you should write it.

Speaker 8 (03:49):
So I wrote it.

Speaker 9 (03:52):
You've been given a great gift, George, a chance to
see what the world would be like without you.

Speaker 10 (04:00):
Way about here, Oh, this is some sort of a
funny dream I'm having it.

Speaker 11 (04:07):
So I'm going home. Oh, one hole, I'll shut up,
cut it out.

Speaker 7 (04:11):
You all remember, don't you? When we show George another
universe where he'd never been born, without him to defend it,
he saw that Potter had run roughshod over Bedford Falls,
transforming it into a place based on his own values, Pottersville.
Well in your universe without George, A similar realization has

(04:33):
been slowly dawning on many, particularly since the start of
the two thousands, as upside down takes on wonderful life,
some humorous, some not, but nearly all rather a little
cynical have become a frequent annual occurrence in your media.
The movie hasn't changed, so perhaps you should ask yourselves

(04:57):
what this says about how you all and your values
have That's what we look at in this episode.

Speaker 9 (05:05):
You must mean two other trees. You had me worried
one of the oldest trees in Pottersville.

Speaker 11 (05:11):
Pottersville, Why you mean Bedford Fall.

Speaker 9 (05:14):
I mean Pottersville, the only think I know where I live.

Speaker 8 (05:17):
What's the matter with you?

Speaker 12 (05:18):
You know?

Speaker 13 (05:19):
I had been kicking this. It's a wonderful life story
around in my head almost since I saw the alternate reality,
and it's a wonderful life was the better reality, and
the reality was actually the terrifying one, and it's actually
a horror movie.

Speaker 7 (05:34):
This is Wendell Jamison, a journalist with the New York Times.

Speaker 13 (05:39):
I first saw the movie at Edward Armroo High School
in Brooklyn. So it was in nineteen eighty one, in December.
We had just finished work on the play the weekend before.
And it's kind of a gift to the people in
the play. Mister Ellman invited us to all stick around
and watch a movie one day after school. This was
his favorite movie and he wanted to give us all
a treat. It was a very gray, wintery, but not

(06:02):
snowy day, not a beautiful day, just a dark December
evening in a public school next to a train trestle.
I was in a band, I had dye black hair.
I was really into the jam and Alvis Costello we
walked into the room and there was a projector and
we were sitting on those metal back chairs, and one
of his student assistants made us some popcorn and they

(06:24):
started It's.

Speaker 11 (06:25):
A Wonderful Life.

Speaker 13 (06:28):
What I remember, because I was so riveted, was the
darkness of the movie, Like that was one dark movie.
And maybe mister Allman was showing it to us because
he is a fun holiday treat. But I shivered. And
both of the realities of the movie are terrifying, right,
the reality of and we remember we were high school students.

Speaker 11 (06:50):
Beginning our lives.

Speaker 8 (06:51):
We're in plays.

Speaker 13 (06:52):
We imagine we're gonna be rock stars and movie stars.
And you know, to see a movie where somebody is
slowly beaten down by life and sees all his dreams crushed,
it was kind of a scary thought. And then, of course,
then the next reality is the upside down reality in

(07:13):
that town. It looks fun, I mean, that looks like that.
That is a happening street.

Speaker 7 (07:18):
Now I'm taking you too. Late two thousand and eight,
inside the fourth floor of the New York Times skyscraper
in Midtown Manhattan.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Lehman Brothers is going most saturated the US housing market.

Speaker 14 (07:31):
Housing bubble.

Speaker 7 (07:32):
But like every bubble, the bubble ends.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
That's sunk former giants Fanny Man Freddie Mac billion dollars
in losses.

Speaker 11 (07:38):
It was a scary time.

Speaker 13 (07:41):
And a dark time, and the reason for the darkness
was the financial industry. And it just felt like this
story that I've been cogitating about in the back of
my mind for years about it's a wonderful life. Now
is the moment to do it. You know that you
had the literal hook of the funny angel industry collapsing.

Speaker 11 (08:03):
Uncle Billy aw We stop at the bank first.

Speaker 8 (08:08):
Twenty four.

Speaker 15 (08:13):
Eight, Bailey, I guess you forgot something. You forgot something, Hollo.
Aren't you going to make a deposit?

Speaker 9 (08:28):
Well?

Speaker 15 (08:28):
And it's usually customary to bring the money with you?

Speaker 16 (08:32):
Oh hi, Hi, good afternoon. This is Wendell Jamison calling.
I'm trying to reach District Attorney John Flynn.

Speaker 17 (08:43):
Please will you just give me one moment?

Speaker 8 (08:46):
Sure?

Speaker 18 (08:53):
Hello?

Speaker 16 (08:55):
Time into the District Attorney Wendell Jamison from the New
York Times.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Here, how are you good to Wendell?

Speaker 8 (08:59):
How are you doing good?

Speaker 11 (09:00):
Good good?

Speaker 16 (09:01):
So I explained to you in my email what we
were going to talk about that I'm sort of doing
a sort of a postmodern deconstructive look as it's a
wonderful life, and trying to turn some of the premises
of the movie upside down. You know, everyone thinks of
that it's a cheery holiday movie, but I think give
it a little bit more like a horror movie sometimes.

(09:26):
Not that I don't love Upstate in Western New York,
of course, but one the question that I wanted to
found so a few was just this idea at the
end of the movie where he's accused of stealing the
money from the bank, and all the townspeople rally together
and give him and so that he can pay the
money back, and then it's a very happy ending. But

(09:48):
that wouldn't really be true, right If I rob a bank,
all I have to do is give the money back
and I walk away scot free.

Speaker 18 (09:56):
No, absolutely not it clearly that's not that where it works.
If in fact, a like in the movie, an arrest
warrant was issued. The Bedford Falls Police Department, you know,
would have filed larceny charges against George Bailey. They then
would have got a judge to sign a warrant for

(10:17):
his arrest.

Speaker 10 (10:17):
Oh, mister bank examiners said, I know, eight.

Speaker 19 (10:21):
Thousand dollars, got a little papers.

Speaker 11 (10:23):
I'll bet it's a warrant from my rs. Isn't it wonderful?
I'm going to jail, Mary Christmas reporters or where's Mary?

Speaker 17 (10:29):
Mary?

Speaker 10 (10:29):
Oh?

Speaker 11 (10:30):
Look at this wonderful old drafty house.

Speaker 17 (10:32):
Mary.

Speaker 18 (10:33):
If you remember in the movie there, you know, the
the you know, one of the law enforcement personnel had
had the arrest warre in his hand, you know, and
then they tore it up there and threw it in
the big bin with all the with with a collection
of money there. You can't do that, obviously. I mean,
if at the end of the day, the either the
police or you know, the local district Attorney's office distc

(10:56):
attorney wanted to dismiss the charges, which they could do obviously.
All right, you've got to go in a court and
tell the judge, you know, your honor, we're dismissing the charges.
And at that point you can turn the paperwork up,
but obviously you can't. You can't do that in the
living room of George Bailey's house.

Speaker 16 (11:15):
Certainly him returning the money or somebody returning the money
will help him with the judge.

Speaker 18 (11:22):
Yeah bye. By paying it back, you might get a
reduction in you know, a plea bargain in the charge
or uh, you know, you might get me to say
to the judge as a prosecutor, you know, your honor,
he paid the money back, and you know I'm not
I'm recommending no jail time given probation, so it would
go towards sentencing and would go toward a potential plea

(11:43):
bargain as well.

Speaker 16 (11:45):
You don't think f crime was even committed here by
George Bailey. Now he doesn't know, of course, what happened
to that money at that time. He doesn't know that
old man Potter stolen correct, you're correct. How can you
talkative truth that he he somehow varioushly stole it.

Speaker 18 (12:01):
Right exactly? I mean you know again, you know the
the premise and the burden isn't on the defendant here
George Bailey to show that to show whatever, okay, the
burden of proof is on me as a DA. So me,
as the DA, I have to prove beyond a reasonable

(12:22):
doubt that he intended to deprive another person or in
this case, the bank, a third person, a third party
entity here. Okay, this money. Okay, you know, there's no
proof that that he had the intent to steal, or

(12:44):
to embezzle or to take this money. There's no intent
here that I can prove as the DA that he
stole the money. So I mean again, I don't know,
I don't know who whatever. I don't know what judge
would ever signed that arrest warrant or I don't know
rny DA who whatever put forth a file charges to
get that arrest Warren signed. So, in my opinion, the

(13:07):
facts clearly show there was no fact here at all.

Speaker 16 (13:11):
Unless the judge and the DA and everyone else is
in Potter's pocket.

Speaker 18 (13:15):
But I get that's true, exactly. That's a whole nurse story.
That's ay.

Speaker 8 (13:22):
Well, listen, thank you so much.

Speaker 16 (13:23):
This is going to be add a new level to
my storage. So I really appreciate you taking the time
to talk to me.

Speaker 7 (13:27):
The District Attorney Wendell's article was headlined wonderful. Sorry George,
it's a pitiful, dreadful life in it. He also argued
that Bedford Falls would have done better under Potter's vision,
something we'll explore in a future episode. To his great surprise,
the piece got one of the biggest responses of his career.

Speaker 13 (13:50):
Six o'clock the night before the story was supposed to
come out, I went to my computer and I looked
at the homepage on the most emailed list, and my
story is like number four, and I didn't know it
had published yet. And then it was number one in
a second, and it went crazier.

Speaker 7 (14:07):
Now I'm taking you backwards in time to a December
seven years earlier, late two thousand and one, on America's
other coast, in the city of San Francisco. We are
inside the headquarters of Celon Media. If Wendell Jamison is
the popularizer of alternative takes on wonderful Life, then celon

(14:31):
dot com co founder Gary Camilla might be seen as
the phenomenon's godfather. And it's another dark time, as Gary
witnesses like most on his television, it's a.

Speaker 20 (14:44):
Fifty two here in New York.

Speaker 8 (14:45):
I'm Bryant Gumbele.

Speaker 20 (14:46):
We understand that there has been a plane crash on
the southern tip of Manhattan. You're looking at the World
Trade Center. We understand that a plane has crashed into
the World Trade Center. We don't know anything more than that.
We don't know if.

Speaker 21 (14:58):
There is one last objection that can be leveled against
Pottersville its name.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
Gary Camia, reading from the attention grabbing piece, he felt
compelled to write that difficult December headlined all hail Pottersville.

Speaker 21 (15:16):
Yes, Pottersville does reek of Donald Trump like vulgarity. But
is that such a bad thing? Being named after a
ruthless captain of industry casts a long aron Randian shadow
over a city, giving tacit permission to its inhabitants to

(15:38):
pursue their pleasures in the enveloping moral darkness. If there
was a town named Colligula City in the late Roman Empire,
it probably slammed. Pottersville is a you know, a place
of complete alienation and selfishness and hatred and depravaty and everything.

(16:01):
But but it nonetheless is, you know, opens the door
to if you're somebody that likes to go out to bars.
It's bars are a lot better looking than the ones
in Bedford Falls. So that was you know that was
the place that I was coming from, but that doesn't
mean that, you know, I prefer a world where Potter one,

(16:24):
even though that is in fact what happened, and in
the real world, Potter one, unchecked capitalism did win that. Obviously,
there are victories for the George Baileys of the world,
but it's not the way that modern post industrial capitalism
has generally worked out. It's gone the other way.

Speaker 11 (16:42):
You know.

Speaker 21 (16:43):
I'm a big bar guy. I love nightlife. I like
I like, uh, you know, just hanging out in alcoholic
dens of iniquity, urban urban dives of all kinds. I've
always loved that. I'm watching this film, which I adore,
and all of a sudden we're in the counterfactual universe

(17:07):
where we've you know, Bedford Falls is gone thanks to
the machinations of Clarence, and now we have Pottersville. And
there's the street scenes or just a minute or two
seeing all those clubs, the Indian Club and the Blue Moon,
you know whatever, all these different clubs, and you know,

(17:27):
there's you see this black piano player playing honky Tonk,
and there's this kind of Lauren Bacall like woman, and
all these dudes and Fedoras, and it's like, man, this
is great. I love this. And I remember just thinking
that and then realizing, you know, oh no, but we're
supposed to think this is like unbelievably awful this is.

(17:49):
And so there's just this real, obvious, big, huge meatball
for for me as a writer, where you know you're
you're being told you know this is bad, but everything
in you was like, no, this is good. But then
you know, there's a little kick in the very end
of the piece when I you know, say, look, okay,
I've made a definitive case that you know, Pottersville is

(18:12):
better but the real But don't forget at the end
of the day, there's no use in even resisting this
because in the real world Pottersville won. That the George
Baileys of the world are going to triumph over the
potters and that they're going to save the savings and
loans from you know, these consolidators and hyper capitalists is

(18:33):
a complete croc because Potter one, not George Bailey. As
to whether or not Capra saw it in those terms,
that strikes me as far more problematic. I mean, not
even the most diehard Trump supporter is going to be
watching It's a Wonderful Life and rooting against George Bailey.

(18:54):
The Trump supporters want to believe the same Capra mythology
that Caepra himself is promote. Voting.

Speaker 22 (19:00):
Every revolution starts in the minds of the people. Arm
yourself for the war of ideas. Take back your life,
Take back your liberty. Tom Mullen Talks Freedom.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Tom Mullen Talks Freedom.

Speaker 7 (19:20):
Meet Tom Mullen today. Like many others, this writer and
podcaster has been more than happy to follow Gary and
Wendell's lead subverting Wonderful Life and take it further than
either or imagined.

Speaker 8 (19:34):
And he is not joking.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
We're not told much about how Potter got to be
where he is, right, of course, the same thing with
Ebenezer Scrooge and a Christmas Carol. How did he get
so rich? Well, all, he got so rich by making
good financial decisions, and to the extent that he's a financier,
that means he directed capital to things that were profitable

(19:57):
which didn't go bust. So he benefited the community by
giving them things what we don't know houses. He has
his rental houses, but he also has other financial interests
as far as we know. And to the extent that
he's directed capital to things that are built in the town,

(20:18):
everyone benefits from that. It's without Potter that you'd see
Pottersville the way they depict it. Without George Bailey, you know,
things might be better without him misdirecting capital and just
wasting it and making people. Now, don't forget those people
that bailed him out twice. Same people had to bail

(20:38):
him out twice. They had their own dreams, they had
their own happiness, they were unable to pursue because they
had to spend money bailing out their buddy Bailey there,
who conned them twice. So everything's a trade off. There
is no basement full of money.

Speaker 11 (20:58):
Just remember this, mister Potter you're talking about.

Speaker 10 (21:01):
They do most of the working and paying and living
and dying in this community.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
George Bailey's father, Peter Bailey, I believe, dies. And then
there's a scene a board meeting of the building and
loan and there's Potter sitting in a chair saying we
ought to close it down. And then George Bailey goes
off on this left wing rants, you know, with all
of Alexandria Kazak Cortes's talking points about what a bad

(21:27):
guy he is. And if you notice in that scene,
Potter's not interested in that. He keeps redirecting the meeting.
What's good for the building and loan and what's good
for the town? Is this thing actually serving the town
of Bedford?

Speaker 9 (21:42):
Falls well in.

Speaker 11 (21:43):
My book, he died a much richer mond than you
will ever pay.

Speaker 19 (21:45):
I'm not interested in your book. I'm talking about the
building and loan.

Speaker 11 (21:49):
I know very well what you're talking about.

Speaker 10 (21:51):
You're talking about something you can't get your fingers on,
and that's gone.

Speaker 11 (21:54):
You know, that's what you're talking about.

Speaker 13 (21:55):
I know.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
It was directed by an anti New Deal Republican named
Frank Capra, but who didn't mind working with communist writers,
and the two people who wrote It's a Wonderful Life
were communists.

Speaker 7 (22:09):
Not a totally fair description, but we'll get into that
in a moment.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
So, of course they want to portray any a capitalist
as somebody evil who's looking to acquire wealth at the
expense of others. But even in telling that story, they
can't help but let the truth come out, And the
truth is that that old man Potter has been a

(22:34):
great benefit to the community, or he would have lost
the money he invested. The very first lesson we learn
in economics and the history of economics, at least according
to Adam Smith, is that people acting in their own
self interests do far more good for society than people,
you know, trying to do good for society. So who

(22:56):
are the two people in this that we're talking about,
the selfish old man Potter and the do good or
George Bailey? And who has done more for Bedford Falls.
I don't think that there's any argument.

Speaker 11 (23:08):
There, George.

Speaker 19 (23:10):
I am an old man. Most people hate me, but
I don't like them either, so that makes it all even.
You know, just as well as I know that I
run practically everything in this town but the Bailey Building loan.
You know, so that for a number of years I've
been trying to get control of it or kill it,
but I haven't been able to do it. You have

(23:32):
been stopping me. In fact, you have beaten me, George,
And as anyone in this count I can tell you
that takes some doing.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Even after the depression, where Potter tries to recruit him,
he says.

Speaker 19 (23:47):
Take during the depression, for instance, you and I were
the only ones that tapped our heads. You saved the
building loan, I saved all the rest.

Speaker 8 (23:56):
George Bailey says.

Speaker 11 (23:57):
Yes, well most people say you stole all.

Speaker 8 (24:00):
He says, well, he's right.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
I mean, okay, if should he have let them go bankrupt?
Where was somebody else to come in there and save everything?

Speaker 8 (24:13):
Else?

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Only Potter? Because only Potter has run his businesses honestly,
you know, George Bailey goes off on this mellow dramatic
suicide drama and imagines all kinds of things like angels
and everything to try and justify his very shady financial
past and why none of this is his fault. You know,

(24:35):
that's another thing that you get from these Wall Street guys,
the Wall Street welfare guys. It's not their fault, you know,
it's not never their fault when it's time to pay,
you know, but it's it's but they get the credit when,
you know, when the profits are rolling in. So I
don't like George Bailey at all. I think it's very

(24:55):
chilling and dark at the end where he suggests that
you know, his his shady financial dealings have divine sanction.
When the bell rings on the tree and he says
it's an angel getting his wings for another thing, He's
got divine bailout now, right versus first. Well, not only
does he get bailed out by his customers and the depression,
now they're bailing him out again for the eight grand

(25:18):
and God is bailing him out supposedly. It's just this
is not a person we should admire.

Speaker 22 (25:26):
The war of ideas has only just begun. And remember,
every revolution starts in the minds of the people.

Speaker 7 (25:35):
Well, I can tell you that while upside down interpretations
of Wonderful Life started in the nineteen eighties and grew
prominently over the two thousands and up to today, a
few go all the way back when the movie was
still playing in theaters. And wait till I tell you
who came up with the first. Richard Hood, FBI's special

(25:58):
agent for the Los Angeles office, sits at his desk
typing a letter to j. Edgar Hoover, the famous head
of the FBI. It's nineteen forty seven.

Speaker 23 (26:10):
Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice, Los Angeles, thirteen, California,
seventh August nineteen forty seven. Communist infiltration into the motion
picture industry with regard to the picture It's a Wonderful Life.

(26:31):
It stated in substance that the film represented a rather
obvious attempt to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as
a scrooge type, so he would be the most hated
man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is
a common trick used by communists. Related that if he
had made this picture portraying the banker, he would have

(26:53):
shown this individual to have been following the rules as
laid down by the state bank examiners in connection with
making loans. In addition, stated that in his opinion, this
picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the
people who had money or mean and despicable characters.

Speaker 24 (27:11):
I had been asked by a colleague at Welsley University
to review some microfilm because I understand the story, and
the FBI absolutely sent him all this stuff on Hollywood,
and he knew I'd worked on the FBI, so I
was asked to review it.

Speaker 7 (27:26):
You're hearing John Noakes, an investigator into the FBI's history
of interventions into activist movements. In the mid nineteen nineties,
he receives a batch of microfilm and is among the
first to lay his eyes on fifty year old memos
between the bureau's Los Angeles office and j Edgar Hoover.

(27:46):
He's gobsmacked by what he reads.

Speaker 24 (27:49):
If you were to ask the random person, is this
a subverse of movie? They're going to look at your
cross eyed? I mean, of course not right, And Hoover
originally says, you know, you can do this only on
movies that we now are siversa which find a way.
It's a wonderful life is on that list.

Speaker 7 (28:05):
When George Bailey's father joins us up here, George hesitantly
appears before a meeting of the board members of his
father's Building and Loan, who must decide the fate of
the business. Minority shareholder. Potter uses the opportunity to deride
his old for Peter Bailey's altruism on behalf of working

(28:28):
people and indeed working people themselves, and George gets rather
fired up.

Speaker 10 (28:37):
Do you know how long it takes a working man
to say five thousand dollars?

Speaker 24 (28:40):
The speech or he talks about, you know, trying to
save the savings and Loan and became the centerpiece of
the research in many ways because it's it's what the
FBI decided was evidence of subversion because he's extolling the
common man. And there's a quote in one of the
FBI files where he said they say, basically, there's nothing

(29:02):
common or little about an American after the end of
World War Two, heading into the Cold War, when the
United States and Russia go from allies to foes, and
in the building of the Cold War, you see a
very strong ideological effort separating ourselves from from those beliefs

(29:25):
and practices that might have challenged capitalism.

Speaker 10 (29:28):
Anyway, my father didn't think Shaul people were human beings
to him, but to you, a war frustrated old man
their cattle.

Speaker 24 (29:36):
And it's pretty clear that Hoover is a conservative anti
communists who believes that communists will do anything they can
to subvert the American way of life. So his concern
about the movies is just one version of this.

Speaker 7 (29:53):
And wouldn't you know it, Wonderful Life makes it onto
Hoover's official subversive movies list. A little known fact this
list and the criteria I used to create it, was
primarily developed for the FBI by an outside consultant based
in Hollywood. And here's where I get to the first
upside down interpreter of Wonderful Life. I mentioned earlier a

(30:16):
woman whose name you no doubt know, Ain Rand, a
Russian who fled to the United States after her country's
takeover by communists and took it personally as she writes
mostly romantic comedies for Hollywood to fund her real passion,
novels that will launch an influential American philosophy seen by

(30:40):
many at the time as extreme pro business, pro selfishness,
pro anything goes capitalism.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
When you advocate completely unregulated economic life in which every
man works for his own profit, you are asking, in
a sense, for a double take behind most doggy dog society.
In One of the main reasons for the growth of
government controls was to fight the robber barons, to fight
mass affair in which the very people whom you admire
the most time, the hard headed industrialist, the successful men

(31:14):
of perverted the use of their power.

Speaker 11 (31:19):
Is that not true?

Speaker 14 (31:20):
No, it isn't.

Speaker 25 (31:22):
This country was made not by.

Speaker 9 (31:25):
Rubber barons, but by independent men, by industries who succeeded
on sheer ability.

Speaker 7 (31:33):
Three years after the initial release of Wonderful Life, Jimmy
Stewart's close friend Gary Cooper, the actor, plays ein Rand's
iconic architect hero Howard Rourke. Rourke's courtroom speech, which might
be seen as a kind of answer to George Bailey's
raises the individual over the community.

Speaker 26 (31:55):
He held his truth above all things and against all men.
He went ahead, whether others agreed with him or not,
with his integrity as his only banner. He served nothing
and no one. He lives for himself, and only by
living for himself was he able to achieve the things

(32:16):
which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature
of achievement. Man cannot survive except through his mind. He
comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon.
But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There
is no such thing as a collective brain. The man

(32:37):
who thinks must think and act on his own. The
reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It
cannot be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others.
It is not an object of sacrifice.

Speaker 24 (32:53):
It's very difficult to sustain the argument that a man
who helps working class people by homes so that they
will have a stake in society, and as he says,
the better citizens, is somehow subversive and trying to quietly
and effectively insert human's propaganda.

Speaker 7 (33:13):
Rand's philosophy will eventually find itself coming out of the
mouths of everyone from Ronald Reagan the President, to Tom Mullen,
the man you heard a few minutes ago. Why the
American government couldn't have found a more vehement critic of
George Bailey had it chosen Henry Potter himself to pick

(33:35):
subversives and the ripple effects will reverberate across your universe's timeline.

Speaker 24 (33:41):
So the FBI is going to be watching for anything
they consider subversive or pro communists. So they're collecting information
on mostly people's affiliations, and Hollywood is full of labor
unions at the time who often openly affiliating with corimonists berks,

(34:02):
And there's two names blacked out consistently through the document.
So the assumption here is that they have two informants
who are probably members of the motion picture in this rants.

Speaker 23 (34:12):
Someway Eden do not believe director Frank Kaepert is a
registered communist, but he is known to have associated with
left wing groups, and on one other occasion he made
a picture which was decidedly socialist in nature, entitled mister
Smith goes to Washington, starring James Stewart, according to informants,

(34:34):
and in this picture, the screen credits again failed to
reflect the communist support given to the screenwriters. According to
the writers, Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett were very close
to known communists, and on one occasion in the recent past,
while these two writers were doing a picture for Metro
Golden Mayor, good Rich and Hackett practically lived with known

(34:56):
communists and were observed eating luncheon daily with such km as.

Speaker 7 (35:01):
And unable to use the information they've collected on Hollywood
for any prosecutions, the FBI instead provides it to a
congressional committee, the House un American Activities Committee, also known
as HUACK, fronted by a junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.

(35:26):
McCarthy is unpopular and looking for a cause to raise
his profile. When j Edgar Hoover dumps his files on
McCarthy's committee. Armed with Hoover's otherwise taxpayer wasting years long
covert collection of information, McCarthy finds a use for it
to hurt the reputations and ability to earn a living

(35:47):
of those Hoover had chosen to target. Among the many
artists whose thriving careers are stopped in their tracks, blacklisted,
they call it from their beloved professions for a time,
are too involved with Wonderful Life. One is Dalton Trumbo,
a member of the infamous first group called before Huach

(36:08):
known as the Hollywood Ten. He had written a never
used first draft of Wonderful Life. Another blacklisted is Michael Wilson,
a devout pacifist who contributed to that rant against Potter
by George Bailey, the one that got the FBI interested
in the first place.

Speaker 11 (36:28):
Well, is it too much to have them work?

Speaker 26 (36:29):
In pain?

Speaker 11 (36:30):
Levendine a couple of decent rooms on a bath.

Speaker 7 (36:32):
Dorothy Parker, a writer who contribute a few of your
favorite quotes in the film, avoids blacklisting by pleading the
fifth but sees her reputation suffer, and Clifford O'dett's who
in a future episode you'll learn, provided many of the
elements you love from the first act of Wonderful Life,
was also called before Hughack. Before appearing, he devised a

(36:55):
plan with his good friend Elia Kazan, the movie director.
Here's Clifford's son talking about Kazan.

Speaker 14 (37:04):
He actually went into the UAC thing and he didn't
name people as communists. Then he and my father after
that was over, my father was drawn into it. If
they send him a note, you have to come in
on such and such a data. But he so we
talked to Kazan and what they agreed upon, which was

(37:27):
I think good for my father, but not understood was
Kazanne said to my father, listen, I've named these people
there for them here, you can name them again. They've
already heard it, they know it. And if you have
to name people, just name these because I've already been done.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Well.

Speaker 14 (37:44):
My father was known to have been in the Communist
Party for six months and if he didn't acknowledge that,
he would have been jailed. So this was after my
mother's death and my sister, and he was taking parables.

(38:07):
So that's what my father ended up doing.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Our wonderful life is all about heroes and villains, and
the Jimmy Stewart character is the consummate triumph of good guy,
good woman, good person America. The notion that if you
really do write by enough people in your world, some

(38:32):
day that will come back and grace you.

Speaker 7 (38:34):
Larry Tye is a noted newspaper man who took on
a new direction when he decided he had to write
books about what he saw as some of the greatest
heroes and villains in American life. For the hero, he
chose Superman, we'll get to that in just a bit.
For the villain, he chose the man who popularized the

(38:55):
attacks that did so much damage to wonderful life writers.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
I wrote a book called Demagogue that looked at US
Senator Joel McCarthy as the archetype of demagoguery in America.
Joe McCarthy is is a little bit of mister Potter,
it's a little bit of Donald Trump. It is the
archetypal bad guy or demagogue who understands what gets Americans

(39:25):
angry and is willing to stretch the truth as much
as it takes to sort of play on all of
our worst instincts. And so Joe McCarthy took the very
real threat of communism in the nineteen fifties and through flames,

(39:45):
through fuel on the fire of American fears about communism
and suggested that behind every pillar in the State Department
and behind every important institution in America was a communist spy.
The truth is that Joe McCarthy, as his critics at
the time said, could have been dropped into the middle

(40:08):
of Red Square in Moscow and not recognized a real communist.
He was pointing fingers at people who weren't spies. He
was raising a specter of a threat that made whatever
real threat there was more difficult to contain, and he
was willing to do or say absolutely anything to advance

(40:32):
his own career. He knew very little about Communism. All
he knew was that he was a first term US
Senator from Wisconsin who was on his way to being
kicked out of office, and he was desperate for an
issue that would put him on the front pages. And
once he found it, which was making unfounded accusations, he

(40:55):
kept doing that. He kept ending up on the front page.
And it took almost eight decade for us to finally repudiate,
to realize that he was the charlatan that he was.
So I was writing about Joe McCarthy, and I only
mentioned Donald Trump in the preface to my book and
in the epilogue. But the fact is Donald Trump was

(41:17):
there in just about every page. Because Donald Trump borrowed
the Joe McCarthy playbook. And that's not just speculation, but
it is that there was a flesh and blood connection,
a brilliant, egocentric, i think dangerous, young lawyer from New
York named Roy Cone, and Roy Cone was Joe McCarthy's protege.

(41:39):
Roy Cone went to work for Joe McCarthy at his
Senate committee. He helped them conduct these witch hunts looking
for communists and government. Roy Cone was Joe McCarthy's top aide.
He led his most irresponsible investigations. And half a century later,

(42:00):
when Fred Trump, donald Trump's father, was looking for the
perfect tutor for Donald Trump to help Donald Trump when
he was getting into the cultro world of New York
real estate, Fred Trump hired Roy Cone to tutor his
son Donald Trump. And there's the reason Joe McCarthy was

(42:22):
in the nineteen fifties the second most popular figure in
American public life, trailing only the war hero President Dwight Eisenhower.
And the same things that led McCarthy to gain the
kind of power and public trust as he did have
come back repeatedly in our political life to haunt us.

(42:44):
I'd like to think that George Baileys were involved in
helping see through Donald Trump and Joe McCarthy and mister
Potter and all the villains in American life, and in
the end, it is the George Bailey's and it is
the Clark Kent Superman characters who prevail and who really

(43:07):
define who we are, even if we sometimes lose sight
of that.

Speaker 10 (43:11):
Who'll best be in a position to yours as amazing
powers and a never ending battle for.

Speaker 11 (43:15):
Truth and justice. Superman has assumed the.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
Disguise of Clark Kent, mild amount of reporter for a
great Metropolitan newspaper.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
There's nothing that could seem more old fashion in our
world than George Bailey. But why do we keep tuning
back into him? The anti hero is what we like
to toy with and showing that we're more interesting than
just old fashioned Superman, But we keep coming back to
the hero. The whole point of the anti hero is
in opposition to something, and the opposition always at some

(43:45):
points yields to the basics.

Speaker 17 (43:49):
In the classic Jimmy Stewart film It's a Wonderful Life,
George Bailey is given a great gift, the chance to
see what the world would be like without him. Tonight,
mister presis we'd like to give you that same gift,
because without you, we'd all be living in Pottersville, sold
out to a crooked mister or I should say, a

(44:09):
crooked missus Potter, with no hope of escape except death itself.

Speaker 7 (44:14):
It's twenty twenty and we're at a political party convention.
Natalie Harp, a recent survivor of bone cancer, is speaking passionately.

Speaker 17 (44:27):
George Bailey's father was right. All you can take with
you is that what you've given away. And mister President,
that makes you the richest man in the world. For
you have used your strength to make America strong again,
sacrifice the life you built to make America proud again,

(44:49):
and you risked everything to make America safe again. It's
a wonderful life. You made America great again, and on
November third, we are I'm going to keep America great.

Speaker 25 (45:03):
I have been tempted in the past to say, Mam
and Dad would never have voted for Trump. They would
have been appalled at what's happening to their publican party.
But I didn't want to do that because they aren't
around to say now, wait a minute, or that you
know it was putting words in their mouth. This is
talking about our family, and it's also I think I

(45:27):
speak for a lot of people for whom George Bailey
is a beloved character.

Speaker 7 (45:31):
Kelly Stuart Harcourt and her twin sister are Jimmy Stuart's
only biological children, born five years after the release of
Wonderful Life. Jimmy also adopted and raised his wife's two sons.
He was a Republican and in fact a big supporter
of Ronald Reagan in the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 25 (45:53):
Dad liked him as a person. I mean, Reagan was
a nice guy, and in those days, mom and dad
had friends across the political spectrum, and Reagan would come
with Mom and dad to parties that was full of Democrats.

Speaker 7 (46:11):
Kelly Felchi had to make an exception to the family's
decades long rule about keeping her father's legacy and politics
separate in order to respond to Natalie Harp with a
letter published in The New York Times.

Speaker 25 (46:27):
I have it right here because I always keep it
with me. It's my prounise publication. In her speech at
the GOP convention Monday night, Natalie Harp, a cancer survivor,
made reference to the film It's a Wonderful Life, comparing
Donald Trump to George Bailey, the main character in the film,
played by my father, Jimmy Stewart. Given that this beloved

(46:51):
American classic is about decency, compassion, sacrifice, and a fight
against corruption, family considers Miss Harp's analogy to be the
height of hypocrisy and dishonesty. I heard from people, they said,
thank you. It was quite amazing. I think I got

(47:11):
more response from that publication than I have from any
of the papers I've written about Gorillas.

Speaker 7 (47:16):
Kelly mentions Gorillaz by the way, because after her father
Jimmy discouraged his family from a Hollywood life as she
became an anthropologist who studied Gorillaz. Actually, she learned a
lot about humanity.

Speaker 25 (47:32):
One of the big things is that we are a
super social species whereup living is us and there's no
such thing as all loner. Really, that's not a functional
human state. Really.

Speaker 7 (47:50):
Kelly also learned a lot from the reaction to her letter.

Speaker 25 (47:54):
It just shows how George Bailey crosses the aisle. I mean,
everybody claims him to be there, American Democrats and Republicans,
big city, small town. It just made me realize that

(48:16):
it's such a human character, it such it's a movie
about humans and so On the one hand, I was
appalled by that comparison at the convention. In the other hand,
it was in a way it was kind of moving
that everybody people that I'm really actually quite a test

(48:39):
we're claiming George Bailey. What makes George Bailey heroic is
that he makes sacrifices. He gives up, he gives up
possibilities for himself, he gives up a dream that he
had to help other people. That makes him heroic. He

(49:04):
saves people. But the other question, what's how do we
get back to having proper heroes today?

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Superman reflects the sense that within all of us, not
just it, there's a hero, but there's a hero striving
to do all the things the Superman was known for,
whether it was truth or justice or the best of
the American way.

Speaker 7 (49:32):
Larry Tye again, that's.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
What Superman was all about, and that's what we all
ought to aspire to. And I think that is precisely
what the two poor Jewish kids in Cleveland, Ohio named
Siegel and Schuster had in mind when they created this
character of Superman a century ago.

Speaker 7 (49:54):
Siegel and Schuster created Superman in nineteen thirty eight. The
same year, Philip van doren Stern outlined his short story
that led to Wonderful Life, and like the small town
values that informed George Bailey's childhood, it only made sense
that Superman had to be raised in Smallville, Kansas.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
There's no hero who we've adored for longer than we
did Superman, and I thought his life was a way
of understanding why America embraces the heroes that we do.
I grew up in a house of parents who had
were first generation Americans, and they inspired me with a

(50:36):
love of reading and with a love of American history,
trying to understand our own roots in this country and
the broader historical context. So I grew up in a
city that nobody has ever heard of, called Havero, Massachusetts,
and it was one of the birthplaces of the American
Industrial Revolution.

Speaker 7 (50:57):
Haverol was also the hometown of Bob Montana, creator of
another of the first comic books to garner a wide
public appeal, the Archie series Teenager. Archie's popularity in the
early nineteen forties and its small town setting of Riverdale
based on Haverol couldn't help but partially inspire Wonderful life's

(51:19):
approach to Bedford Falls. Here's Larry again talking about his
shared hometown with Archie creator Bob He.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Knew Haverol really well, and Haverol High School was the
centerpiece of his whole enterprise. And I did see some
of that growing up, and I learned more about it
later and went back and revisited and tried to understand
why Harol was an inspiration. And I think that Harol

(51:49):
was exactly the kind of all American town that he
was describing, but also one that, if you look a
little bit beyond the surface, head enormous potential for Huer
as well as understanding what this country was all about.

Speaker 7 (52:03):
Of course, even sweet Archie has gone dark in recent years,
reinvented for the hit television series Riverdale's Can I Help You?

Speaker 24 (52:15):
Were you George Augustine?

Speaker 8 (52:17):
Yes, Fred Andrews. Well wait the man you killed?

Speaker 7 (52:25):
My father, Fred Andrews.

Speaker 22 (52:28):
You hit him with your car and you kept driving.

Speaker 8 (52:31):
You left him there to die.

Speaker 7 (52:32):
You cowered son, Listen to me, shut up.

Speaker 22 (52:39):
You took away the only man you could call me that.

Speaker 7 (52:43):
Why did you do it?

Speaker 27 (52:46):
Huh?

Speaker 8 (52:47):
Were you on your phone?

Speaker 11 (52:48):
Were you drunk?

Speaker 21 (52:49):
What were you doing when you murdered him.

Speaker 28 (52:54):
Tell me.

Speaker 7 (52:57):
We are inside a comic book shop in Haverol. The owner,
Glenn O'Leary, helps patrons check out their items as he
and friends debate whether classic American good guy heroes like
George Bailey and Archie can survive in today's media world
of Walter White and Tony Sopranos.

Speaker 21 (53:20):
Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?

Speaker 8 (53:24):
The Strong?

Speaker 7 (53:24):
Silent time? That was an American?

Speaker 8 (53:28):
You were so fucking hateful? What do you think about it?

Speaker 29 (53:30):
There's not really any good guys bad guys anymore, especially
in comics like you have, like Fanos in certain comics,
he's actually helping them. The hero, the idea of like
self sacrifice and you know, ethics, seeing your bounds and
things feels like it's colt.

Speaker 27 (53:47):
You guys were talking about it before, people rooting for
the villains, and like, I'm forty five and I work
with a lot of younger people, and so don't nobody
actually believes in heroes at this point. They think the
concept is naive and ridiculous.

Speaker 6 (54:02):
You know.

Speaker 27 (54:02):
That's why You've got people think that Batman should kill
the Joker and they can't understand why, why wouldn't he
there's such a cynicism that if you if you believe
in hero because because ultimately, you know, if someone is
held up as a hero, the expectation is then there's
a skeleton in the closet somewhere, there's there's a dark
secret the rest of the world doesn't see, and they're

(54:22):
getting away with something somewhere, whether it's out of suspicion
or or envy. To look at that person and say
they can't be that good. People at this point want
to tear those icons down, and and it's it's hard
to look around even in fiction and grasp a real
hero like you mentioned Green Lantern, Batman, Superman. They've all

(54:43):
had their fall at some point and had to build
themselves back up.

Speaker 29 (54:47):
So I feel like we used to present actual, legitimate
heroes in movies and media, and more and more, I
think America has become comfortable with the anti hero. We've
gotten so dark that we ca can't even imagine Superman
without him breaking somebody's neck.

Speaker 28 (55:13):
I think the world itself just got darker. I don't know.
I think I think people more cynical now that the
happy ending just to them now seems campy in corny.
I enjoyed that. The darker Superman killing Zod was fine.
It was just something that had to be done, just
the all out destruction of the city, though Superman would

(55:34):
have tried to move it from the city.

Speaker 30 (55:36):
You're right, there's no way that he should have stayed
in the city and destroyed everything fighting. He would have
done anything he could to get him out of the city,
hated Man of Steel.

Speaker 11 (55:50):
Would you care to step outside.

Speaker 29 (55:53):
The nineteen seventies or Superman too, where Superman flies away
during a fight, right, and and the people in Metropolis
are like.

Speaker 11 (56:07):
After all.

Speaker 29 (56:22):
Man, Superman was willing to look like kind of a
pussy for a second in order to save this, you know,
in order to right draw the bad guys away.

Speaker 28 (56:29):
To your point, we're in the minority of the of
the people now that feel that that was wrong of Superman.
A lot of them left, go wow, did you see
that action scene with the three buildings came down. That's
that's what they wanted to see. The writers gave people
what they want to see, what would sell up. They
just didn't give them Superman, right, a guy in a suit,
but wasn't who Superman really is.

Speaker 31 (56:50):
The way they put these these murderers in and just
the lowest, the lowest type of people up on a pedestal.
It's just to me that that's like, that's repulsive to me,
like that type of behavior, think that type of character.
I want them to fail. I want them to get
what's what's theirs? I want someone to come in and
quote unquote the other day.

Speaker 29 (57:07):
You know, yeah, what do you think is the definition
of a hero willing to sacrifice yourself for others, which
is what Superman is supposed to be all at.

Speaker 28 (57:16):
Superman without powers would still try to be Superman. He
will still do what's try to do what's right.

Speaker 29 (57:21):
I think one of the ingredients of a hero is
they've got a defined moral compass and it holds him back.

Speaker 8 (57:26):
It's a challenge.

Speaker 29 (57:26):
You say, only kryptonite can beat Superman, But the other
thing that can beat him is if you put him
in a position where exactly yeah, and that is I
feel like that's compelling drama.

Speaker 27 (57:40):
You know, Walter White, Breaking Bad is not a good guy.
The show itself doesn't pretend that he is. They don't
hold him up.

Speaker 25 (57:46):
You've said in the past that you see Breaking Bad
as an experiment to see if you can take a
mister Chips teacher kind of character and turn him into scarface.

Speaker 27 (57:55):
You're watching a man just lose his humanity piece by
piece until there's nothing left.

Speaker 32 (58:01):
Who are you talking to right now? Who is it
you think you see? I am not in danger, Skuyler,
I am the danger. I am the one.

Speaker 29 (58:13):
Who knocks George Bailey. I admire the fact that he
was willing to sacrifice all of his dreams ultimately again
and again because he wanted to look out for other people. Absolutely,
I find that very admirable.

Speaker 27 (58:23):
It is it is tragic he gives up so much,
but he also ends up living a life of significance
and purpose just completely different from what he envisioned. And
I mean that's the whole point. At the end, every
literally everyone in town shows up to bail him out,
and he's flabbergasted by it. He's shocked because in his mind,

(58:44):
he's just doing what he has to do. He's fulfilling
his responsibilities to his family, to his community, and he
never really thinks of what he's gaining from that. He's
always just treading water, trying not to go broke and
be swallowed by despair. But then the end he gets
to see the payoff that everything he's worked for it,

(59:04):
and it's also here all the people that he's helped
and who's whose lives have been made better by knowing him.
Who wouldn't want to see that at the end of
the day. To have it come down to in your
most desperate hour, literally everyone you've ever known shows up.

Speaker 29 (59:21):
And you could point to George Bailey and say, this
is a person you might want to be like. And
I just I can't think of a movie in recent
years where I would go, that's it right there, that guy.

Speaker 28 (59:31):
I don't think there's anything that's been out recently that
you could you could say that at all.

Speaker 31 (59:34):
I think maybe Peter Parker Spider Man might be a
good example.

Speaker 12 (59:37):
I agree, I agree, I believe there's a hero in
all those.

Speaker 7 (59:42):
Spider Man, Peter Parker's ampt may it.

Speaker 12 (59:45):
Keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and
finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes
we have to be steady and give up the thing
we want the most, even now dreams.

Speaker 29 (01:00:07):
I feel like whenever you have a classic hero now
it's corny, and so I think the challenge is sort
of like, how do you present old school ethics and
heroism today and then make it still feel complex and
real and truthful and authentic and not corny.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
I think the whole concept of hero has changed so
much late. To compare something like how you view anything
nowadays as hero is completely different. I mean, the police
are now demonized. Okay, there might be some bad cops,
but that doesn't mean all of them are bad. You know,
you still have firemen running into burning buildings to save people.

Speaker 27 (01:00:44):
It goes the other way too. You're not automatically a
hero for signing up. And too often we say, oh,
this person is a hero because they put on the uniform,
like from day one, they're instantly a hero for the
rest of their life, no matter their actions. But there's
also a projection of values in who we would like
to be and imagine ourselves to be that I think
we need to just survive.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
You know.

Speaker 27 (01:01:07):
Even George Baileys throughout his life has this image of
who he thinks he should be, and he kind of
clings to that to keep himself going, like, no, I'm
that guy, whether or not my life bears it out.
He has this person he is in his head that
kind of keeps him going.

Speaker 33 (01:01:25):
On the farm where my parents lived, will in On.

Speaker 7 (01:01:31):
David Wilson, an interesting Scott here remembering his first time
watching Wonderful Life.

Speaker 33 (01:01:37):
And I watched it with them, with my sisters and
with a very much a log fire burning in the background.

Speaker 8 (01:01:46):
And it was on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 33 (01:01:48):
My father cried and I had never seen my father
cry before. Here was my dad doing something that as
a Scott's Presbyterian you never ever saw.

Speaker 8 (01:02:00):
Which was him showing emotion.

Speaker 33 (01:02:02):
And I suddenly realized that, you know, beneath this gruss
agricultural exterior beat a heart that could be moved by
the story on the screen. And I think the next
time I saw it, I actually was a doctoral student
in Cambridge, and I think I saw it in the

(01:02:26):
common room of graduate students, and it would be at
the time at the height of Thatcherism. So Missy Thatcher,
Margaret Thatcher, famous British Prime minister, has a very close
relationship with President Reagan.

Speaker 34 (01:02:44):
San Jose Mercury News, August twenty fifth, nineteen eighty five.
Reagan acted as informant to the FBI. As a budding
politician in Hollywood's acting community after World War Two, Ronald
Reagan served as a confidential informant for the FBI, according
to records released by the bureau. The FBI documents obtained
by The Mercury News in a freedom of information request

(01:03:04):
show that Reagan, identified as T ten, kept agents informed
about pro Communist influences in the Screen Actors Guild and
other Hollywood organizations. The first mention the Reagan in the
documents comes on September seventeenth, nineteen forty one, when a Washington,
DC based FBI agent whose name was crossed out, wrote
a memorandum to Hugh Clay, then the Assistant Special Agent

(01:03:26):
in charge of the Los Angeles Division.

Speaker 33 (01:03:28):
I remember watching it at that time through that lens
and thinking, hang on a minute, what we're seeing here
is actually the antithesis of some of these arguments that
have entered into political discourse. I didn't think I was
inventing things that were in the movie that weren't there,

(01:03:51):
and so I started to write about the movie because
it then became part of the Christmas ritual of my
own family.

Speaker 7 (01:04:02):
You might not expect someone so devoted to a movie
frequently described as sentimental to make his living as a criminologist.
David is among the best regarded in the field. Regularly
going inside prisons to converse with serial killers, He's come
to know real villains.

Speaker 33 (01:04:22):
You know, I see so much evil in my professional life.
I regularly have to remind myself that there is also good.

Speaker 8 (01:04:33):
I see this as a moral movie.

Speaker 33 (01:04:35):
I think this is about the individual's place in a
community and what the individual brings to make community, not
just take from community, which I would very much see.

Speaker 8 (01:04:47):
As Potter's role.

Speaker 33 (01:04:48):
He simply takes rather than gives, whereas I saw George
Bailey very much as somebody who felt that as an
individual he also not only had to give to his family,
but gives to the community. You know, this movie wouldn't
be the movie it is without George Bailey having the

(01:05:10):
having having that final scene, that cathartic final scene where
the community comes together. George Bailey has to be put
in jeopardy so as to save him. But Potter is
quite clearly somebody.

Speaker 8 (01:05:24):
Who is narcissistic. Who is as a character, is somebody
who clearly does not.

Speaker 33 (01:05:34):
Feel the feel the pain of others, in fact, revels
in the pain of others. There's a sadism there, but
there's a lack the keyword, or the key phrase, would
be that Potter.

Speaker 8 (01:05:49):
Lacks empathy.

Speaker 19 (01:05:51):
You once call me a warped, frustrated old man, whether
you would a warped frustrated young man. Miserable little clerk
crawling in here on your hands and eating, begging of
her help. No security, no stocks, no bonds, nothing but
a miserable little five hundred dollars Egadina life insurance policy.

Speaker 8 (01:06:14):
You worth more dead than alive.

Speaker 33 (01:06:17):
He can't literally because he's obviously in a wheelchair. But
you find he can't literally walk in George Bailey's shoes
and understand the pain that George Bailey and his family
would be feeling. In fact, quite the reverse, He's enjoying
the pain that Bailey was feeling, to the extent that

(01:06:37):
he even he even says, But I.

Speaker 19 (01:06:41):
Tell you what I'm going to do for you, George,
since the stage examiner is still here as a stockholder
of the building and loan, I'm going to swear out
of Warren for your arrest, misappropriation of funds, manipulation, malfeasance.
All right, you can't hide in a little town like this.

Speaker 9 (01:07:04):
You know.

Speaker 33 (01:07:04):
I'm phoning the bank examiner now, And that's very much
about twisting the nights. You will find a lot of
functioning psychopaths in very senior positions of multinational corporations, banks

(01:07:25):
and so forth, because, quite frankly, if you can't walk
in another person's shoes, it is quite easy to make
decisions that you know will create a profit but fundamentally
destroy a significant number of your employees.

Speaker 8 (01:07:47):
And of course, the relevant phrase to use.

Speaker 33 (01:07:50):
Is that you don't mind making people unemployed on Christmas
Eve because you don't care about them. I'm clearly on
the side I want to live in the Bedford Falls.
I don't want to live in a pulsous bell.

Speaker 29 (01:08:08):
George Bailey was never born. Visit Savegeorge Bailey dot com
to join the mission. There you'll find links to works
by this episode's participants. Learn more about how to celebrate
George Bailey Day on Saturday, December ninth, and annually the
second Saturday of December hereafter by hosting your own Wonderful
Life viewing party. Tell your friends to listen to this show, subscribe, like, comment,

(01:08:31):
and post about it on social media hashtags Save George Bailey.
Subscribe to our patreon to hear uncut interviews and bonus
content podcasts also available on YouTube. iHeartMedia presents a double
Asterisk iHeartMedia co production in association with True Stories created,
written and directed by Joseph kurt Angfer and Renovashwski. Kurt

(01:08:54):
Angfer producer and supervising editor, Renoviashlski, producer and journalist, Elizabeth Marcus, editor,
Roy Sillings narrator George Bailey. Theme song by Carolyn Sills
Buyer albums soundtrack composed by Zachary Walter by his Albums
and the original soundtrack to this podcast available wherever you
get your music. Mallory Kenoy, co producer, writer's assistant, archival

(01:09:19):
producer and fact checker. John Autry sound engineer, additional editing,
sound design and mix. Executive producers Dave Cassidy, Kurt Angfer,
Lindsay Hoffman and Bethan Macaluso for iHeartMedia, John Duffy for
Double Asterisk, Ruth Vaka for True Stories, Reyno Voshewsky for
Double Asterisk and True Stories, Elizabeth Hankosch Associate producer, Brandon

(01:09:43):
Lavoy and Ryan Pennington. Consulting producers Keith Sklar, Contract Legal,
Peter Yazi Copyright and Fair Use Legal Mattie Akers, archival
specialist Ron Kaddition, Benji Michaels, publicists Kavasanthanam and Marley Weaver
Marketing and promotions. Art and web designed by Aaron Kim.

(01:10:03):
Interns were Kyra Gray, Emma Ramirez, Eva Stewart, and Tia Wilson.
Podcast license for Philip Van Doren Stearns The Greatest Gift
provided by the Greatest Gift Corporation. Their attorney is Kevin Koloff.
Recorded at David Weber's Airtime Studios in Bloomington, Indiana. This
episode featured in chronological order, dom Nero, Wendell Jamison, John Flynn,

(01:10:26):
Gary Camilla, Tom Mullen, John Noakes, Walt Whitman, Odettes, Larry Tye,
Natalie Harp, Kelly Stewart, Harcourt, Glen O'Leary, Michael Buffy, Beaton,
Jeff Quagenti, Corey Turner, and David Wilson featuring Kateman Roe
in the cast of Wonderful Life and the brief voices,
music and artistry of a who's who of Hollywood and
the news media via clips used under the still existing

(01:10:48):
legal doctrine of fair use. The Potters are working on
that one, though some original reporting by Wendell Jamison. For
this episode, the voice of Richard Hood, the FBI Special Agent,
was performed by former FBI agent Mark Rassini, based on
government memos written by Richard Hood. The voice of a
news article that first revealed Reagan as an FBI and
foreman in Hollywood was performed by Matthew Reardon voicing an

(01:11:11):
original article written by Scott Harehold.

Speaker 8 (01:11:13):
For the San Jose Mercury News.

Speaker 29 (01:11:16):
If you're in Haveril, Massachusetts, stop buy the comic book Palace.
Go to Double Asteriskmedia dot com to hear are other
limited run podcasts, Who is rich Blee After the Uprising
with a Bold new season in Saint Louis coming Summer
twenty twenty four and Origins Birth of a Pandemic, and
subscribe to True Stories New Weekly. Everybody Has a Podcast

(01:11:38):
with Ruth and Ray. If you were feeling like you're
on the bridge, please call the AFSP's Suicide and Crisis
Lifeline by dialing nine to eight eight into your phone,
or contact the crisis text line by texting seven four
to one dash seven four to one. Consider donating to
our volunteering with AFSP or your local Habitat for Humanity

(01:11:59):
and make George Bailey proud. We're not affiliated with them though.
Copyright twenty twenty three double asterisk ink, Mary Pray