Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this special holiday episode
Speaker 1: of Guys, the production of iHeart Radio. This is the
Speaker 1: podcast where we take a deep dive into American shared consciousness,
Speaker 1: and for the holidays, we like to take a deep
Speaker 1: dive into America's shared Christmas spirit.
Speaker 2: The Christmas Geist. Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm joined as always by my co host, mister.
Speaker 2: Miles graund Oh, all right, thanks for having me on, Jack.
Speaker 1: I can't do it.
Speaker 2: It's just domb part of I got to move.
Speaker 1: My shoulders and watching is worse than hearing to get
Speaker 1: into Jimmy Stewart.
Speaker 3: You at home or missing something he's having Jimmy Stewart seizure.
Speaker 2: Vocal stem right now, new vocal.
Speaker 3: Stem Christmas seizure.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, let me just be it. That's called the
Speaker 1: Christmas Spirit. Chris, for this special series of two holiday episodes,
Speaker 1: were calling Christmas blind spots. We've got a hilarious stand
Speaker 1: up comedian, actor, musician, one of the very faces on
Speaker 1: mounta Zeite Moore.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you can listen to his podcast.
Speaker 1: Colebrew got me like anywhere the poetry window was open
Speaker 1: because it's Chris, motherfucking craft up. Che Che, what's up? Hello, happening, Chris.
Speaker 3: Oh, just getting ready to talk about this movie, which
Speaker 3: I forgot a lot of.
Speaker 1: Hey, Chris, for the for the poetry window, could you
Speaker 1: just like riff a poem about how it twas the
Speaker 1: night before Christmas?
Speaker 2: Before me?
Speaker 3: Real quick, twas the night before Christmas and all through
Speaker 3: the house?
Speaker 1: Oh ship, this is good right away?
Speaker 3: I can't think I got a ship?
Speaker 2: What else? What else?
Speaker 1: That poem was actually originally in a cipher that was
Speaker 1: it came up with it off off the dome. They
Speaker 1: went freestyle, a rap battle, a rat battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So for the first episode of this series, Chris, I'd
Speaker 1: never seen Home Alone, so we came in. Chris watched
Speaker 1: Home Alone, and then we got his initial impressions of
Speaker 1: the film that were better than my impressions of the
Speaker 1: film because I've seen it so many times. It was
Speaker 1: like burned into the fucking back of my brain, you know.
Speaker 3: You know, I thought I'd seen more of that movie
Speaker 3: than I had. You know, over the years, there's so
Speaker 3: many clips of it, but then it turns out I
Speaker 3: really never saw most of that movie. I kind of
Speaker 3: thought I must have seen it in pieces or something, but.
Speaker 1: I had the exact same experience of this movie. I
Speaker 1: was so that this time we're doing a movie that
Speaker 1: is a blind spot for Miles and I. It's a
Speaker 1: wonderful life of a holiday classic that every time I've
Speaker 1: ever told somebody I hadn't seen it, they were like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is that starts shaking me about the
Speaker 1: shoulders and neck?
Speaker 2: What are your parents not white? Is what I heard.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just i'd never had But I thought one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons I hadn't seen it white another reason.
Speaker 2: So I think it's just a black and white reason
Speaker 2: I have. It's no, no, no, it's just black and white. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: When choosing between there there's plenty of holiday movies I
Speaker 1: haven't seen, and uh yeah, I'd rather go with one
Speaker 1: that's colorful and cheerfully.
Speaker 2: I think it's to Chris's point about Home alone, it's
Speaker 2: like I want something that's societal value when its like
Speaker 2: I need to melt away. And I think also as
Speaker 2: a kid, when this is always on, I considered black
Speaker 2: and white movies homework. I b no, this is homework.
Speaker 2: This is not enjoyable because like I have to pretend
Speaker 2: it's in color. I can't do that, very child.
Speaker 1: That's not something I'm proud of. It's not something no,
Speaker 1: get on board with this ship, So like why am
Speaker 1: I on trial here now? And then the other reason
Speaker 1: is I thought I knew what the movie was about.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2: What a wonderful life.
Speaker 1: I assumed it open and with him on the bridge,
Speaker 1: that's what I thought was going to be happy. Oh
Speaker 1: and that shit takes a while, but I will say
Speaker 1: I was like pleasantly surprised by some of the shit
Speaker 1: in here, like the the uh accuracy of the snapshot
Speaker 1: of like how capitalism works. In this movie I thought
Speaker 1: was more realistic than any like mainstream pop culture classic
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of, where it's just like, man, this
Speaker 1: shit will drive you crazy on purpose, relentlessly, it will
Speaker 1: grind you down. And the first hour of the movie
Speaker 1: is much more of like watching somebody just be ground
Speaker 1: down by the forces of capital. Then I was expecting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's how long is the movie again? It's uh fifty
Speaker 1: to ten, actually to ten, yeah, to ten. And it's
Speaker 1: not until it w an hour and forty minutes in
Speaker 1: that you start to be like, oh, the movie is
Speaker 1: actually going.
Speaker 2: In another direction. Oh this is the one. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: whole time I was.
Speaker 1: My first note was why is everyone so worried about
Speaker 1: George Bailey. Sounds like he's a pretty fucked up dude.
Speaker 1: Everyone's just praying for you as a bad sign. Like again,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what this movie was about. I
Speaker 1: just know Jimmy Stewart in the end, he's like holding
Speaker 1: a little girl by a Christmas tree. Those are the
Speaker 1: only snapshots I have of the movie. Is like the
Speaker 1: end like sort of frame.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see it. I've seen it a bunch of times.
Speaker 3: And I thought the angel gave him three wishes or something.
Speaker 3: I had no id I totally turn out. I remember nothing.
Speaker 3: I remember nothing about anything. I thought he was on
Speaker 3: a bridge and the angel gave him three wishes and
Speaker 3: he wished for to nice or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought it was all gonna be flashback, you know,
Speaker 1: which I guess it kind of is. But instead of
Speaker 1: like having it be like I'm George Bailey and I
Speaker 1: bet you're wondering how I got here, about to jump
Speaker 1: off a bridge and kill myself? Help, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and then flashback instead of showing that, it just shows
Speaker 1: a bunch of people praying for George Bailey, and then
Speaker 1: some stars talking to each other for like a weirdly
Speaker 1: long period.
Speaker 2: I'm Joseph the Human Father of Jesus because like I feel,
Speaker 2: at one point someone says something about Jesus Mary and
Speaker 2: Joseph help him or something.
Speaker 1: It's just assuming a lot of biblical knowledge on a
Speaker 1: modern viewer's part that I don't think is quite I mean,
Speaker 1: you got you gotta be like give me Joseph's last
Speaker 1: name here, like Joseph of Father Jesus or or you know,
Speaker 1: like I would have thought like Saint Peter or somebody
Speaker 1: like that, because my knowledge of like how Christian heaven
Speaker 1: works is based on very very old memories and just
Speaker 1: like New Yorker cartoons, where like it's always Saint Peter
Speaker 1: at the Pearly Gates.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Who directed this movie?
Speaker 2: Capra?
Speaker 3: Right, So it's like I think it's it's pretty pretty
Speaker 3: damn good. And I think Frank Capra, you know, he
Speaker 3: must have had his reputation for some reason. You know,
Speaker 3: everybody talks about Frank Capra, you know, or at least everybody.
Speaker 3: Everybody everyone's talking about this Frank film. People talk about
Speaker 3: Frank Capra, you know up there with like talking about
Speaker 3: Capra the Greats. You know. So, like this movie is
Speaker 3: pretty pretty good, you know in terms of like it's
Speaker 3: pretty fun the way they structured it, like in the
Speaker 3: way they also the like even the stars talking to
Speaker 3: each other. I mean, it's some primitive special effects, I mean,
Speaker 3: but it kind of works.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like because they're illuminum oil hanging off of a
Speaker 3: fishing line.
Speaker 1: Yea with make it light up a little bit. When
Speaker 1: that's the one that's talking right now.
Speaker 3: I'd rather say that than Vin Diesel. I don't know why.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like somehow like seeing something like that
Speaker 3: like makes me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm a little bit fucked up. But I'd rather
Speaker 1: see this than Vin Diesel.
Speaker 3: But yeah, those are the two only two choices too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what it feels like. That's how I feel like
Speaker 3: in capitalism, it's either like black and white or Vin Diesel.
Speaker 3: I'll take black and white. And I used to think
Speaker 3: black and white was like suck too, Like if I
Speaker 3: saw black and white, I thought snoozefest right, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, like because I went to fucking school and
Speaker 3: like tried to be whatever I want to. Took a
Speaker 3: film class and they showed you like Battleship Attempkin, which
Speaker 3: is about some baby carriage going down the staircase, which
Speaker 3: was like rocked everybody's world.
Speaker 2: Like in nineteen twelve from the naked Gun opening scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah like what yeah, oh yeah they that was supposed
Speaker 3: to be like ill nerds who watched it.
Speaker 1: I was three references because thats yeah, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I think it was Naked Gun thirty black.
Speaker 3: And white with like yeah, like okay, like this is
Speaker 3: back when an action sequence man was was was boring,
Speaker 3: you know, like a baby carriage going downstairs like apparently
Speaker 3: Russia went crazy, Like you gotta see this.
Speaker 2: This is like a this thing is crazy.
Speaker 1: That's another one where the baby carriage going down the
Speaker 1: stairs is like five seconds in the middle of this
Speaker 1: hour long film. But I was like, oh, the one
Speaker 1: the baby carriage better be there at the beginning middle and.
Speaker 3: The cabinet of doctor Caligari or yeah, Metropolis or whatever.
Speaker 3: They're fine. But but I didn't realize for a long
Speaker 3: time that there are some black and white movies that
Speaker 3: are worth seeing. I really action packed directors that just
Speaker 3: happened to be around when that was like what they
Speaker 3: were doing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'd say, I don't know, I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit fucking weird. But I like this movie Citizen Kane, right,
Speaker 1: that one does hold up like that. That is one
Speaker 1: where you like watch it and you're like, this just
Speaker 1: feels like it was shy yesterday.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I was wrong about this.
Speaker 2: I found out.
Speaker 3: I mean I wrote a whole column about how you
Speaker 3: don't want to you know, I won't go on a
Speaker 3: date if it's a black and white movie or some
Speaker 3: shit like that. And it turns out that like A
Speaker 3: Face in the Crowd, that movie A Face in the
Speaker 3: Crowd directed by Elia Kazan, that movie is like so
Speaker 3: fucking awesome and modern and incredible, And that's the one
Speaker 3: that like turned me like, holy crap, am I stupid?
Speaker 3: Like this movie's unbelievable. Talks about Trump basically, you know,
Speaker 3: or that phenomenon of an egomaniac taking over the country,
Speaker 3: and it's just in black and white. But just go
Speaker 3: see that movie if you like this movie, if you
Speaker 3: think that's something, Yeah, you like these guys talking about values,
Speaker 3: you wait till you see this movie about this.
Speaker 2: Chris Andy Griffin, how often did you see this movie.
Speaker 2: It's a wonderful, wonderful.
Speaker 3: I thought I'd seen it like almost like every year
Speaker 3: for a while.
Speaker 2: I thought it was like, but were you tuning in,
Speaker 2: Like I know it's a tradition on American broadcast.
Speaker 3: I must not have seen it that many times, because
Speaker 3: I really did think the beginning was like the Bridge,
Speaker 3: same kind of thing with Jack, Like I thought it
Speaker 3: was like the angel was involved from the beginning. I
Speaker 3: thought the I thought it was like a modern Ebenezer
Speaker 3: Scrooge type thing, like were they take him around the
Speaker 3: whole movie? Was I thought was that I didn't realize
Speaker 3: the movie was like an anti Capitol hour and a
Speaker 3: half with just like some you know, some fun stuff
Speaker 3: at the end for like the kids, Yeah, some value stuff,
Speaker 3: but mostly it's a really yeah, it's a really understandable
Speaker 3: critique of capitalism, which I did not remember, which, of
Speaker 3: course I didn't. I saw it when as a kid,
Speaker 3: mostly and you're not gonna remember that part. That part's
Speaker 3: the worst part.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of emotional nuance that I feel like
Speaker 2: if I saw this as a kid, I'd be like,
Speaker 2: this movie sucks, But as watching it now, I'm like, God,
Speaker 2: damn like it was. The movie is so heavy to start.
Speaker 2: I was almost like this is a lot. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it in the context of the forties
Speaker 2: or whatever when it was made, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is probably like this is like laugh out loud fun.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, yeah, I think I saw the sound
Speaker 2: yeah right, right right.
Speaker 3: I think I saw the Sound of Music more times,
Speaker 3: Like I think that was more like our family thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like then it's a wonderful life. I think we watched
Speaker 3: Sound of Music over and over again.
Speaker 1: Brandon editor is pointing out that there's a classic Tom
Speaker 1: and Jerry episode that is based on this where the
Speaker 1: cat is like once to kill himself and then like
Speaker 1: gets saved by it and all sorts of wild shit.
Speaker 1: I was and like, I think that is that's the
Speaker 1: version of it that exists. Is like guy on Bridge
Speaker 1: Angel visits, shows him his life without yeah, uh, shows
Speaker 1: him the life without it, but it yeah, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen until fairly late in the movie. Just a
Speaker 1: little bit of background that I didn't know just looking
Speaker 1: briefly into it is that this movie fucking tanked at
Speaker 1: the box office when it came out. It like did
Speaker 1: not do well, and then it was just like cheap
Speaker 1: to put on TV, and they just put it on
Speaker 1: TV every year and it just slowly by slowly, like
Speaker 1: it was nominated for an Oscar. It wasn't like a
Speaker 1: movie that like didn't exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah it didn't. It just didn't didn't go see it.
Speaker 1: And then just by putting it on TV, which is
Speaker 1: like a new technology at the time, they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess we we like this now. It was sort
Speaker 1: of like to America what Home Alone is to Romania.
Speaker 1: As we covered in the last episode, Yes, were the
Speaker 1: show at every Christmas Eve.
Speaker 3: How I was probably trying to think of like my
Speaker 3: next joke or something, So we talked about that last time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was Ania and poland boat. Home Alone is
Speaker 1: what we talked about last time. I'm like, mister President,
Speaker 1: are you okay, sir?
Speaker 3: No, No, I just met that part. I like the
Speaker 3: way certain things are popular like in only some countries.
Speaker 3: Like there's a song called Boys Do Fall in Love
Speaker 3: by Robin Gibb and it didn't charge anywhere except it
Speaker 3: like went to like number one in Italy or something
Speaker 3: in like nineteen seventy six, and it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like Italy had some had some screw loose for
Speaker 3: that song.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Should we do the little rock through like we did
Speaker 2: with Home Alone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like happening in the movie and our impressions
Speaker 1: as it goes by. So you covered the opening, the
Speaker 1: opening where it's like we see the Earth. We hadn't
Speaker 1: been to space yet, so it kind of looks like shit,
Speaker 1: the version of the Earth. They're like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it probably looks like a big ball of like Gumby,
Speaker 1: Like Gumby was smashed into a ball. And we see
Speaker 1: prayers coming out of the earth, and then the angels
Speaker 1: are the stars and the bones are their money, and
Speaker 1: they're they're talking to each other and they're like, we
Speaker 1: we need to help this guy George, because he were
Speaker 1: praying for him and the other guys like, well, what's
Speaker 1: his deal? And he's like, well, journey with me, won't
Speaker 1: you and takes him back to see some scenes from
Speaker 1: his childhood at first where what's that?
Speaker 2: So the flashback to the childhood. I was so jealous
Speaker 2: and frightened at the same time because my one of
Speaker 2: my first and I was like, damn, look how much
Speaker 2: fun these kids are having on a shovel yes, the shovel.
Speaker 1: The shovels led on a shovel.
Speaker 2: And the set looked like they act there was maybe
Speaker 2: that shit looked like ice, like that they had that
Speaker 2: they were actually sliding on. I was so into the
Speaker 2: production value of that Winter Sing was like, okay, was
Speaker 2: this a sound stage? And then I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is at RKO Studios is where they actually shot this. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, his brother Harry falls in, he saves them,
Speaker 2: and it causes like just hearing loss in his left ear.
Speaker 1: He loses the ability to hear in his left ear,
Speaker 1: which is going to become important later when World War
Speaker 1: two happened exactly exactly because.
Speaker 2: They like people who can hear war in stereo. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, then, like, there's just another moment that I
Speaker 2: liked to how like him and all his friends like
Speaker 2: walking him to his after school job. I'm like, motherfucker
Speaker 2: ten years old. Yeah, and they're like, all right, man,
Speaker 2: get your ass in there. Time to go to work.
Speaker 1: At a druggist.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mister hours hammered both within the story and the actor
Speaker 1: is hammered apparently while making this always actually so he
Speaker 1: is accidentally poisoning people with the drugs that he's providing them,
Speaker 1: and uh, Jimmy Stewart George Bailey as a child is like,
Speaker 1: I think you're I didn't really follow how this all
Speaker 1: came together, like a hard time. Yeah, he figured out
Speaker 1: that it was because.
Speaker 2: He watched he watched him bag it up. He watched
Speaker 2: him bag up the capsules and he saw the big
Speaker 2: skull and crossbones John. He's like, wait, bro, what the fuck?
Speaker 1: And so he tells the druggist, Hey, you just like
Speaker 1: poison that kid, and the druggist just starts beating the
Speaker 1: ship out of him, which apparently was not fake. The
Speaker 1: druggist was actually drunk and slapped that kid so much
Speaker 1: as ears started to bleed.
Speaker 2: Yeah that really, are you serious? Wikipedia, Yeah, yeah, that kids.
Speaker 2: He really was smacking the ship out of that kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was really smacking him. And then uh, the
Speaker 1: it's like the nineteen forties version of like a happy
Speaker 1: ending for a child actor. He then hugged him after
Speaker 1: the scene, so it was like, cool, wait, so.
Speaker 2: How did his ear start? What the fuck happened? His
Speaker 2: ear was?
Speaker 1: He was his ear was leading Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: And then yeah to people on the set and who
Speaker 1: knows if they were just throwing this actor under the
Speaker 1: bus too.
Speaker 3: Well, that actor was like playing that his son had
Speaker 3: just passed away, right, that was the idea, Like his
Speaker 3: son had passed away, and the idea was normally this
Speaker 3: guy was a nice guy, this druggist, and he was
Speaker 3: just having a bad day, was the idea. Right, He
Speaker 3: just was like his son died, and so the what
Speaker 3: are you gonna do if your son dies except for
Speaker 3: slap the ship out of his dog?
Speaker 2: Boy, yeah exactly, and then poison a lady who has
Speaker 2: dip theory or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean everyone knows what happens when
Speaker 3: druggists grieve.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, Oh I'm poisoning him.
Speaker 3: Put on a helmet. Don't take any of your pills.
Speaker 2: The one thing that I thought was very old timing
Speaker 2: and dog died was when I think it was Mary.
Speaker 2: He was given some ice cream too, and he's like,
Speaker 2: you don't do you want coconuts? And he's like, you
Speaker 2: don't know where coconuts are from?
Speaker 1: And my boy little George pulled out a full on
Speaker 1: Nat Geo magazine from his pocket like it was a smartphone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you had back then that's my childhood too,
Speaker 1: pulling a magazine out and I'm like, there, you you
Speaker 1: don't understand.
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding.
Speaker 2: No, I mean I definitely had I mean I was
Speaker 2: carrying around Slam magazine, the Source double XL, Like, I
Speaker 2: definitely had things like that in my back. But I
Speaker 2: just love the idea of like how he's like, within
Speaker 2: my pocket, I have this magazine with information about coconuts.
Speaker 2: There's just so many of these sort of bygone era
Speaker 2: things that I was these are really nice textures that
Speaker 2: I'm like, we've lost touch with humanity completely.
Speaker 1: And the coconut was like this exotic thing to them.
Speaker 1: It was like want to try coconut.
Speaker 2: Mary?
Speaker 3: Because they were starting from square one. They fucking wiped
Speaker 3: out the Native Americans who could have told them all
Speaker 3: about coconuts, probably, except they were starting from the scratch,
Speaker 3: Like what I discovered, yeah exactly, Yeah, have you heard
Speaker 3: about porn?
Speaker 1: Would be great if he tried to pass it off
Speaker 1: as his own discovery.
Speaker 3: I mean it really was like it was like, that's
Speaker 3: why white people are so out of controls because they
Speaker 3: think that, Yeah, like they started with this clean slate
Speaker 3: that was artificially cleaned by them.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, they're like, let's start the slate now, yeah,
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: Just like when they're already rich and you want to
Speaker 3: You're like, now, now everybody should be able to fend
Speaker 3: a marriage.
Speaker 1: Now yeah yeah, yeah, true truly, like they wrote out
Speaker 1: of history the fact that everybody had just died from
Speaker 1: the plague. They were like, it's it's amazing, like America
Speaker 1: has these had avenues in the middle of the forest
Speaker 1: just naturally, Like uh no, you're walking through a post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic city right now. It's amazing. Like we we pulled
Speaker 1: up to Plymouth Rock and there were all these houses
Speaker 1: with like dishware, They're just like there for us to use.
Speaker 1: It was so cool of God to do that for us.
Speaker 3: All this imagine like a black like because the people
Speaker 3: in this movie that are black are well there's very
Speaker 3: barely any at all, and there are all certain things
Speaker 3: and they have to listen to these kids lecture about
Speaker 3: coconuts from like their fucking home country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was like, are you listening, Like, yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: know if there's anything worth listening to. I know she
Speaker 2: was giving but then but then, but then Harry was
Speaker 2: smacking Annie's ass. I'm like this is all the fucking
Speaker 2: mess y'all. I was so mad that fucking Annie was
Speaker 2: giving this motherfucker her money. At the end, I was like,
Speaker 2: do not give George Bailey your money.
Speaker 3: And that's true.
Speaker 1: I thought that there was another there was another black
Speaker 1: woman too who like when every even when she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is Freez, I'm like, no, this girl not for
Speaker 1: fucking man's plains.
Speaker 3: That guy man's plains. Coconuts.
Speaker 1: I remind you, remind me to tell you where licorice
Speaker 1: comes from. Oh you're gonna believe this, but apparently there's
Speaker 1: a tree called the rubber tree. Mary, there's sugar as
Speaker 1: a cane. All right, let's take a quick break and yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 1: So uh cut cut forward to high school and this is.
Speaker 2: The weirdest depiction of high school, A good.
Speaker 1: Early example of some ship we would be doing to
Speaker 1: this day, where they got someone who's forty playing eighteen.
Speaker 2: I think he's supposed to be right, Harry's graduating high
Speaker 2: school in that scene. Yea his little brother yeah yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 1: His brother is I thought he was about to go
Speaker 1: off to college.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, But all so, if you Remember there's also
Speaker 2: that that big party that starts off is Harry's going
Speaker 2: to his high school gradus his younger brother. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: so he's like twenty then, Yeah, yeah, he's just a
Speaker 2: little bit older. Yeah he's he's.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the first time we get James
Speaker 1: Stewart playing the role who is thirty eight when this
Speaker 1: movie's made, playing serious, yeah, playing twenty playing twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, is this because everybody back then looked
Speaker 1: like shit or like drinking and spoken all the time,
Speaker 1: Like is this just what like twenty year olds looked like?
Speaker 1: But now he was thirty eight when when they made this,
Speaker 1: this was after the war, and apparently like he and
Speaker 1: Peter Fonda couldn't find work for some reason. So he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, heck ca, you'll do your movie.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: This is also where he's he's talking about how he
Speaker 1: has big dreams to get out of this Yeah one
Speaker 1: one horse town. Yea, and at one point utters the line,
Speaker 1: I feel.
Speaker 2: Like, if I didn't get away, i'd bust.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 2: He can bust at home, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: That's right, he does.
Speaker 1: He can. He can ultimately bust at home.
Speaker 2: You can bust where I want anytime.
Speaker 3: You could say that at any time back then, you know,
Speaker 3: you could say you want to bust, You're about to
Speaker 3: bust nobody, I'm about to bust.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's like I know, yeah, well, like because this
Speaker 1: is like the theme with George is that he has
Speaker 1: these dreams of seeing the world, but at every moment
Speaker 1: he has to sort of seize that moment.
Speaker 2: He takes the road to sort of choose stability, to
Speaker 2: choose what's better for the group than the individual. So
Speaker 2: the first one is his dad dies of a stroke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, is he's about to go away?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like truly he's like, all right, I'm off to
Speaker 2: what dad? And then you got this asshole mister Potter
Speaker 2: in here and be like, I want to dissolve the
Speaker 2: fucking company. Interesting fact, I didn't realize that guy is
Speaker 2: like Drew Barrymore is like great grandfather Barrymore, the guy
Speaker 2: who plays like mister Potter. Oh is that John Barrymore,
Speaker 2: That Lionel Barry.
Speaker 3: Lionel Barry.
Speaker 2: You're going further back. We're going further back in Acting Dynasty.
Speaker 1: So Mary goes away to college, his brother goes away
Speaker 1: to college, he stays back.
Speaker 3: Just run to run the building and love. So his
Speaker 3: dad owns this runs this building and loan, which is like,
Speaker 3: I don't even know, you know, I know so little
Speaker 3: about economics that I even this was like hard just
Speaker 3: even the basics of this movie trying to explain a
Speaker 3: building and loan. But it's some kind of community owned bank.
Speaker 3: So anyway, he stays in town because his dad dies,
Speaker 3: and so he stays to run the building and loan,
Speaker 3: even though he wanted to go look for coconuts.
Speaker 2: Right, And also he gives all of his touch like
Speaker 2: college money to his brother. He's sort of like, hey man,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to sit back and like hold down
Speaker 2: the family business. You go and get an education and
Speaker 2: you go do your thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's out into the world and bust for the
Speaker 1: both of us.
Speaker 3: He's the opposite of every person alive now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he is a good man.
Speaker 1: He is a good speaking of like the level of
Speaker 1: biblical literacy of the people then compared to now, they're
Speaker 1: like I was reading about the casting of James Stewart
Speaker 1: and Frank Capra was like, you know, I was like
Speaker 1: thinking about who would be the best person to play
Speaker 1: a good sam. I was like, good Sam, and he
Speaker 1: was using that for short for good because they were
Speaker 1: talking so much about good Samaritans and other like biblical
Speaker 1: figures that they have, like shorthand for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like if you said recommendation, they'd be like, what
Speaker 2: what the hell did you just say? Good Sam? What
Speaker 2: that guy's bats? So yeah, he's says, Harry, you go
Speaker 2: live a life, and the agreement being look, bro, you
Speaker 2: go get educated.
Speaker 1: When you come back, I have to get the fuck
Speaker 1: out of here. Okay, like I have to get the
Speaker 1: fuck you will run that. He's like, yeah, run the business.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't worry. And then Harry comes back to
Speaker 1: married Yeah, with the job from his new father in law.
Speaker 1: George now resigns himself to running the building and Loan
Speaker 1: and George and Mary begin to rekindle their relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah in a in a scene.
Speaker 1: So he's like, what a lot of his big moments
Speaker 1: come from just like drunkenly wandering around the town. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he's like drunken wanders over to his future wife's
Speaker 1: house and it's an interesting so like it's a time
Speaker 1: of like weird morality around like kissing and sex. Like
Speaker 1: the it's much looser when it comes to being able
Speaker 1: to criticize capitalism, I guess. But the movie takes place
Speaker 1: in an alternate universe where kissing like hasn't been invented yet,
Speaker 1: so they like push their faces together, like do you do.
Speaker 3: A face kissing? Yeah, but they're just like like at
Speaker 3: first kiss, you kiss first, you kiss like someone's cheeks
Speaker 3: like six times, and then you move over to the mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think gets you arrested.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like starting much grosser than just like kissing.
Speaker 3: Up with someone, start kissing their head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like so they are while they have this moment
Speaker 1: where they're like fighting and then they're like getting together
Speaker 1: and then like yeah, they just like do this like
Speaker 1: animalistic like hug where he's like starts kissing like the
Speaker 1: side of her eye and like her forehead and then
Speaker 1: like moves down to her mouth.
Speaker 2: And I wrote my note was what in the Jim
Speaker 2: Crow was that kissing style? Because it was like but
Speaker 2: also there was a moment when her mother is like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing down there? Marriage's like having violent sex. Mother,
Speaker 2: I think she said violent. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I must have got their attention.
Speaker 1: I must have gotten Hayes's attention Haze code Yo.
Speaker 3: But that scene, I will say, the scene where they're
Speaker 3: on the phone together, you know, and the kissing like
Speaker 3: they're on the same phone, one of those phones you
Speaker 3: got a hold two parts. Oh yeah, one part goes
Speaker 3: up against your ear and the other part you hold
Speaker 3: and talking to That scene made me cry because I
Speaker 3: thought it was It was so kind of like I
Speaker 3: really thought it was effective, like the two of them
Speaker 3: like being in love with each other, but they she
Speaker 3: was like with somebody.
Speaker 2: You know, it was on the phone.
Speaker 3: I just maybe cry, You're not trying to steal my girl,
Speaker 3: are you. It was just sort of like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I thought it was fun that they dwelled on that,
Speaker 3: aside from like, yeah, like being like why are you
Speaker 3: kissing in the back of her head or whatever?
Speaker 1: Before before before it looks like they're making up kissing.
Speaker 1: Like if I had to, if I had to guess,
Speaker 1: like the first time someone kissed someone for like the
Speaker 1: when it was invented, probably looked like that, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was just like, I don't know what if
Speaker 1: we did this, it was probably some form of eating, right,
Speaker 1: like I'm eating your face? Yeah, and someone was like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that leaves marks that scene. For me, I had a
Speaker 1: different reaction. I felt like if I didn't get away
Speaker 1: from that scene, I would I'd bust.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 3: I seriously I was crying because I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, probably because I'm having a nervous breakdown, but
Speaker 3: but I just there's something about it was romantic to me,
Speaker 3: just like the idea of that mark.
Speaker 2: I thought it was there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: George trying to get the other Wayne Wright or what
Speaker 2: was the guy's name was? That guy's not named George, right,
Speaker 2: whatever his the other guy? They're crazy, dude say.
Speaker 1: I was like, Zam the rich yeah guy, the guy
Speaker 1: I need all your money, George, I tell you right now,
Speaker 1: this is the next big thing.
Speaker 2: And he was like getting into plastics. I was like, hey, George,
Speaker 2: you know that he's not fucking lying. You know you
Speaker 2: better get in plastics.
Speaker 3: The nice guy needs to borrow money is the message
Speaker 3: of this movie, sadly, and I'm living it.
Speaker 1: Wasn't there also a bean's this story where like somebody
Speaker 1: was going to a bean factory or something. I feel
Speaker 1: like it was just kind of funny. It was like
Speaker 1: everything was just being discovered for the first time. I
Speaker 1: thought there was like a bean thing, a bean subplot.
Speaker 3: Maybe that was another opportunity he had to make money.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's where it's get rich.
Speaker 2: Was going.
Speaker 1: So he was going to like work for his well
Speaker 1: father in law's bean.
Speaker 2: No, he was because he's really good at research. That's
Speaker 2: what it was. He's doing research for her father's company.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna touch now, but it has a good future.
Speaker 3: That was what the beans.
Speaker 1: I thought there were beans in the goddamn movie. They're crazy,
Speaker 1: but he did.
Speaker 3: I will say also, like the reason why that thirty
Speaker 3: eight year old thing isn't it works because I think
Speaker 3: the other actor is thirty eight too. They look aged appropriate.
Speaker 2: She was like twenty five or something.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they've all looked older than death. I looked
Speaker 3: older than eighteen or whatever.
Speaker 2: This is when you're also like years old. Damn. This
Speaker 2: is what like lead and pollution and all these other
Speaker 2: things and like child labor due to a person's face
Speaker 2: at that age. We were like, fuck, bro, I thought
Speaker 2: you were forty eight.
Speaker 3: Somehow they were saner than us. They all knew the
Speaker 3: Nazis were bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that, we need more.
Speaker 3: We need to put lead back in gasoline so we can.
Speaker 2: All So we got enough fucking violent streaking and stuff.
Speaker 2: I should all start.
Speaker 3: Smoking again immediately so we can be nice.
Speaker 2: The one thing that was really funny was before he
Speaker 2: goes drunkenly over to Mary's house. Is when he sees
Speaker 2: Violet in the street and she's like, oh, hold on, Fellows,
Speaker 2: I think I got a date, and that one guy's like,
Speaker 2: we'll be waiting for your baby. I was like, I've
Speaker 2: heard that as like a non sequitor a lot, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, god, so much, Like I realize how influential
Speaker 2: this film is because I have friends who say that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is they they're funny baby, yeah,
Speaker 2: waiting for your baby. But then Violet, she's just trying
Speaker 2: to hook up with George in that scene and he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I got an idea of Violet, why don't we go
Speaker 2: up to the mountains to take our shoes off? And
Speaker 2: well and she's like, bro, what the fuck? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was just that was his fault. They made
Speaker 3: that seem like she was the weird one. He was
Speaker 3: the one who was.
Speaker 1: The first part of all the times George fumbles the bag.
Speaker 2: All right, George, you're scaring the hose. George, you were
Speaker 2: scaring the hose.
Speaker 1: Scaring these fumbling the score board.
Speaker 3: You need a scoreboard behind Jack with the how anytime bumbles.
Speaker 1: The guy from the movie Plastic could have gone in
Speaker 1: plastics at a time he would have been fucking making bills.
Speaker 2: Okay, you could have them. You could have owned the
Speaker 2: first Lambo brodang, both.
Speaker 1: Of those chicks. Ding yeah, Fumble says something weird about
Speaker 1: running through the fucking grass. Be talking about touch grass.
Speaker 1: Fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: There was So then they get married, right, there's a
Speaker 2: kind of a smash cut. They're getting married. They're about
Speaker 2: to go on their hose. See the smash cut of
Speaker 2: this movie.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Jesus shows and kissing. Huh
Speaker 1: m hmthing animalistic? Are you looking at someone on your phone?
Speaker 1: You're just watching the kissing. My hands are right here,
Speaker 1: My hands are I didn't ask about that. Why you
Speaker 1: only put one at.
Speaker 2: A time, like you.
Speaker 1: It's not as good in black and one. I yeah,
Speaker 1: well I don't know. I actually wouldn't know. I've never
Speaker 1: seen sex in black and white.
Speaker 3: All those porn sites wherever, like sometimes yeah, like they
Speaker 3: could yeah, turn porn, you know, or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know why vintage would. I don't know with me,
Speaker 3: I don't know why someone would google vintage porn. But
Speaker 3: if they did, there's an acceptable area like you know,
Speaker 3: like the seventies and eighties, and then there's like, you know,
Speaker 3: you don't want to see nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like dagera type pornography if possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't see that. You can't see what's what's
Speaker 3: what's happening? Really, there's too many shadows.
Speaker 1: So again another moment shows up. George is about to
Speaker 1: hebe we're gonna go everywhere. We're gonna go to Timbuctoo
Speaker 1: in Paris, the oldest shade, and they've got all this
Speaker 1: fucking cat.
Speaker 2: Saying the way you do that, you're going, You're gone,
Speaker 2: Like there's why looks he looks like an actually human.
Speaker 3: He is inhabited.
Speaker 2: You gotta throw ahead to get that, by my fucking
Speaker 2: boah god boy. So they're about to go on their honeymoon.
Speaker 2: They got all this cash, and then they look there's
Speaker 2: a fucking bank run on a bank, on his bank. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because again this is some shit with mister evil fucking
Speaker 2: potter owning the bank, calling in a loan and being like,
Speaker 2: you've got that money on you, bro, No detected, No
Speaker 2: lies detected.
Speaker 1: I mean, do they specifically say that he's waiting for
Speaker 1: him to go out of town to do to do
Speaker 1: some shit like, because that would that does seem like
Speaker 1: what would actually happen is he'd be like, all right,
Speaker 1: this motherfucker's out of our hair. Let's go. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, another moment shows up.
Speaker 2: He could have gone and drank the oldest champagne and
Speaker 2: just say, you know.
Speaker 1: What, brother, maybe the building a loan just needs to
Speaker 1: go down and I don't give a fuck about these
Speaker 1: people houses.
Speaker 2: But he did. It came back doldash.
Speaker 1: So they have their honeymoon and an old like burnt
Speaker 1: out the spooky haunted house.
Speaker 2: What are the what are the tendency then?
Speaker 1: Because it just felt like they're like, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm having this old abandoned house, honey, put up the
Speaker 1: fucking wallpaper.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like the next bit of that
Speaker 2: whole season.
Speaker 3: I was thinking they bought it, but I guess they never.
Speaker 2: Really, I'm sure they did.
Speaker 3: They did never established where they bought it, but.
Speaker 2: I guess it was yeah. Yeah, when the cops that
Speaker 2: you have your honeymoon in there, I gotta say that technology.
Speaker 2: They deployed the record player rotisserie. Did you catch that?
Speaker 2: Like the turntable, like the needle was hooked up to
Speaker 2: another cable that was rotating fucking two chickens on a rotisserie.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is this was peak technology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they couldn't get in. They couldn't go on their honeymoon.
Speaker 3: So the towns people who are they were all friends
Speaker 3: with because it was a small town, you know, really
Speaker 3: small town, and they knew everybody. So everybody knew he
Speaker 3: couldn't go on his honeymoon. So they all got together
Speaker 3: and and like turned their house into a hotel like
Speaker 3: with the with the local people pretending to be the
Speaker 3: bell boys and the concierge, and and then like you know,
Speaker 3: it was like all and that made me cry again.
Speaker 2: It was very nice because you yeah, I was also
Speaker 2: I was. There was a moment at the end. I
Speaker 2: was actually the most moved.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then whole time, Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's beating out
Speaker 2: of us till our ears bled until that last turn
Speaker 2: and then they gave us a hug, and we're like, oh, okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The movies about like this guy named Potter who's like
Speaker 3: a modern billionaire, except smaller. Back then there were just
Speaker 3: billionaires that ran towns as opposed to the whole Earth's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was doing the original work so that our
Speaker 1: billionaires could be billionaires. You know. Yes, he was consolidate.
Speaker 3: He was doing evil bootstrapping, but he ran the town
Speaker 3: in the sense that he had so much money hoarded
Speaker 3: that he could just interrupt any plans, like he could
Speaker 3: offer like when the when there was a run on
Speaker 3: the run on the bank, he just offered cash to
Speaker 3: the people who needed their money. He offered fifty cents
Speaker 3: on the dollar, and they almost took it. But he
Speaker 3: had to make it each George had to make a
Speaker 3: speech to all his neighbors and say, listen, if we
Speaker 3: if we go get our quick money from this billionaire
Speaker 3: or this millionaire in this case, this evil guy, we're
Speaker 3: gonna ruin our chances for the whole future. This is
Speaker 3: a moment we have to like side with each other
Speaker 3: and we have to like rely on each other because
Speaker 3: because if you take this easy money, there's no turning back.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's I just think that was that was
Speaker 1: one of the scenes. I knew about the run on
Speaker 1: the bank, and I thought it was like run on
Speaker 1: the bank straight to the bridge.
Speaker 2: Then we get like you really just kind of poked
Speaker 2: your head in from this movie. Yeah exactly, all right, cool, cool,
Speaker 2: and who's this guy? But so then then you kind
Speaker 2: of get George starts to kind of win because the
Speaker 2: next sort of shift you see is that he started
Speaker 2: Bailey Park. It's like a whole housing development. And then
Speaker 2: like fucking evil mister Potter's like money goons like, hey man,
Speaker 2: you should look into this Bailey Park place. You know,
Speaker 2: like there you're doing better than your fucking slums. So
Speaker 2: Potter hatches a scheme to basically I clows the building.
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, let me just give you this job
Speaker 2: offers I can shut down your building and loan operation
Speaker 2: and force people for my slum.
Speaker 1: That slow movie like it's just like very much about
Speaker 1: finance for a big stretch of this movie. It's really
Speaker 1: just like yeah, and so it's like watching someone play monopoly,
Speaker 1: where it was like all right, then he bought this
Speaker 1: and then this guy tried to buy him out, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, you have to understand is this is
Speaker 1: a leveraged buyout and he's actually gonna give him bad rates.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was around the time when I was writing in
Speaker 1: my notes, I can't believe how long it's taken to
Speaker 1: get to the attempted suicide.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh so then you get Christmas Eve and there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a heroes welcome for his brother, who was like,
Speaker 2: now a Navy Ace like fucking star. He was like,
Speaker 2: as if being a football star wasn't enough, this fucking
Speaker 2: guy prevented a Kamakazi attack and the Navy Ace and
Speaker 2: he got the fucking Medal of Honor and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: one thing. I was like, that must have been You
Speaker 2: must have been so popping if you were like a
Speaker 2: football like a college football star, then like i'mbat ace. Right.
Speaker 2: They were like, bro, this is this guy can do
Speaker 2: a fucking all. He killed He was like Charles Lindberg.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, was he a big He was the biggest
Speaker 3: celebrity in the world. That guy. He had secret families
Speaker 3: all over the world. He was the eugenics guy who
Speaker 3: he went crazy like Elon Musk and tried to have
Speaker 3: as many children as he could. Because he was like,
Speaker 3: I am of the superior race because I flew an
Speaker 3: airplane across the ocean.
Speaker 2: Oh I love it.
Speaker 3: Charles Lindberg was like, that was how he got famous
Speaker 3: back then, was like pioneer crap.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart was a decorated naval aviator military he flew
Speaker 1: missions and oh.
Speaker 2: Great, the crowds man, the do you know who's wow, Jimmy,
Speaker 2: thanks for thanks for the restraint there. Then we get
Speaker 2: to like, this is where it starts getting wobbly because
Speaker 2: uncle Billy who didn't realize, like I, I noticed late
Speaker 2: in the film that he had a pet raven.
Speaker 1: Like I was like, yeah, oh that he's got birds loose.
Speaker 1: He's got loose birds.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: That was that inspired to my old age. Just have
Speaker 1: a raven, Raven's following me around.
Speaker 2: I was reading about that raven. That raven was like
Speaker 2: in according to the handler, like over a thousand things
Speaker 2: because the raven was so like useful and could do anything.
Speaker 2: And he described that raven as being able to do
Speaker 2: anything an eight year old child could do and knew
Speaker 2: about like five hundred words to say. So, look, they
Speaker 2: didn't give that raven a speaking part what they could have.
Speaker 2: So then this uncle Billy scene, he's trying to go
Speaker 2: to the Potter's bank to drop off an eight thousand
Speaker 2: dollars bag of the building and loan's money.
Speaker 1: And there's a moment where he's like, hey, look, mister
Speaker 1: Potter Fumble number seventeen. He tries to just smear in
Speaker 1: mister Potter's face that Bailey Park is doing so well,
Speaker 1: but in the process drops the fucking eight thousand dollars
Speaker 1: bag with the fucking newspaper. He wraps it in the
Speaker 1: newspaper and then it's like, here's your fucking you think
Speaker 1: that Bailey's aren't cool, well check this out and like
Speaker 1: gives it.
Speaker 2: To him and then can't remember that he did that. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: So then he's the doddy old man who's friends with Ravens.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, exactly. Uh So, then obviously mister PBDT keeps
Speaker 2: some money. Evil piece of shit Billy can't find the money.
Speaker 2: The fucking bank forensics expert is there to be like,
Speaker 2: where's your fucking money, And that's when your money. This
Speaker 2: is when it gets fucking wobbly. Now for George Bailey.
Speaker 2: They try and find the money. They can't find the money.
Speaker 2: And you know that's when I think mister Potter is like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're being loose with my money. You know, I'm actually
Speaker 2: a board member. I'm gonna call the fucking cops on
Speaker 2: you and we get to see how you know that
Speaker 2: Just just that the way he's putting pressure on old
Speaker 2: George by being like this is kind of like a
Speaker 2: hostile takeover. But I'm also gonna use my board position
Speaker 2: to pisure legal jeopardy.
Speaker 1: And just like the gas and it comes along with
Speaker 1: capitalism where you're just like they make you feel crazy, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would you spend it? Spend some women? He got
Speaker 2: a secret family, George playing the market? Oh honest, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, George is just too earnest Steven like think about that.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I know you think that I did,
Speaker 1: but I didn't.
Speaker 3: He was showing the headline about George's brother getting the
Speaker 3: congressional Metah. Not only is the building a loan kicking ass,
Speaker 3: but the Bailey boys are at it again. Yeah, Bailey,
Speaker 3: George Jailey, then Bailey Boys, Bailey what's his name, Harry Harry.
Speaker 2: Bailey FONTI uh so then okay, He's like completely destitute.
Speaker 2: He's like, fuck, We've completely fucked this up. What am
Speaker 2: I going to do? George is like he's getting drunk
Speaker 2: at the bar. He's trying to figure out what he
Speaker 2: can do. He realizes he's got a life insurance policy
Speaker 2: that maybe he can offer his collateral and Potter he
Speaker 2: has in his pocket. I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I care. That's so desperate. He's like, what do I have, Yester? Potter?
Speaker 4: You can take this? And he's like, well, how much
Speaker 4: have you in rested already? He's like five hundred dollars
Speaker 4: a fifteenth housard right right, right, right right, and he
Speaker 4: basically says, you're worth more dad than you are alive, Potter.
Speaker 4: And this is where the spiral really really begins. On
Speaker 4: this dark Christmas for him.
Speaker 1: He goes home and he's like real mean to his
Speaker 1: kids and then he like balls out his kid's teacher
Speaker 1: on the.
Speaker 2: Phone, like, oh think you use the term that her
Speaker 2: husband did? Yeah, my wife's ever been balled out like
Speaker 2: that in her life. U the that seemed kind of
Speaker 2: fucked me up because I was like, damn, bro, like
Speaker 2: that was that's kind of that was that was real,
Speaker 2: regardless of like what a specific situation is like parents
Speaker 2: under financial stress, completely unable to be present because of
Speaker 2: like the fucking crushing weight of having to toil and survive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just be like, oh and you kids don't know anything's
Speaker 2: going on. I don't know. I don't know shit about
Speaker 2: money bro lambball uh and yeah, so then.
Speaker 3: He know that scene was like that scene was like
Speaker 3: I said to the person I was watching with, and
Speaker 3: I said, that was like my house like every day.
Speaker 1: God, it really was.
Speaker 2: It really was.
Speaker 3: It was like my father had kids and had no idea.
Speaker 3: He just had this idea my father, father and mother.
Speaker 3: But my mother had some idea of what she was
Speaker 3: getting into. My dad had none. And so once he
Speaker 3: was in that situation, he just acted like George Bailey
Speaker 3: on his worst day. Every day he just came home
Speaker 3: from work and was just like this is a disaster
Speaker 3: and I have no money and you guys are all
Speaker 3: like annoying and and why did this happen and all
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff, except he didn't like seriously like
Speaker 3: every day. So it was like I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: that made me actually feel like like kind of like
Speaker 3: some stuff. Oh, that scene really made me feel like
Speaker 3: I had not seen that, like play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I mean. If I watch it as
Speaker 2: a kid, I'd be like whatever. Whatever. Now, being older,
Speaker 2: being a parent, all this other stuff, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: so much of it. I was like, this ship is
Speaker 2: so fucking heavy. Like, this guy's life sucks. Okay, He's
Speaker 2: like every time he's trying, you think he's gonna do
Speaker 2: the thing he wants, he ends up fucking like putting
Speaker 2: it off, kicking it in the future. More resentment builds
Speaker 2: up to the point that he just like resents his
Speaker 2: own family and then ends up going to a bridge
Speaker 2: about to jump, but then Clarents dives into the river
Speaker 2: and George rescues him.
Speaker 1: Who rescued He's like, this is his this is his
Speaker 1: one superpower. He jumps into water and saves people. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take advantage of that.
Speaker 2: Do you know what? Did you see him dive into
Speaker 2: the water? I was like, that was nice. He's kind
Speaker 2: of nice with it, for sure. Do you do you
Speaker 2: do your own stunts? Jimmy, That had to have been Jimmy, right.
Speaker 2: They didn't stunt people to die. Oh well, I can
Speaker 2: dive with the best of them, and he probably did.
Speaker 1: That was probably not the best idea. I would go
Speaker 1: feet first if I'm jumping off a bridge.
Speaker 2: If it's on a soundstage too, it's like, Jimmy, you're
Speaker 2: six four, this tank is only five feet deep.
Speaker 3: Back when there was a middle class, like you know,
Speaker 3: it was like there was a lot of time to
Speaker 3: talk about like which like teach kids, like which salad
Speaker 3: work was for the sald you know which work was
Speaker 3: for the salad? How to dive dive properly. It was
Speaker 3: like a big thing, like you don't want to be
Speaker 3: caught diving improperly. I would have done tried to dive
Speaker 3: in head first, but like over rotated and landed on
Speaker 3: my back and just been paralyzed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Angel has to.
Speaker 2: Like it's like fuck, or you just kill Clarence because
Speaker 2: you land on him, Like reason not.
Speaker 3: To date somebody Like I was going to marry George,
Speaker 3: but I noticed that his diving is his diving, and
Speaker 3: that makes me think that he's not going to be
Speaker 3: a good provider.
Speaker 1: There are the glimpses of a better world, like the
Speaker 1: gym is on top of a pool, like that, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a part like the meat cute with George
Speaker 1: and Mary is like the night of a big dance,
Speaker 1: and like, these guys prank them by opening up the
Speaker 1: gymnasium floor which has like a beautiful pool underneath it.
Speaker 1: That's Beverly Hills High. Yeah, which is in Beverly Hills High.
Speaker 1: But they're just like, yeah, I mean sure this this
Speaker 1: makes sense of the normal high school thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah too.
Speaker 2: I was like, what the fuck is that? It's like
Speaker 2: this is smart, dude, yeah, very fuck.
Speaker 3: Is this relatable? Is this relatable?
Speaker 2: Shit? Do I want to fall in a pool doing
Speaker 2: the fucking Charleston?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I thought about how many tuxedos that just like they
Speaker 3: must have had on standby. But then I realized that
Speaker 3: like everyone back there then wore tuxedo all.
Speaker 1: You were a tuxedo. It was not casual Fridays. It
Speaker 1: was a tuxedo Friday. They wear a suit Monday through Thursday. Fridays.
Speaker 1: You wear you're dining outfit, your piece of ship.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's when Clarence saves our. You know, Clarence
Speaker 2: goes in the water, he gets out, and you he's
Speaker 2: Clarence slowly starts to reveal that he is is an angel,
Speaker 2: but like everyone's like, shut the fuck up, your weird
Speaker 2: piece of shit with your weird underwear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're drunk as it looks like a cartoon drunk.
Speaker 1: It looks like a cartoon drunk.
Speaker 2: It looks like W. C.
Speaker 1: Fields all right, rummy for current reference, but that like
Speaker 1: weird his underwear that he roes like, oh my wife
Speaker 1: got me this.
Speaker 2: I'm like in the fucking eighteen seventies, what the fuck
Speaker 2: is that? But again, that's just me looking at it
Speaker 2: from twenty twenty five and not understanding anything. And that's
Speaker 2: when sort of like the whole thing of like George saying, look, bro,
Speaker 2: i I'm probably just I wish I wish I wasn't
Speaker 2: around anymore.
Speaker 1: Carl Havoc, Yeah, I'd just rather not be around.
Speaker 3: My favorite thing is that in the favorite part of
Speaker 3: the whole movie or favorite actor in the movie is
Speaker 3: the guy who's trying to spit tobacco but he keeps
Speaker 3: like doing a double take because the angel keeps doing
Speaker 3: supernatural shit. Like the guy who's in charge of like
Speaker 3: taking money at the bridge.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah that guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that guy's the fuck for me.
Speaker 1: He deserves an the killing ward that guy ruled.
Speaker 3: If anyone wants to watch it again, a breakout comedic performance.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, he just because because Clarence is revealing
Speaker 3: he's an angel to George, and George is like, I
Speaker 3: don't believe you, and he's like George had been punched
Speaker 3: in the mouth when he was drunk and so like
Speaker 3: he had blood coming out of his lip. And then
Speaker 3: the angel's like, check to see if the blood is
Speaker 3: still on your lip. You've never been born. You've got
Speaker 3: your wish, you were never born, and so he checks
Speaker 3: his lip for the blood and there's no blood. And
Speaker 3: then the bridge guy keeps trying to the bridge tender,
Speaker 3: which first of all, is another missed opportunity for me,
Speaker 3: born too late. I would love to be a guy
Speaker 3: bridge you.
Speaker 1: Know, no what's coming by at night, just making sure
Speaker 1: that nothing goes down on the bridge.
Speaker 3: Sitting in there and chewing tobacco and that's what are
Speaker 3: we going.
Speaker 1: To leave this bridge unattended all night?
Speaker 3: But yeah, that guy's like that guy's performance where he
Speaker 3: keeps being about to split the tobacco, but then he
Speaker 3: double takes when something else crazy happens, and the eventually
Speaker 3: runs credited.
Speaker 2: I'm Sad is his name, And he was like a
Speaker 2: vaudevillian guy. So makes sense, no joke.
Speaker 3: I was like that guy, Holy shit, what a great job.
Speaker 2: Also, he really he really cast. He really earns that check.
Speaker 2: When Clarence is like Irons as two, He's like, what's
Speaker 2: as too? Man, he's like Angel second class. That's yeah,
Speaker 2: there's like it couldn't have just made that up.
Speaker 1: Yes, I there were a couple more moments of like
Speaker 1: morality that probably wouldn't make it in a modern movie.
Speaker 1: One was I'm not a pray like when Jimmy Stewart
Speaker 1: before he goes to the bridge to kill himself, says
Speaker 1: like I'm not a praying man, but like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like help me out here, which like I feel like
Speaker 1: there's no way that a modern movie would have the
Speaker 1: person be like in a movie that's like this much
Speaker 1: based on like him being like I'm not a praying man.
Speaker 1: But then also when he's like checking his pockets to
Speaker 1: be like where's my age, he says no four F car,
Speaker 1: which is the card that said you weren't fit for
Speaker 1: military service, which maybe, like I think the only way
Speaker 1: they got away with this is because Jimmy Stewart was
Speaker 1: an actual war hero. But like the fact that he
Speaker 1: has to stay home because of like his ear from
Speaker 1: the war. I'm just like, are they trying to make me,
Speaker 1: as an American hate this guy, you know, doesn't believe
Speaker 1: in God, doesn't fight the Nazis because of his ear.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like those details feel like an
Speaker 1: interesting window into like a pre Cold War world before
Speaker 1: the US went completely insane, where you could just be interesting,
Speaker 1: slightly godless and not has like been a war heroism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what year was this, forty six? I
Speaker 2: think forty six?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so yeah, it was before the Cold War
Speaker 3: kicked in full cold The Cold War really created a
Speaker 3: great opportunity for introducing caricatures of how to be Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like it was a great moment, and I don't think
Speaker 3: people realized that. That's that's an interesting point. I didn't
Speaker 3: think about that, But you're right, there were these moments
Speaker 3: between wars, like after World War One, when people were like, well,
Speaker 3: we're not going to do that anymore. We're gonna we're
Speaker 3: gonna have to We're gonna be nice because we know
Speaker 3: what the opposite of that is. We know what being
Speaker 3: mean leads to. It leads to what we just went through,
Speaker 3: and we're not doing that again. No, way, you know,
Speaker 3: But then these same bad actors like create these calamities
Speaker 3: like fucking what's his name? Does in this movie? This
Speaker 3: rich guy, like he basically keeps trying to cause trouble.
Speaker 3: He doesn't want there to be stability. He wants people
Speaker 3: to be unstable so they can create emergencies and then drain.
Speaker 2: Like a run on the bank. It's a run on
Speaker 2: the bank.
Speaker 3: I'll give you fifty cents on the dollar for everything
Speaker 3: you own. And they're like, ohkay, opportunity and we're going
Speaker 3: through that right now. We're going through that right fucking now.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're being sold this fake fucking emergency that's
Speaker 3: convincing everybody to be mean. And yeah, that's a very
Speaker 3: good point. I didn't think about that, but you're right.
Speaker 3: There's a moment there where people are like, listen, I
Speaker 3: don't care if you believe in God or not. We
Speaker 3: all thought this war together. We fucking did it. We're
Speaker 3: now going to be good to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's in many ways like watching Home Alone and then this,
Speaker 1: like we were talking about like how is the family
Speaker 1: from Home Alone so rich? It's like the dad from
Speaker 1: Home Alone might as well be like mister Potter's grandson,
Speaker 1: you know, right, Like it's just but it's just like
Speaker 1: this is where we'd rather live now. We'd rather live
Speaker 1: with the really rich people who've like succeeded and are
Speaker 1: isolated from the realities of day to day life, and
Speaker 1: we'd rather like sit with them and laugh at the
Speaker 1: working class people as opposed to like having a movie
Speaker 1: where the guy believes this absurd dream that he can
Speaker 1: like help his town and the people who work there
Speaker 1: like live a normal life, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that was a dream that was like when
Speaker 3: these were smaller scale problems at least somewhat believable, like
Speaker 3: when it was like a local millionaire against like somebody
Speaker 3: who was trying to do something good. But now I'm
Speaker 3: such a jam because we're dealing with like forces that
Speaker 3: are not surmountable by some just good natured person. It
Speaker 3: has to be like a billion good natured people having
Speaker 3: some weight awakening.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, all right, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and yeah, we'll be right back, and we're back, We're back.
Speaker 1: I did have that question of like because of like
Speaker 1: how small scale it is that an eight thousand dollars
Speaker 1: getting lost like sinks the bank essentially was like, what
Speaker 1: what is that in today's money comparison? It's one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty thousand dollars, which seems low to sink a bank.
Speaker 1: But it's also like, oh, but also we don't have
Speaker 1: banks like that anymore, Like I have no frame of
Speaker 1: reference for like a what a local bank would be
Speaker 1: sunk by?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, because Potter won, right right.
Speaker 1: It's like, you're not going to pull your money together
Speaker 1: to fucking help each other? What are you fucking dumb?
Speaker 1: Welcome to city bank. I also do think our inflation
Speaker 1: because they were like in one hundred forty dollars and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, it's probably like two hundred.
Speaker 2: And five years. I call that seven million. Now for
Speaker 2: sure it's a.
Speaker 1: Bed a bed year of people who aren't billionaires.
Speaker 2: So then he's we're now in this alternate time where.
Speaker 1: The alternate timeline where he's never existed.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the first stops he takes
Speaker 2: is what he's just kind of, uh, where do they go?
Speaker 2: I think they go. I don't know, I don't have
Speaker 2: it in order.
Speaker 1: I think he goes to the bar at some point
Speaker 1: that used to be Martini's and now it's Nicks and
Speaker 1: Now the guy behind the bar is oh y yep,
Speaker 1: is like, hey, I don't know you buster her, Why
Speaker 1: are you talking to me? All familiar?
Speaker 2: See yeah, yeah, it's like no one knows him. That
Speaker 2: Martini is like fucking gone. He's like an afterthought.
Speaker 3: And the evil his name is the first thing he
Speaker 3: hears is the name of the town is Pottersville.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, it's called Pottersville.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he knows it's like being called Trumpville. So
Speaker 3: so everybody in trump Bill is in a in a
Speaker 3: corresponding mood. They're all in a horrible mood, and they're
Speaker 3: all mean as snakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do like though, just how cruel they were.
Speaker 2: Like when old man Gower came in, he's like, get
Speaker 2: out of here.
Speaker 1: You're drunk and hits him with the seltzer and I
Speaker 1: was like, he lost his son to the flu twenty
Speaker 1: years ago and he was playing this.
Speaker 3: Help this man, this ice it's ice agent shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. And then also to the point about
Speaker 2: the tuxedo. I loved how divy Nick's bar was, like
Speaker 2: the door man was the one guy in a tuxedo
Speaker 2: when he's like show on the door, yeah, and he's
Speaker 2: like of course and a guy in a tuxedos like
Speaker 2: grabbing him by the collar. I'm like, oh, well he
Speaker 2: got a tuxedo on. So you know, they keep it formal.
Speaker 2: They keep it formal.
Speaker 1: I will say, the time travel rules they're pretty loose
Speaker 1: in terms of like his brother drown without him there
Speaker 1: to save him. But he was at that same sledding
Speaker 1: hill on that same day even though he didn't exist. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I feel like if I had found that out, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, man, maybe I don't matter. So he ended
Speaker 1: up doing all the same shit, and it's just like
Speaker 1: I was just there to save.
Speaker 2: His ass kind of. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one way to look at it. That's one
Speaker 1: way to look at it. But this is the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties Jack, So let's just let's not you have enough,
Speaker 1: you have too much contact with time travel. And then
Speaker 1: he goes to his house and he sits in a
Speaker 1: cuckchair and watches his wife wife fuck her successful husband
Speaker 1: from the plastics factory. Uh.
Speaker 3: No, cuckchair is a cup chair, just any chair that
Speaker 3: faces a bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so you can watch, so the partners watch.
Speaker 3: It's not especially design chair or anything.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, he doesn't need to be Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you see the chair and burn
Speaker 1: after reading, but that can that can make it a
Speaker 1: little more fun.
Speaker 3: Finitely, I haven't seen that either.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so mister Gower, he's he went to jail
Speaker 2: for manslaughter. His mom doesn't know him. The city of
Speaker 2: Pottersville now looks like a Christian person's version of Hell
Speaker 2: because it's just like it's all dancing and music. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of girls, girls, girls sense yeah, oh buffalo gals,
Speaker 2: won't you come out?
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 2: Was I've heard that melody. I had to google it
Speaker 2: and just be like, what the fuck is?
Speaker 1: And so it's it's like a it's a runner from
Speaker 1: the it's what I think. It's what they're dancing to
Speaker 1: when they go in the pool, and then it's what
Speaker 1: they're singing as he's walking her home. That scene is
Speaker 1: also probably worth mentioning that she loses the uh robe
Speaker 1: that she's in because she had gone to the pool,
Speaker 1: and so she's naked hiding in a bush and he's like, wow,
Speaker 1: before I could tell tickets here, hold on, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: a piece of ship, come on out. And but but yeah,
Speaker 1: so she she's singing it. They're singing it together, and
Speaker 1: then when he goes to see her, she's like got
Speaker 1: it playing on the She's like kind of holding it
Speaker 1: for him, and so she's got it playing on the record,
Speaker 1: and then when she gets mad at him, she breaks it.
Speaker 1: So it's like their song in a way that's like deep.
Speaker 2: Buffalo Gals was sung by minstrels, and it was talking
Speaker 2: about the dancers because Buffalo was the western terminus of
Speaker 2: the Eerie Canal, so all the port men had their
Speaker 2: cash by the time they got to Buffalo, so they're
Speaker 2: all like, Buffalo girl, let'd you come out tonight. It's basically,
Speaker 2: and then apparently in these minstrel shows they would it
Speaker 2: was like local comedy. So if they're in New York,
Speaker 2: then they'd be like New York. She'd be like New
Speaker 2: York girls, why don't you come or like Mississip girls,
Speaker 2: why don't you come out tonight? And it just became
Speaker 2: that kind of a thing, and I was like, of
Speaker 2: course it's minstrels. See, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course
Speaker 2: I knew that was the deal here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Buffalo Gals is like I'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 3: You know some of some of the things that were
Speaker 3: good back then, you know, some of those things were
Speaker 3: like maybe you could the local businessman can still fight
Speaker 3: the junior oligarch. There's one thing that has improved, and
Speaker 3: that is fucking music, because man, oh man, imagine trying
Speaker 3: to have sex to that song, which obviously it would
Speaker 3: be implied that they would crank up the victrola.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, right right, and they would listen to that
Speaker 2: while they fucked.
Speaker 1: I'm getting hot, I mean, for God's sake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we've seen the way they kiss.
Speaker 1: So if they're putting on buffalo gals and bumping uglies,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the fuck that looks like, but.
Speaker 3: But we yeah, like think about I mean, just how
Speaker 3: much better off we are sexually speaking?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think once they let black people perform
Speaker 2: as themselves, that helped a lot. I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that would help a lot.
Speaker 3: Like and really for a long time, like we are in,
Speaker 3: we are lucky to be around for some fucking rock
Speaker 3: and roll and some fucking funk, because for a long
Speaker 3: time people had to fuck. Just She'll be coming around.
Speaker 2: The mountain, Old Gray Mayor.
Speaker 3: She and they were pumped because I mean, it's still
Speaker 3: sex and it's still gonna be.
Speaker 1: Good, but you had your kids play the piano downstairs.
Speaker 1: My pianola, Mom and I are upstairs for a little bit.
Speaker 3: Like, if you're listening to a song like that and
Speaker 3: fucking you're probably okay with sawdust being on the floor.
Speaker 3: But if you're listening to like pony by Genuine, then
Speaker 3: you say, let's clean up in here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it can't be a total nightmare
Speaker 2: in here.
Speaker 3: If I'm got genuine, rag over the light and throw
Speaker 3: on buffalo gals.
Speaker 1: If it starts smoking, they'll get the rag off the
Speaker 1: lamp because it'll sort of fire.
Speaker 3: Are there any better rhythms than that?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: No, this is the only one we found so far.
Speaker 2: Loop Yet what you're not an engine? What were you
Speaker 2: doing that for?
Speaker 1: Uh? So, then we find out other things. The building
Speaker 1: and loan has failed, Uncle Billy. As a result of
Speaker 1: the building and loan failing was institutionalized. Bailey Park is
Speaker 1: not a neighborhood anymore. It's a cemetery. And then he
Speaker 1: also discovers again like you said, brother gone, the other
Speaker 1: died was that same? Yeah exactly, and the druggist poisoned
Speaker 1: that kid. Yeah, so again he really might as well
Speaker 1: not have existed. Everything went exactly the same, except for
Speaker 1: like the two good deeds that he did. But like otherwise,
Speaker 1: nobody fucking noticed he wasn't there at all.
Speaker 3: I didn't think about it that way.
Speaker 2: He was just yeah, right, I mean.
Speaker 1: They hadn't discovered chaos there yet, so they didn't know
Speaker 1: that that wasn't realistic. I was wondering maybe the angel
Speaker 1: could like snap and take him around with the magic
Speaker 1: of film editing instead of having to wander around everywhere.
Speaker 1: But it's effective, he gets. They pack it with all
Speaker 1: sorts of details he does. He does ask where his
Speaker 1: wife is, and they're like, well, why that old spinstress.
Speaker 1: She's out at the library closed closing it down. And
Speaker 1: we get the first that I'm aware of, probably not
Speaker 1: the first. One example of hot babe and glasses is
Speaker 1: no longer pretty and it's just like an I'll go,
Speaker 1: Everyone's just like she never married, she's a loser. Her
Speaker 1: cornea is a odd shape, so why she's nearsighted?
Speaker 2: Okay, corny is what the is this? But I do
Speaker 2: that scene when he sees like very spray search come.
Speaker 1: He's not getting it, by the way, he's not really
Speaker 1: not getting it.
Speaker 2: And she is freaked the fuck out.
Speaker 1: She's like, runs to the fucking bar, and again I
Speaker 1: like that he's crashing out in this bars, like that's
Speaker 1: my why, and all these like dudes surround him. One
Speaker 1: guy in the crowd, just an odd line in the crowd,
Speaker 1: and like they're trying to restrain George Bailey from going
Speaker 1: at Mary who.
Speaker 2: She's like, I don't know this man.
Speaker 1: One guy's like, it's a crazy guy. Hit him in
Speaker 1: the head with a bottle. That's what we do here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we still aren't past our conflict resolution
Speaker 2: methods with people having some kind of caras like fucking
Speaker 2: attack them. This guy's lost it. And then I love
Speaker 2: that the cop pulls up and just starts blasting from
Speaker 2: the hip, blasting shot again. Again.
Speaker 1: It has everything bad about America, predatory capitalism, police who
Speaker 1: shoot wildly onto a crowded street, except in this case
Speaker 1: the police officer is like his old friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really really something.
Speaker 3: And being associated with being alone, right right.
Speaker 2: A librarian, yeah, exactly, the worst thing.
Speaker 1: Why she's the worst thing.
Speaker 2: She could be institutionalized a librarian.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: But that was like kind of Georgia's thing too, Like,
Speaker 2: wasn't he headed to the library one of those scenes.
Speaker 1: Like we're yeah, that's what he's the library, Like all right,
Speaker 1: fucking loser, dork library, all right, bag fumble number ninety,
Speaker 1: fucking I fucking hate this guy.
Speaker 2: Fucking George dude, fucking loser.
Speaker 1: Round. It does give me hope that this is like
Speaker 1: an American classic because it is so anti capitalist. It's
Speaker 1: just like the that sentiment is there in people's hearts.
Speaker 1: They know what's happening, they know that there are potters
Speaker 1: out there and they're fucking people up. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's just wild. It's really laying dormant and has been
Speaker 1: for eighty years now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that reminds me of something I thought of when
Speaker 3: I was watching this, which was when I grew up.
Speaker 3: I was in this play in first grade called Stanley,
Speaker 3: and I played a caveman that was like shunned by
Speaker 3: the other cavemen because he liked like to decorate and
Speaker 3: he wanted to sleep on a pillow instead of using
Speaker 3: a rock, and he danced with a mouse like in
Speaker 3: the play, I danced with a mouse, you know, and
Speaker 3: like the other cavemen were like you know thought that
Speaker 3: was stupid. Mice are something we squashed, Like what are
Speaker 3: you talking about? What are you dancing around with the money?
Speaker 3: And I'm like the mouse is nice, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? And so like the message of the play
Speaker 3: was obvious. Then the message of the book, which is
Speaker 3: a book called by sid Hoff called Stanley, and it's
Speaker 3: about being nice and the main thing and being nice. Also,
Speaker 3: all the cavemen come around at the end because it
Speaker 3: turns out like he builds a house and they're all
Speaker 3: used to living in a cave and they go in
Speaker 3: the house and they're like this rules. Turns out Stanley's
Speaker 3: a smart one and we're a bunch of idiots.
Speaker 2: And so that is what you learn.
Speaker 3: Right then seven years later, if you were good at
Speaker 3: playing lacrosse in my town, you were above the law.
Speaker 3: Like how did that?
Speaker 2: What is the first part for?
Speaker 3: If we throw it all out the window? And that's
Speaker 3: what's happening to me every day in America now, I
Speaker 3: feel so sad because I just feel like, what is
Speaker 3: all this talk about being all this stuff we were
Speaker 3: raised on?
Speaker 2: What was it all for?
Speaker 3: And how could we all be so easily just from
Speaker 3: eight years of this idiot you know, be have that
Speaker 3: all shaken out of us?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: I mean, I know it's more complicated than that, but
Speaker 3: the basics of you know, Ice is wrong. What they're
Speaker 3: doing is wrong. What what Trump is doing is wrong.
Speaker 3: Trump's way of speaking is wrong. Trump saying that he's
Speaker 3: going to take people out of things, out of campaign
Speaker 3: rallies on stretchers is wrong. How did we manage to
Speaker 3: shrug off a million years of not really but you know,
Speaker 3: fifty sixty years of like like what we supposedly celebrated,
Speaker 3: which was the morality of the United States, which is
Speaker 3: of course always questionable. But there is at least the
Speaker 3: idea that if you see someone on the street, you
Speaker 3: help them out. You don't you don't say that they're
Speaker 3: a security risk or you know, call the cops because
Speaker 3: you want them taking away to guantanamo. You you go
Speaker 3: and see if they need help. Like, how did that change?
Speaker 2: You know, what's the rhetoric that's changed? Right? To describe
Speaker 2: those people Now it's not like someone down and out,
Speaker 2: it's like a potential threat or these other things. You
Speaker 2: completely see.
Speaker 3: All you need to get is the media on board
Speaker 3: with that, and then it just takes away all that
Speaker 3: stuff we learned, but I mean, I also know that
Speaker 3: like it. It was very like, I don't know what
Speaker 3: the point of it all is. I guess just to
Speaker 3: make people feel better once they start doing the bad stuff.
Speaker 3: They said, well, a long time ago, I talked about
Speaker 3: what was right to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, welcome to Pottersville, motherfucker.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah right.
Speaker 2: Interesting. So at that point we've reached the part where
Speaker 2: George bed is like, I actually want to live. God,
Speaker 2: I can't stand there's anymore. You got to bring me back.
Speaker 4: I'm my family.
Speaker 2: And here comes Burt in the cop pri and he's like, George,
Speaker 2: you're looking all over for you. And he's like, birs,
Speaker 2: you recognize me. He's like, of course I do. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So he's back, he exists, his mouth is bleeding, he
Speaker 2: can't hear out his left ear. His fucking drunk driving
Speaker 2: accident is still there. And it's okay because your friend
Speaker 2: is the cop. And let's not forget George is technically
Speaker 2: a banker, so it's not like he's also sitting pretty.
Speaker 1: It's like just because he's a community. But he's like,
Speaker 1: hey mom, I'm sitting on all this capital. Let's be real, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're waiting back at his house with the media because
Speaker 1: it is two bankers by definition also if you kind
Speaker 1: of think about that. But again, the values are still
Speaker 1: I think the point is still there. And then he
Speaker 1: gets home.
Speaker 2: He's like, he's so happy that he doesn't even give
Speaker 2: a shit that the cops are going to fucking arrest him,
Speaker 2: that he doesn't have the money to fucking keep the
Speaker 2: home and loan solve it. He's just so thankful that
Speaker 2: you know, he's here and he gets to enjoy this.
Speaker 2: He gets home, and then we come to find out
Speaker 2: that his uncle has been going around telling people we're
Speaker 2: in trouble, and everybody in town came through with the
Speaker 2: cash that he needed for thing to work out, and he.
Speaker 1: Had done that when there was a run on the bank.
Speaker 1: He had given them the money from his wedding.
Speaker 2: And that's when I got really touched by that part
Speaker 2: was because he I think he began to realize too.
Speaker 2: He's like, damn, like, I my life, I've actually been
Speaker 2: doing so much good. I just there hasn't been a
Speaker 2: moment where that was like reflected back to me and
Speaker 2: with such clarity that I could understand what that was.
Speaker 2: And I felt like I was similar. I felt similarly
Speaker 2: when I lost my house in the fire and like
Speaker 2: all these people were helping me out. I was so
Speaker 2: I was at it. It helped me understand I'm like, shit, bro,
Speaker 2: like people give a fuck and people have a reason
Speaker 2: to because I'm trying to be a good person, as
Speaker 2: it were. And I just thought it was a very
Speaker 2: I was like, I was really touched by that. I
Speaker 2: was like, damn, they can't do it. But I was
Speaker 2: also like, and you do not give him a fucking
Speaker 2: cent of your money. You don't owe him shit. Oh man.
Speaker 3: I had a nice experience with that scene too because
Speaker 3: or just like his general joy because I under financial
Speaker 3: pressure right now, you know, as I think anybody or
Speaker 3: most people, not anybody, but a lot of people are.
Speaker 3: It really is an effective way of like his joy
Speaker 3: at just simply being like alive again even with a
Speaker 3: huge amount of debt. Was like, I don't know, it
Speaker 3: felt heartening to me. I mean it felt heartening to me.
Speaker 3: It really does. And those are the parts of that
Speaker 3: movie where I feel like it's a really great movie
Speaker 3: because it really manages to get these things across in
Speaker 3: a way that's pretty entertaining and light really. I mean,
Speaker 3: you still mostly are laughing or maybe not laughing, but
Speaker 3: you're certainly engaged in the story and you don't think
Speaker 3: of it as a morality play. But then there's moments
Speaker 3: like that where it's like, wow, I am, like what
Speaker 3: if I do what if I am in credit card
Speaker 3: debt or whatever, like it doesn't make any fucking difference,
Speaker 3: And when I let it get too big in my
Speaker 3: head and you know, it's so that's pretty serious stuff
Speaker 3: for a black and white movie, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So one thing I was looking into is
Speaker 2: that the FBI did have their eye on under j
Speaker 2: Edgar Hoover.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I have to assume like the fact
Speaker 1: that it was it's been an American classic, like you know,
Speaker 1: since you know a few years after it came out,
Speaker 1: once it started like rerunning, I think so like it
Speaker 1: was it was on TV during the Red Scare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is what happened at quote This is
Speaker 2: from Smithsonian Mac. An unnamed FBI agent who watched the
Speaker 2: film as part of a larger FBI program aimed at
Speaker 2: detecting and neutralizing common influences in Hollywood. Hoover said it
Speaker 2: was quote very entertaining However, writes scholar Johnny Noakes, that
Speaker 2: the agent quote also identified that they considered a malignant
Speaker 2: undercurrent in the film. As a result of this report,
Speaker 2: the film underwent further industry probes that uncovered that quote.
Speaker 2: Those responsible for making Its a Wonderful Life had employed
Speaker 2: two common tricks used by communists to inject propaganda into
Speaker 2: the film. These two common quote devices is, as applied
Speaker 2: by the Los Angeles branch of the Bureau, we're smearing
Speaker 2: quote values or institutions judged to be particularly the American
Speaker 2: in this case, mister Potter is portrayed by scroogey misanthrope
Speaker 2: and glorifying quote values or institutions judge to be particularly
Speaker 2: anti American or pro Communists in this case, depression and
Speaker 2: existential crisis, an issue that the FBI report characterized as
Speaker 2: a quote subtle attempt to magnify the problems of the
Speaker 2: so called common man in society. Huh.
Speaker 1: And the FBI and the people with all the money
Speaker 1: proceeded to win that battle, to use those suspicions to
Speaker 1: make it so that now you look back and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: it's weird, how like decent the values are, and how
Speaker 1: instinctively anti capital. The people are in this mood, you know. Now,
Speaker 1: We're just like, huh, this seems seems weird that they
Speaker 1: got away with that. How can you make a movie
Speaker 1: so iconoclastic and you know, anti establishment as it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful life right now, right.
Speaker 3: I really recommend a Face in the Crowd by Elia
Speaker 3: Kazand to anybody in terms of like another movie that
Speaker 3: I wrote off because it was black and white and
Speaker 3: has a really heavy message that's applicable to now and
Speaker 3: also makes you feel better because you realize this shit is.
Speaker 3: It's like one hundred times worse now. But it's never
Speaker 3: been good in this country, and it's always been a
Speaker 3: battle between the people who run the FBI and the
Speaker 3: New York Times just constantly sewing doubt whenever anyone says
Speaker 3: let's be nice and they say, well, we can't do
Speaker 3: that because that would ruin the whole project, you know,
Speaker 3: is that this is some grand project rather than a
Speaker 3: labor extraction pyramid scheme.
Speaker 2: There's an interesting thing though, that a copyright lapse enabled
Speaker 2: royalty free repeats of the film, which is why it
Speaker 2: was played so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just an accidents out of.
Speaker 3: This fucking jag Hoover dropped the ball on that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you should have jacked up those rights costs.
Speaker 2: Because other people were just pointing out to some people
Speaker 2: were saying, it's actually too capitalists with different visions of capitalism.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't because apparently Hoover's whole thing was it
Speaker 2: had it was a black or white thing, like is
Speaker 2: it subversive or is it not? And I think there
Speaker 2: was enough nuance that he didn't send it to the
Speaker 2: Unamerican Activities Commission, basically, but this was the like sort
Speaker 2: of beginnings of the Hollywood witch hunts, and.
Speaker 1: Was it ordered everybody who made it followed for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives and probably gas lit and to
Speaker 1: things they're crazy.
Speaker 3: And Elia Kazan actually did. I think Ilia Kazan did
Speaker 3: end up naming names, which ruined his reputation in front
Speaker 3: of the committee, the Joe McCarthy Hollywood hearings, he reported
Speaker 3: on people because he was a communist. But it's just
Speaker 3: so funny the communist turns out to be the good guy,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, not the communists like in the
Speaker 3: cartoon way that they try and scare us, but the
Speaker 3: idea that of just like one person can have all
Speaker 3: the resources, just simple.
Speaker 1: Just the idea of being slightly suspicious of the institution
Speaker 1: of capital. Chris crofton, thank you so much for showing
Speaker 1: us this Christmas classic, because I truly, had this not
Speaker 1: been for an assignment, I don't know that I would
Speaker 1: have gotten through it. But then I was rewarded. I
Speaker 1: really they stuck the landing. I was tearing up when
Speaker 1: his when he was like, you know, back with his
Speaker 1: kids and his family and his wife, and I did
Speaker 1: have the question like once he a little quick to
Speaker 1: be like I might as well just kill myself after
Speaker 1: he's like done his whole his whole thing, and like
Speaker 1: had this amazing community around him, Like shouldn't you have
Speaker 1: just talked to a couple more people.
Speaker 2: And be like, hey, man, could you get me out
Speaker 2: of this? Damn dude. Men would rather be haunted by
Speaker 2: an angel on Christmas Eve than say that they need help.
Speaker 2: So that's that's that was very American. He's like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to share this without anyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but overall, you know, a plus ending, well done.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: I get why people love this movie. I enjoyed it too,
Speaker 1: And you.
Speaker 2: Know, same about if I can watch it again.
Speaker 3: I feel the same about Home Alone. I mean I
Speaker 3: thought for a long time I thought it was you know, uh,
Speaker 3: I didn't really get it, like I thought it was
Speaker 3: just like I was like just consumed with how much
Speaker 3: stuff this kid had. But then then by the end
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I get it. Like it's sort
Speaker 3: of it's just a thing you can go watch and
Speaker 3: feel like a sense of place when you watch it,
Speaker 3: and that's that's that's the best art really is somewhere
Speaker 3: where you can go visit, you know, and feel like better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do nail like just the you know where
Speaker 1: every room in that house is, and like the geography,
Speaker 1: and you kind of do in this town too a
Speaker 1: little bit like you kind of know where everything is.
Speaker 2: And I feel like it was Arcaves r KO Studios
Speaker 2: in Sino, California and Laka YadA, Flint Bridge. I think
Speaker 2: really the main shoot here.
Speaker 1: You go, Well, thank you for joining us, Chris, thank
Speaker 1: you guys for joining us. Merry Christmas to all, unto
Speaker 1: all good night, or you.
Speaker 3: Got to keep an eye on Miles. That's about to
Speaker 3: say he's gonna say he's this is gonna spill over
Speaker 3: all regular Daily Zeite guy.
Speaker 2: Funked up off the Jimmy Stowar and everyone. I'm brung
Speaker 2: off that Jimmy. All right, I can face an l
Speaker 2: right now outside.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this isn't gonna stop.
Speaker 2: No no, it's not no, no no, I'm bye bye,
Speaker 2: bye bye. The Daily Zeite guys his executive produced by
Speaker 2: Catherine Law.
Speaker 1: Co produced by Bae Wag, co produced by Victor Wright.
Speaker 3: Co written by jam McNabb, and edited and engineered by
Speaker 3: Brian Jeffries.
Speaker 1: Jimmy