IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Cert U
James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers. Directed by Frank Capra.

For our final performance in The Screening Room at Parade House, a genuine Christmas classic, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. If it's been a while since you saw it, you might remember the film only for its sentimental seasonal finale, guaranteed to touch even the hardest of hearts. But in fact this is at its core a surprisingly hard-edged tale, arguably one of the first Hollywood "noir"  films in its grown-up and clear-eyed view of a jaded post-war world. 

In despair at the way his life has turned out, and unable to prevent his home town from being ravaged by a heartless property developer, James Stewart's kindly smalltown banker George Bailey considers ending it all. He's saved from self-destruction by an impish guardian angel who takes him at his word when he declares "I wish I'd never been born!". In a brilliant reverse twist on Dickens' A Christmas Carol, good-hearted George is forced to revisit his sleepy little town as it would have turned out had he indeed never existed. It turns out to be a nightmare vision of a past that never was but would have been if not for George's personal intervention. (The same idea was borrowed 40 years later for Back To The Future II). 

Of course George finds redemption in the end and is returned to the real world - and his adoring family - just  in time for Christmas. But the film's underlying holiday message remains, and is as true now as it has ever been: in a cruel world, we can all make a difference simply by being kind to one another. Happy holidays!