It's A Wonderful Life - Plot

Plot

In Bedford Falls, New York on Christmas Eve, George Bailey (James Stewart) is deeply troubled. Prayers for his well-being from friends and family reach Heaven. Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), Angel Second Class, is assigned to save George and earn his wings. Franklin and Joseph, the head angels, review George's life with Clarence. At the age of 12, George (Bobby Anderson) saved his younger brother Harry (George Nokes), who had fallen through the ice on a frozen pond, though, because of this heroic action, George lost the hearing in his left ear. Later, working in the local pharmacy, George noticed that the druggist, Mr. Gower (H. B. Warner), despondent over his son's death, had mistakenly filled a child's prescription with poison, and saved Gower from killing the child and irrevocably ruining his own life.

George repeatedly sacrifices his dream to travel the world. He waits for Harry (Todd Karns) to graduate from high school and replace him at the Bailey Building and Loan Association, vital to the townspeople. On Harry's graduation night, George, now 21, discusses his future with Mary Hatch (Donna Reed), who has long had a crush on him. Later that evening, George's absent-minded Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) interrupts them to tell George that his father has had a stroke, which proves fatal. A few months later, Mr. Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a slumlord and majority shareholder in the Building and Loan, tries to persuade the board of directors to stop providing home loans for the working poor. George talks them into rejecting Potter's proposal, but they agree only on condition that George run the Building and Loan. Giving his college money to Harry, George delays his plans with the understanding that Harry will take over upon graduation.

When Harry graduates from college, he unexpectedly brings home a wife, whose father has offered Harry an excellent job. Although Harry vows to decline the offer out of respect for his brother, George cannot deny Harry such a fine opportunity and decides to keep full ownership of the Building and Loan, knowing that this will kill his dream to travel the world.

George calls on Mary, who has recently returned home from college. After several arguments, they reveal their love for each other, and marry soon after. As they depart for their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank that leaves the Building and Loan in danger of collapse. The couple quells the panic by using the $2,000 earmarked for their honeymoon to satisfy the depositors' immediate needs. Mary enlists the help of George's two best friends, Bert, a policeman, and Ernie, a cab driver, to create a faux tropical setting for a substitute honeymoon. The couple embrace while Bert and Ernie sing in the background.

George and Mary raise four children: Pete, Janie, Tommy and Zuzu. George starts Bailey Park, an affordable housing project. Potter tries to hire him away, offering him a $20,000 salary, along with the promise of distant business trips, something that George always wanted to do. George, initially tempted, turns Potter down after realizing that Potter intends to close down the Building and Loan and take full control of Bedford Falls.

When World War II erupts, George is unable to enlist, due to his bad ear. Harry becomes a Navy fighter pilot and shoots down 15 enemy planes, two of which were targeting a ship full of troops in the Pacific. For his bravery, Harry is awarded the Medal of Honor.

On Christmas Eve morning, Uncle Billy is on his way to Potter's bank to deposit $8,000 of the Building and Loan's cash funds. He greets Potter (who has the newspaper reporting Harry's heroics) and taunts him by reading the headlines aloud. Potter angrily snatches the paper, but Billy inattentively allows the money to be snatched with it. Potter opens the paper, notices the money and keeps it, knowing that displacement of bank money would result in bankruptcy for the Building and Loan and criminal charges for George. When a frantic search turns up with nothing, and with a bank examiner due that day, George takes his anger and frustrations out on his family.

A desperate George appeals to Potter for a loan. Potter mockingly and coldly turns George down, and then swears out a warrant for his arrest for bank fraud. George, now completely depressed, gets drunk at the bar owned by his friend, Giuseppe Martini (Bill Edmunds), where he silently prays for help. After crashing his car into a tree, George staggers to a bridge, intending to commit suicide, feeling he is "worth more dead than alive" because of a life insurance policy. Before he can leap, Clarence jumps in first and pretends to be drowning. After George rescues him, Clarence reveals himself to be George's guardian angel.

George does not believe him, but when he bitterly wishes he had never been born, Clarence shows George what the town would have been like without him. Bedford Falls, named Pottersville, is home to sleazy nightclubs, pawn shops and amoral people. Bailey Park is never built. Mr. Gower was sent to prison for poisoning the child and is a despised derelict. Martini does not own the bar, and is nowhere to be found. George's friend Violet Bick (Gloria Grahame) is a strip-dancer and gets arrested as a pickpocket. Ernie is helplessly poor with his family having left him. Uncle Billy has been in an insane asylum for years. Harry is dead as a result of George not being there to save him from drowning, and the servicemen he would have saved also died. Ma Bailey is a bitter widow, and Mary a single spinster librarian.

George runs back to the bridge and begs to be allowed to live again. His prayer is answered, and he runs home joyously, where the authorities are waiting to arrest him. Mary, Uncle Billy, and a flood of townspeople arrive with more than enough donations to save George and the Building and Loan. George's friend Sam Wainwright sends him a $25,000 line of credit by telegram. Harry also arrives to support his brother, who is now "The richest man in town". George finds a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the inscription, "Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends. P.S. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence." A bell rings, and his daughter Zuzu remembers that it means an angel has earned his wings. George realizes that he truly has a wonderful life.