IT'S NEW YEAR'S EVE! TAKE ME OUT TONIGHT

Yes, it's me.

FOR CHERDO

VIVA LA VIE BOHEME

LIGHT MY CANDLE

DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SANTA FE?

MOVIE WEEKEND: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

Several years ago I spoke to a young person who said she had never seen It's A Wonderful Life. Horrors! Moreover, she swore she did not know who Jimmy Stewart was. I was appalled, simply appalled. My children did excellent Jimmy Stewart impersonations by the time they were eight years old. Thus I began my one-woman campaign to encourage everyone on God's green Earth to see It's A Wonderful Life (1946, Unrated, Available on DVD and shown on television every year during the Christmas season).

Don't be fooled by this color picture promoting the movie. It's a black-and-white film, although that so-and-so Ted Turner colorized It's A Wonderful Life. The movie's star, Jimmy Stewart, was one of many to join film industry professionals who opposed the colorization of movies.

Stewart plays George Bailey, a man who longs to go to college and travel the world, but ends up running his late father's Bailey Building & Loan with the assistance of his bumbling Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell). George is married to Mary (Donna Reed). They have four children. One day Uncle Billy goes to the bank, owned by nasty old man Potter (Lionel Barrymore), to deposit $8,000 for the Building & Loan. He accidentally hands the money over to Potter, who does not return it. Now the money is lost, which leads to a crisis and the possibility that George will be sent to jail. George stands on a bridge and he jumps in the water, not to commit suicide as he had intended, but to save the life of Angel Second Class Clarence (Henry Travers), who longs to earn his wings.

Clarence grants George the unique opportunity to see what the world would have been like if George had never been born. And the rest is history.

Of the ninety-two movies Jimmy Stewart made, this one was his favorite, and George Bailey was Stewart's favorite role. Director/writer/producer Frank Capra's choice for his favorite movie among the many he made was It's A Wonderful Life. It's also my favorite Christmas movie, and my all-time favorite movie.

It's hard to resist a film in which the characters' prayers for their beloved friend/family member George Bailey are answered in person by an angel. I also love a happy ending.

Some people think this movie is corny (hence the term Capracorn), but I think it's sweet and beautiful and well made. The acting is ideal.

My favorite scene is one in which George sits in a bar and begins to pray:




Capra did not shoot this scene as a close-up, and, of course, computers and CGI and all that weren't available at the time to help Capra change the shot. Thus, he used an optical printer* to gradually enlarge the frames so we slowly see a close-up of George Bailey.

My favorite lines from It's A Wonderful Life are when George tells Mary:

George Bailey: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.

Mary: I'll take it. Then what?

George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?

It's a Wonderful Life makes me happy for so many reasons, and I hope you'll allow it to make you happy, too. On another day, perhaps I'll write more about Jimmy Stewart. Though my favorite contemporary actors are Johnny Depp and Ryan Gosling, my favorite actor forever and always is Jimmy Stewart. He was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for It's a Wonderful Life. He didn't win that year, but he's never been anything less than a winner with me.

It's a Wonderful Life earns The Janie Junebug Seal of Highest Joyful Approval.

Happy Viewing!

Infinities of love,

Janie Junebug

*The optical printer was invented during the early 1930s and wasn't readily available for use until the mid-1940s. It allowed the director to do almost anything he wanted with the film. The optical printer is a movie camera and projector that face each other so individual frames from the film can be rephotographed and changed. In addition to making a medium shot into a close-up, an optical printer could achieve many effects including the following: create a freeze frame or a split screen, change the speed of the action, create transitions such as fades and dissolves, and add title credits

THE CEPHALOPOD COFFEEHOUSE: ONCE UPON A SECRET

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

It's time for The Cephalopod Coffeehouse, hosted by The Armchair Squid.

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.

To join the blog hop or to see the list of other participants, please visit The Armchair Squid.

My book choice for December is Once Upon a Secret: My Affair With President John F. Kennedy And Its Aftermath by Mimi Alford.

I doubt if it comes as much of a surprise that President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were not the first Commander in Chief and White House intern to become "involved." However, when President Kennedy deflowered young Mimi, she managed to keep it a secret for many years:

In the summer of 1962, I was nineteen years old, working as an intern in the White House press office. During that summer, and for the next year and a half, until his tragic death in November 1963, I had an intimate, prolonged relationship with President John F. Kennedy.

I kept this secret with near-religious discipline for more than forty years, confiding only in a handful of people, including my first husband. I never told my parents, or my children. I assumed it would stay my secret until I died.

It didn't.

During 2003, an oral history at the Kennedy Presidential Library was unsealed, along with other documents. The oral history revealed some of the affairs the president had. Although Mimi Beardsley's name wasn't mentioned, it didn't take long for members of the press to figure out who she was. Then they stalked her.

Marion "Mimi" Beardsley Fahnestock Alford decided to tell the truth when asked point blank if she was the intern who was intimate with President John Kennedy. Then she wrote a book to explain their complicated relationship.

I like this book, in spite of its rather salacious nature, because of the parallels to Clinton and Lewinsky, and because of the details Alford provides about the president's extracurricular activities. Jackie Kennedy would leave the White House with the children, and the inmates took over the asylum.  

Only a few days after Alford began her internship, President Kennedy himself served as her tour guide around the White House family quarters. The tour included Kennedy pushing Alford onto a bed and taking her virginity. Alford also describes JFK's now well-known skinny dipping pool parties, and the pressure he put on her to provide oral sex to one of his friends--in his presence.

This information makes me wonder more than ever about the characters of the men we've elected to the highest office in the United States. Alford's affair with the president cast a shadow on her first marriage, which ended very unhappily.

Mimi Alford's story is not a pretty one, but she wanted to tell her side of the story, and to set some facts straight. Her book is well written.

Once Upon a Secret earns The Janie Junebug Seal of Approval.

Happy reading!


Love,

Janie Junebug