Mary Makes it a Wonderful Life

Gen X grew up with Bedford Falls and George Bailey as part of their lives. Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life was played repeatedly on multiple channels every Christmas Season. But while we all focus on the lesson of George Bailey’s revelation that every person’s presence matters to others, there are some other messages that we miss in this holiday classic.

Is Mary the most powerful woman in this story? Does Capra make subtle hints of integration? And are there other nuances lost in this movie?

There’s Something Wonderful About Mary

In December of 1988 I was watching It’s a Wonderful Life with my girlfriend and some of our friends at her aunt’s house. Cassie, my girlfriend, looked at me at one point during the movie and said, “Mary’s incredible!” I never asked her why she thought so, but the moment stuck with me.

Mary is possibly the strongest character with the most wisdom in the movie.

Yes, in the movie we get to see what other’s lives would have been like without George, but George gets to see what a life without her love for him is like and it is even more unbearable than facing prison. It is the catalyst that makes him want to live again. Her assertion, generosity, long term thinking, and work ethic makes her not only the strongest character in the movie, but also a woman ahead of her time in movies. Let’s take a look at who she is and what she does in the movie.

In Mary’s first appearance in the movie she is waiting for George Bailey to arrive at the pharmacy he works at. It is his first day back from an illness he contracted saving his little brother from drowning in an icy pond. The incident cost George loss of full hearing in one of his ears.

Mary knows what she wants and asserts herself against the wiles of a young blonde named Violet. Violet is also interested in George, but Mary reminds Violet that she likes every boy in Bedford Falls and issues a direct and fearless challenge by way of sticking her tongue out at Violet as she leaves.

Speaking into George’s bad ear she declared her love to George Bailey.

Mary’s first appearance is a girl who is calm, assertive, and and unflappable.

After a dance at the high school years later George and Mary are walking home in different outfits than they came in. They fell into the pool at the dance and all George could find was an oversized football outfit for himself and a bath robe for Mary.

There is flirtation in this scene, but it is not George leading the the dance of flirtation. It is Mary. She coyly lets him know that she is 18. But something else happens in the midst of their flirtation, at the tender age of 18 she lets George know of her love for an abandoned and dilapidated home across the street where they are standing.

George makes a wish and throws a rock into the window of the home and tells her of his wishes of glory, fame, and fortune. She throws her own rock into the window and flirtatiously refuses to tell George her wish.

A few moments later George learns his father has had a stroke. As he is whisked away to be with his family, you can see concern and compassion on her face for him.

We see a Mary who is confidant and does not wait on a man to express interest, but when she does lose her robe and George pushes a line, she makes it clear that she needs her robe. She is always assertive on the boundaries.

Four years later George has had to defer his dreams to run the family’s loan business after his father passed. It was the only way to save the business from the wealthy Mr Potter. Saving the family business was the only way to save many in the town to keep their homes and obtain new ones to escape the overpriced rentals from Mr Potter who is essentially a slum lord.

His brother comes home after studying at university…but with a wife and a job opportunity. This means that George’s dreams will be deferred for an even longer time.

But George finds out that his brother is not the only person back home from college. Mary has been home for a few days. His interest is piqued learning this news from his mother, but he knows that his friend, Sam, is interested in her. George’s mother reminds him that Sam is in New York and George is here. She also tells George that Mary is “the kind that will help you find the answers”.

After an awkward encounter with Violet, George finds himself outside Mary’s home. She invites him in, but only after preparing the home with an art work referencing their night after the dance and also played a record featuring the song they sang together after the dance.

Mary was ready for his arrival and asserted herself.

The strength of her conversation and her mother’s obvious dislike for George led to his defensiveness. He left. Her frustration led to a broken record just as Sam had called from New York. As the call begins George comes back to get his hat. Mary makes it clear she is on the phone with Sam to draw George not only further in, but closer to her.

Their closeness, cheek to cheek, and her double entendre regarding a chance of a lifetime breaks George down to admit his feeling to her. But that truth would never have happened without her assertiveness and attention to detail.

In short time, George and Mary are married. As they are leaving Bedford Falls, George is speaking of all the places they will go, the caviar they will have, and the first class experiences their new life will bring. But something happens. There is a line outside of the bank. The Great Depression has started and there is a run on the bank. George leaves the taxi and heads to the family savings and loan business.

There is a crowd outside. Everyone wanting their savings out, but there is no money in the vault to cover these withdrawals. Mr Potter basically bought the bank and would own the Bailey Savings and Loan if George could not keep the doors open until 6PM.

No one knew what to do…except Mary. Mary Handed over all the personal funds George and Mary had for their honeymoon and start of their life to cover the withdrawals. This keeps the savings and loan alive preserving the homes and future homes of many people in town that would never be served by a bank run by Mr. Potter.

At the end of a long day there is two dollars left, but Mary is nowhere to be seen.

George is told to meet her at the dilapidated home. She and some of their friends decorated the door to read honeymoon suite, inside was a freshly made bed for their wedding night, posters of all the places they meant to go, and a dinner cooking over a fireplace. The turning spit was cleverly powered by the belt of the turntable playing music.

She knew they had done what they needed to do and found creative ways to make it clear that they could have a wedding night without caviar. She also seems to have bought a house?

She would show George that money and caviar could not measure up to love and the investment of the simple and restoring what is broken. This lesson will be needed later.

After we see an Italian immigrant named Mister Martini move out of one of Potter’s rentals and into his new home in a subdivision built by Bailey Savings and Loans, Potter calls George into his office at the bank.

He offers George a salary of 20,000 a year. George was currently making $2,340 a year. This was almost 10 times what George was currently making. He and Mary, like anyone, could have entirely different lives making ten times what one is making now. All of George’s deferred dreams could come true. But the cost would be the family business and all the families that depend on the family business.

George ultimately decides the life of love matters more than the life of wealth at the expense of others.

He comes home to find that Mary is pregnant with their first child. He also learns that she never wanted a life of fame or a life with the now wealthy Sam, she wanted a life and a family with George in the home they live in.

As their family grew Mary would spend years restoring the once dilapidated home with her bare hands. For her there were not dreams deferred in a black and white, there was the dream built one plank of wood, one sheet of wallpaper, and one gallon of paint at a time.

You do not see her hiring men to restore the house, you see Mary in a short montage rebuilding a home. It takes years.

She does this while raising kids and even being the head of the local USO during World War Two.

After George gets his wish that he never existed, the audience gets to see how worse everyone’s life is without George having been a part of their lives. The last one covered is Mary. Mary is portrayed as an ‘old maid’ who never married and instead is the town’s librarian.

But with what has been shown about Mary at this point and what will be shown about her later in the movie, it is possible Frank Capra has something else in mind. This is not an indicator of Mary’s fate, but George’s fate.

From the very first scene in the movie that shows Mary, we see a person who knows what she wants. At the dance and in her living room it is made clear there are other men who want to be with Mary whom she has no interest in. In her strength of loving a house that she invested her labor and limited funds into, we see a women who deliberately works for her dreams for the long run, not the short term.

She chose George, she did not need him. She chose the house, chose to give all she had to others in the bank run, and chose to volunteer tirelessly for the USO during the war. She always chose, George seemed to feel there was no choice in many of the decisions he made.

This is a woman who likely chose to not marry Sam and chose to have a career as a librarian. This was a woman who was also respected by the people of her town. Even the alternate reality of Potterville, a less kind and diverse town, when Mary screams for help as a man unknown to her (George Bailey) will not leave her alone, everyone on the street and in the bar she runs into is there to protect her from this delusional stranger.

It is in this moment that George cannot take any more of this life without him existing. A life without Mary is the catalyst that drives him to want his life back regardless the consequences.

In the beginning of the movie, everyone in town is praying for George Bailey. Why? $8,000 of the savings and loan has gone missing and an arrest warrant has been sworn out for him. George has emotionally lost all hope and ran to a bar to get drunk after scaring his children and Mary and then try to kill himself.

Mary does encourage the children to pray, but what does Mary do? Mary does what she always does, she moves forward with intentional actions and assertion. It is also noteworthy that as George loses emotional control and does not communicate Mary consistently tried to get him to engage in healthy discussion. When he speaks harshly at the children, she is not a demure compliant woman but draws a line and makes it known what he is doing is unacceptable.

Thoughts and prayers in the wake of uncertainty and tragedy are not enough for her. Mary sends telegrams to Sam and George’s brother and then goes into town seeking help. And just as an entire town in an alternate reality comes to the aid of Mary, the town of Bedford Falls responds to Mary’s cry for help. A town she has once saved with her sacrifice and creativity comes to her aid once again. In the words of George’s uncle, who lost the $8,000, “she did it all!”

There was something else I had never noticed that enforces the idea that Mary is a pre feminism feminist. Capra’s Bedford Falls was diverse.

If you blink, you may miss how diverse Bedford Falls is. There is a black housekeeper in the Bailey household, but the outspoken Auntie Mame style character is not all we see. In the high school while George and Mary are talking at the dance, a young black couple is briefly seen behind Mary at the dance with all their fellow white students, decades before segregation was ended in schools.

When George is interacting with Violet in town 4 years later you see a black couple walking in the main street of the town shopping with everyone else.

At the end of the movie, there is a young black women, who may have received a loan for her own home in Bedford Falls from Bailey Saving and Loans, who donates money to help the Bailey’s. This woman may have been someone Mary reached out to personally for help.

In the alternate reality of Pottersville, there is not one black person to be seen. Potter even made a racist comment in regard to Mr Martini, an Italian immigrant, receiving a loan from Bailey Savings and Loans.

The dream for affordable homes in a growing community is one that includes immigrants and minorities. The reality offered by the wealthiest man in town is overpriced rentals for spaces that too small and unfit for most people and families. Most of them, especially the immigrants and the minorities, will ever be approved for a mortgage. This is a reality for too many Americans today.

What keeps the diverse American dream alive? When strong people have intention, assertion, sacrifice when needed, and work for years on building their dream and when neighbors look after one another. We also need to support small businesses for it is they who will be there for us.

My grandfather owned a small grocery store. When people in town lost their jobs, he extended “store credit” to those he knew could never pay it back. Wal-Mart, Target, and Whole Foods would not do that.

In the small enterprise of Gen X Watch and the path forward to the YA series, I am working with consultants and artists and others who are working with me in ways that are above and beyond. I would never get this level of support from larger nationally and internationally owned vendors.

Not one Christmas present under my tree came from Amazon or Target. They came from small businesses who know me by name.

Be like Mary and see the world like she does with purpose and intention. When possible, go to the Bailey’s instead of the Potters next Christmas.

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