I’ve been thinking about this scene from IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1947) lately for two reasons. The first is that I’m doing some historical research for a client that centers on a 1928 high school basketball team, and this reminded me that George Bailey’s kid brother was a class of ’28 high school graduate and how much the fashions, haircuts, and faces in this film look right for 1928 based on the period newspaper stories and yearbook photos I’ve been reading.
The other reason has to do with another one of my projects that deals with cinematic storytelling. The performances, the editing, and the directing are superb, but this deceptively fun and simple flashback of Twentieth Century Americana is also a nifty bit of screenwriting by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra (who may have also directed the film). It sets up the conflicts and themes of the rest of the film, but it’s done so skillfully that we’re having too much fun to see the writers laying the pipe.
I’m probably going to write more about this scene in a few months, but for now, let’s join join the festivities at Bedford Falls High School prom dance, already in progress…