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Classic Film Offers Bailout We Can Believe In

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By WALT BELCHER wbelcher@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 24, 2008

It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, the television sets were filled with memories of holidays past.

Tonight, I might be watching "It's a Wonderful Life," the 1946 Frank Capra film that celebrates the worth of the common man. It's on NBC at 8 p.m.

It's been on a zillion times, but this year's viewing will be different after a year of real-life bailouts, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

"Wonderful Life" now becomes a bittersweet reminder of a time when the American Dream of owning a home was attainable with a little hard work and the help of good people like George Bailey.

The small-town banker (Jimmy Stewart) never strays far from his simple life in Bedford Falls. He marries his sweetheart, has kids, and helps folks achieve their dreams by running a little building and loan with a soul.

But things turn sour for him. Facing financial ruin and even suicide, he gets a last-minute bailout on Christmas from a hapless angel named Clarence and friends who love him.

This is the kind of bailout we can believe it, and watching it again this season might give us a little hope that there's a happy ending in our future.

MARATHON TRADITION: Sometime between 8 tonight and 8 p.m. Thursday, I will try to catch a few favorite moments from "A Christmas Story," the late Jean Shepherd's whimsical account of a Christmas in the 1940s, when 9-year-old Ralphie wants an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle BB gun with compass.

I don't need to see the whole thing. I just like to flip over and watch a few scenes. Like when Flick gets his tongue frozen to the flagpole, or when Ralphie gets his mouth washed out with soap, or when his father (Darren McGavin) gets that fabulous leg lamp.

This marks the 11th year of the "A Christmas Story" marathon. TNT started it and TBS took up the torch. It's a comfort to have it around.

When it was released in 1983, the film was ignored at the box office, but through repeated showings on TV, it has become a part of many families' holiday traditions.

What's remarkable is how relevant the movie remains despite its age and 1940s setting.

Neither cynical nor sentimental, "A Christmas Story" captures an almost universal American experience of the holidays, from memorably bad gifts (Ralphie's bunny suit) to our love/hate relationship with the season's commercialism (Ralphie's hilarious encounter with a department store Santa).

A lot of us have been in Ralphie's shoes. On the verge of leaving childhood innocence behind, he still wants to believe in the magic of the holiday.

LET IT BURN: Bright House Networks' Bay News 9 continues its annual holiday tradition of showing a video of a burning Yule Log from 8 p.m. to midnight on Christmas Eve. Headlines and weather will scroll across the bottom of the screen.

More wood burns on WGN America, the Chicago-based cable network, which plans to air classic radio programs set to a Yule Log video. The flames flicker from 9 tonight to 6 a.m. Christmas Day.

SUGAR PLUM VISIONS: Sprout, the PBS digital channel for preschoolers, will encourage little tykes to go to bed tonight with a "Snooze-A-Thon."

Starting at 6 tonight and continuing to 5 a.m. Christmas Day, Sprout host Nina and her puppet sidekick Star (from "The Good Night Show") will be seen snoozing contentedly. That's one long uninterrupted nap.

Occasionally, there will be clips of nodding characters from the channel's preschool shows, including "Sesame Street," "Dragon Tales," and "The Berenstain Bears."

TUNE IN TONIGHT

"A History of The Brady Bunch," 8 p.m., Bio

The channel formerly known as Biography looks at a beloved sitcom that ran from 1969 to 1974.

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