In It's a Wonderful Life
On Christmas Eve, 1945, George Bailey, a banker in the town of Bedford Falls facing financial ruin and disgrace, is contemplating committing suicide by jumping off a bridge into an icy river because the payout on his $15,000 life insurance policy would solve the problems confronting his business and family. Shortly before this, many in the community of Bedford Falls sense George's dismay and offer prayers. Two celestial beings hear all these prayers as well as observe George's intent to kill himself, and decide to send an angel to save him. For this task, the only available angel is Clarence Odbody, an AS2 (Angel Second Class), who after 200 years has yet to win his wings. To prepare for this assignment, Clarence is shown several scenes from George's life that show some of his selfless acts. Sent to Earth, Clarence finds George standing on a bridge about to leap into the river. Before George can jump off, Clarence jumps in the water, which prompts George to dive in to rescue him. Both are rescued by the bridge keeper, who allows them to dry off in his shack.
As Clarence dries off, he reveals he is an angel (causing the tollkeeper to flee in fear), but George is still unconvinced and believes that if killing himself is such a bad idea, maybe everybody would be better off if he had never been born in the first place. Clarence sees to this (presumably appealing to his superiors, as he shouts to the sky "You didn't have to make so much noise!"), and this transforms the snowiness into a windy night.
George discovers that a great many things and people are not better off from his absence. His Uncle Billy, formerly in charge of the Bailey Building and Loan, lost his business when he accidentally gave the day's receipts to Potter in a folded-up newspaper, had a nervous breakdown, and spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum.
His mother is now embittered and running a boardinghouse for the perpetually down-and-out. His war-hero brother, Harry, had fallen through creek ice and drowned as a child, as George was not there to save him. As a result, the soldiers Harry saved from two Kamikaze planes died as well.
He sees that his old boss Emil Gower, the town druggist, had accidentally poisoned the child's prescription and is now a derelict hobo, shunned by everyone after having served twenty years in prison for manslaughter. George was not around to prevent Gower's deadly mistake when he worked there.
George finds that his alternate timeline wife, Mary Hatch, is a spinster librarian. Violet, a girl who formerly had a crush on George, is also unmarried and has become the town tramp. Ernie the cabbie and Bert the cop are both divorced, poor and miserable, living in barely habitable shacks in Potter's Field, the most derelict area of town. Clarence tells George that he was not there to build Bailey Park, where hardworking people could live in dignity with their families.
George finds that the town has been renamed "Pottersville" in honor of the wealthy but heartless Henry F. Potter, who appears to have taken over Bedford Falls and turned it into a sleazy and dangerous place filled with whiskey bars, crime, pawnshops, violence, seedy entertainment establishments, and unhappy people with meaningless, amoral lives.
As George comes to realize the disaster that would befall all those he loves if he had never lived, he desperately desires to return to his life, even though it means he would be going to jail. George is then restored to his previous life, a life which he now enthusiastically embraces. He returns to his home, where all his family and friends are gathering to give George whatever is needed to make up for what Mr. Potter stole, culminating in an advance of $25,000 from his wealthy industrialist friend Sam Wainwright. [2] Clarence hides his copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer on the tree where George will find it first. The dedication reads `Thanks for the wings!' whereupon a bell on the family Christmas Tree rings, signifying the feat. [2]
