Amazon Prime Studios is taking heat on Christmas for censoring a key scene in the classic Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life with many saying the edits make the movie nonsensical and eliminates one of the most important bits of character development in the film.
We all know the story from the 1946 Frank Capra classic. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), a beloved citizen of Bedford Falls, is struck by a financial disaster just ahead of Christmas when his dunder-headed uncle Billy loses the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan’s bank deposit, threatening to bankrupt the company. With his world falling apart around him, and as the evil rival, Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore) plots to destroy his business, George wishes he had never been born and contemplates throwing himself off a bridge in suicide. But then he meets an angel named Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), who shows George what the world would have been like if there never was a George Bailey. The revelation helps Bailey to understand that his temporary financial troubles are not the end of the world and he is surrounded by enough love and admiration to help him overcome adversity.
In the “Potterswville scene” of the film, George tells Clarence the angel that he is worth more to his family and friends dead than he is alive. Clarence then tells George that he must earn his wings and proceeds to show George what the world would have been like if George Bailey never existed.
The scenes that Clarence reveals to him showing the world without him leads George to the realization this his life has been important to the ones he loves and that epiphany causes him to run back into his home town filled with love and the Christmas spirit.
But not when Amazon Prime got involved. Fans of the film are aghast that the streaming service cut out a key part of that plot above, the Daily Mail reported.
In the Amazon Prime “abridged” version of this classic film, the scene goes from Clarence telling George his has to earn his wings to George running through the streets of Bedford Falls in delirious happiness, resolved to renew his zest for life, all without showing viewers why he made that key turn around from crestfallen and suicidal to joy and happiness.
Fans were both perplexed and furious that this important scene was removed from the movie and many imputed woke reasoning on Amazon Prime’s part.
Amazon Prime has since noted that it does have the full movie on its service, in both a colorized and black and white version. But the abridged version apparently exists as an option for viewers for two reasons. One because the suicide scene is “too dark” and secondly there has been a copyright dispute over that segment of the movie because it is supposedly based on a short story that was never recognized by the film’s original producers.
Media company RiffTrax has also streamed this same “abridged” version and has explained that, even though the film is now in the public domain, it has been beset with copyright issues after Capra apparently used the short story “The Greatest Gift” as the basis for the removed scene and never credited its writer for its use. There have also been copyright claims against the film for certain pieces of music that Capra used as background music, according to the UK newspaper, the Metro.
Amazon Prime is not exactly at fault for this kerfuffle, but fans are no less incensed for the censorship of this Christmas classic.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
