“Ideals without common sense can ruin this town … What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble …all because a few starry-eyed dreamers …stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas!”

—Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) in Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life,” 1946

In Frank Capra’s “It A Wonderful Life,” for the super-rich banker, Mr. Potter, the town of Bedford Falls was poised on ruin because of the non-sensible lending policies of the town’s saving and loan, which continually made home loans to working people that built a community that sustained the town. A misplaced deposit leads the saving and loan to insolvency, causing its beleaguered manager, Jimmy Stewart, to wish he were dead. An angel is empowered to make the wish seem to come true, to show Stewart how hi

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