"You Call This A Life?"

"Who needs a honeymoon?  Let's give all our gelt away!"

So many Hanukkah movies, so little time to watch them all.  By far, the SJG's favorite during the Festival of Lights is "You Call This A Life?" Maybe you've seen it.  I watched it again the other night. Jimmy Stewart stars as George Bloomberg, a total mensch who's spent his entire life giving, giving, and giving of himself to the people of Schmendrick Falls.  He longs to see the world, but when his father plotzes, it's painfully obvious that George isn't going anywhere.  Better he should run the Building and Loan and keep an eye on that gonif Potter, than escape Schmendrick Falls, a town with a vice grip on his so-called life. Thank God, things pick up a little when George meets a nice pretty shiksa named Mary, played by, who else, Donna Reed. George asks Mary to convert.  She mulls it over, wondering how much it will upset her overbearing mother.  "I'm in," she says.  George and Mary have a lovely temple wedding.  The guests throw matzoh crumbs in their general direction, and off they go on their honeymoon.  


But then, another plot complication that would give anyone a migraine.  Wouldn't you know it, there's a run on the bank.  Rather than put themselves first, God forbid, the Bloombergs give away all their wedding gelt, instead.  (Wouldn't you?  Of course you would!  I hear you're very generous around the holidays.)  So, George and Mary do a makeover on a shack that would fall down if you sneezed on it.  They have babies and more babies and never complain.  This is the only part of the story that strains credulity and makes me yell at the TV:  "When are you people going to play the martyr card?  It's enough already with the bad luck.  What's wrong with you?"

Turns out, the suffering finally gets to George.  On Hanukkah Eve, his meschuggie Uncle Billy loses $8,000 and at last, George lets loose with some major kvetching.  And oy, does he have something to kvetch about: He could go to jail!  He's got too many kids!  And Zsu Zsu's shy a few petals!  It's all a big shanda, if you ask me.  Potter's friendly pep talk doesn't help much, either: "George Bloomberg, you're worth more dead than alive." Let's face it.  George is up to here with this nightmare of a life.  He's about to jump into the river, when a mitzvah-maker named Clarence jumps in instead, and George, a decent swimmer, saves him.  He just can't help it.  I told you, he's a mensch.  Only problem is he wishes he'd never been born.  Oops.  Wrong thing to say.  

Clarence spins his magic dreidel and shows George Bloomberg what things would be like if he'd never stepped foot in Schmendrick Falls.  In this altered universe, the place is a hotbed of crime and sin.  Everyone George ever loved is either dead, full of attitude, non-existent, or worse, still single.  Poor Mary walks around in need of an emergency brow wax.  She's a spinster librarian.  And she never converted. Oy gevalt.  "You see," Clarence says to George, "you really have had a S'Wonderful life."  At last, George gets it.  In the end, all the people George Bloomberg has ever helped show up, uninvited, at his drafty old pathethic excuse for a house, offering baskets of chocolate gelt, which won't help him pay that big debt, but it's a sweet gesture, and freshly-made, gluten-free latkes.  As the candles on the menorah burn bright, everybody sings and dances the hora and promises to visit George in jail.  With a little mazel, he'll be out in eight years.  Yes, life is worth living again, even when you're incarcerated.  See what I mean?  Best Hanukkah Movie Ever.
(12-3-12)