Great Character: Henry F. Potter (“It’s a Wonderful Life”)
In December, guest columnist Jason Cuthbert looks at Christmas Grinch characters. Today: Henry F. Potter from the 1946 holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life, screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, story by Philip Van Doren Stern.
Aside from being a director, composer, screenwriter, radio performer, stage actor and an accomplished author, Lionel Barrymore also found spare time to become a prominent screen actor as well. Barrymore’s thespian dexterity grabbed him a Best Actor Academy Award for A Free Soul and a timeless performance, as the filthy rich Christmas Grinch Henry F. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. Barrymore’s casting of this anti-Christmas spirit “gloom and doomer” stemmed from his having played Ebenezer Scrooge for numerous years on the radio during broadcasts of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Barrymore’s Hollywood kinship includes his siblings John Barrymore (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Ethel Barrymore (None But the Lonely Heart) as well as being the great uncle of actress/producer/director Drew Barrymore (E.T.:The Extra-Terrestrial). Lionel Barrymore made his name ring loud and clear in the audio department as well by inventing the “boom microphone,” that sound-capturing unit with an elongated pole used to record audio while standing away from the intended subjects. Let’s not forget the fact that since 1938, Barrymore maintained his frequent film acting stature from a wheelchair, refusing to let his unfortunate disability limit his productivity. This included his 1946 Frank Capra-directed Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story and written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra and Jo Swerling.
It’s a Wonderful Life from IMDB:
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
As the wealthiest individual in the fictional town of Bedford Falls, New York, Henry F. Potter has a love affair with money that he is unwilling to share with his fellow human beings. Potter is void of compassion and equates poverty to stupidity, basing his own intelligence on the balance sheet of his bank account.
Potter is a classic antagonist, exuding selfish swagger and an unflappable indifference to the needs of anyone other than himself. George Bailey (James Stewart) on the other hand becomes quite the heroic Potter adversary by putting his own personal desires on indefinite hold, time and time again, in order to protect the neighbors that have become his extended family from facing foreclosure by Potter.
HENRY F. POTTER: You’re worth more dead than alive! Why don’t you go to the riffraff you love so much and ask them to let you have $8,000? You know why? Because they’d run you out of town on a rail.
Potter would certainly never admit it of course, but you almost get the sense that he is envious of Baily’s effortless everyman standing in town — with millionaire respect but pennies in the bank. Potter would have to buy that same love and admiration at a premium price from each and every Bedford Falls resident that have become allergic to his miserable stinginess. No wife. No children. No visible friends. Potter only has employees.
HENRY F. POTTER: George, I am an old man, and most people hate me. But I don’t like them either so that makes it all even.
One way of really smelling just how sour the stench of greed is on Potter’s hands is by seeing how he man reacts when someone is in need. Granted, George Baily and Mr. Potter have never played for the same side of the ethical code, but he sure takes pride in kicking Baily deeper into the dirt when he is down.
HENRY F. POTTER: Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You were going to go out and conquer the world! You once called me a warped, frustrated, old man. What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk, crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help.
Controlling Baily’s family business would also allow Potter to control most of Bedford Falls, turning the residents into dependents. This stubborn stance not only goes against the selfless regal qualities that George Baily represents, but also the “season of giving” aspect of Christmas. Mr. Potter’s character defines the pure ugliness of self-serving acts and the repugnant ignorance that comes with turning a blind eye to the needs of others. When you hoard all of the remedies and solutions to yourself, the needy will grow restless and resent you with a passion. Welcome to Potter’s World.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ne13Zft9Q
Mr. Potter is a slick bugger who never takes the pressure off of Bailey. He seeks to exploit Bailey’s weaknesses: desire to travel, disgust with the loan business, dreams that are too big for Bedford Falls and financial stagnation. The screenwriters wisely made Bailey’s soft spots crystal clear to us in advance, which gives Potter plenty of business to handle against Bailey, while making us worry that he just might succeed. Even when Henry F. Potter can’t crush Bailey’s moral armor, he decides to try and buy him out with an incredible salary. But even shaking Potter’s hand leaves Bailey with a slimy feeling of doing a diseased dance with the devil. If Potter’s super power is money, Baily’s dollar bill boycott reduces Potter’s influential value to below zero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzX5cGKN6Eg
For his storybook display of the ugly side of greed, his crafty game plans and plots and his entertaining depiction of the aftermath of an invisible social life — Henry F. Potter is very GREAT CHARACTER.
One of the great cinematic villains precisely because Potter has such a plausible, coherent world view. We are made privy to part of that perspective here: “You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas.” A sort of uber-capitalist whose first commandment is “Thou shalt work hard for thy money.” Potter may be a hard ass, but he’s one we know and can understand, not too far away from the work ethic seemingly engrained in the American DNA, which is one reason why Potter is such a compelling Nemesis figure.
All you fans of It’s a Wonderful Life, why not head to comments to share this memory: When was the very first time you saw the movie? I’ll provide mine. How about you?
See you in comments to carry on the conversation.
Thanks once again to Jason! You may follow him on Twitter: @A2Jason.
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