Bailey Brothers Marxist? Hmm, what an interesting idea. Karl Marx would definitely have approved of George Bailey. But Frank Capra wouldn't have approved of Karl Marx.

In 1974, I lived in Columbus, Ohio. Frank Capra was giving a series of four talks at OSU. I went to three of them, and saw five movies. Four of them I knew: "Lost Horizon", "It Happened One Night", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", and "You Can't Take It With You." The fifth was a movie no one in the audience had ever seen before. Capra told us his movies were like his children, and he loved them all equally, but he loved the unknown one just a little more because no one knew how good it was.

A loudmouthed teenager asked him a question after one of the talks about whether he had any plans to try to make the unknown movie any more popular. He said he did -- he was going to let its copyright (which he owned himself) expire at the end of the year, and he figured that TV stations would start playing it once they didn't have to pay for it.

You've probably guessed who the loudmouthed teenager was (me); you may also have guessed what the movie was: "It's a Wonderful Life."