The gift

It's a Wonderful Life

(1946)

How strange that I've never quite gotten this before. All the 1946 signals are present: the tweed jacket, the fuck-off spectacles, the mannish hat, running to the bar girls for protection: "old maid" + librarian = . . . if George's window-smashing cock had never existed, Mary would have become . . . A LESBIAN!!!!

Another thing I thought this year: Sheldon Leonard (Nick the bartender), who later became a producer, is perhaps best known as the guy who discovered Bill Cosby, an honor that should not be diminished by recent revelations. In fact, on an early comedy album, Cosby does an impression of Leonard that anyone who has ever seen this film will recognize as spot-on.