“The Greatest Gift” (1943)
Retro Review #13: The short story that gave us the great—if not the greatest—gift: inspiring the film, It’s a Wonderful Life.
“The Greatest Gift” (1943) — The short story that gave us the great—if not the greatest—gift: inspiring the film, It’s a Wonderful Life.
+ Short story🎖️⭐ by Philip Van Doren Stern, 15p
Project #1: 2024 Christmas Tour
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A+>
Family Suitability
+ ✅2️⃣ OK for teens and adults. (Grades 7+) | NR
Alignment with Judeo-Christian Values
+ ❎3️⃣ Very Good/Strongly Favorable
+ 1️⃣/? works in It’s a Wonderful Life multiverse ⭐
“The Greatest Gift” (1943)
Grade: A+> (20.0) / HOF: 3
EQ 👍A+ | 📖A+ 👥A 📽️A 🎼A
DW 😎7.1 | 🌚8 🌝7
POPCAP 💯n/a 🍿n/a 🧢n/a
L-R ☮️n/a ◀️n/a ▶️n/a 🛐n/a
This is the story on which the classic Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life, is based. You can read the story online, here.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — The Frank Capra–James Stewart all-time Christmas classic that blesses viewers every holiday season.
It’s said that “The Greatest Gift” is loosely based on the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. Having seen It’s a Wonderful Life a couple of times, I thought that seemed strange, but in fact when you read this short story, you can more easily recognize the Christmas Eve–visitation–redemption thread from the Dickens work that is the basis for this story also.
Reading “The Greatest Gift” will feel like reading a very quick summary of the rather long It’s a Wonderful Life film, because the movie added a ton of new material to the story. (That’s why the connection to the story of Scrooge doesn’t seem very strong in the movie, if even there at all.) I’ll be watching the movie next, for the first time in years, so if it seems warranted, I’ll compare the short story and film a little more in my next review.
It’s a solidly good story and I was all set to give it an A grade, until its well-crafted final two paragraphs inspired me to raise the grade to an A+.
It’s a quick read, so if you are one of the multitudes of fans of the movie, you should give it a look at the link below.
Onwards!
+ last read (2) 2024-12-05, dS
+ first read 2024-12-05, dS
+ 👻🎈⛄🎄🎅🦄🧙😥
Family Suitability Detail
+ ✅2️⃣ OK for teens and adults. (Grades 7+) | NR
+ 😡+3 😵💫+2 🤬+4 🤭+2 🫣+4
Judeo-Christian Values Detail
+ ❎3️⃣ Very Good/Strongly Favorable
+ ✝️ +4 ➕✝️✝️🎁😇😇❤️❤️💒💒🩸🥴
+ ✡️ +2 ➕✡️🌗🤍🤍
+ 🗽 +2 ➕🗽🗽📜📜⬜
Read “The Greatest Gift” (1943)
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