It's A Wonderful Life (PG)

Welcome to our 17th anniversary Christmas, with the same old irresistible film we’ve been showing since the Rex re-opened in December 2004. It was a flop at the box office when it first appeared in 1946. After the war, the USA celebrated the brave new world with fashion, cars and fridges. We had bomb-sites, functional clothes, cold water, rations, war debts and the grey 1950’s but with essential, fabulous and much missed old City trams in every corner of Britain. Accidentally, it became essential TV viewing in the UK during the mid 70s, hence a new part of Christmas itself. You couldn’t see it at the cinema until independents got it re-released nineteen years ago. Now thanks to the BFI, this beautifully restored digital copy, is here again at the hand-restored Rex (and Odyssey) for Christmas 2019. Our cinemamatic Christmas would not now be the same without Clarence (angel 2nd class) showing George Bailey how terrible life would be in Bedford Falls, had he not been born. The simplest universal message: without that One in your life, your world is diminished. Happy Christmas. Have fun, go easy and raise a glass to a world with a George Bailey-like future for future children.