It's such a little watchwork contraption of a movie: every character you meet floats in and around Bedford Falls for the thirty, forty years of the story itself; there's not a loose end in the thing. Even on its periphery, we get the full life-arcs of Sam and Marty and all the rest in throwaway lines or background action, and see how they all intertwined around Bedford Falls and George Bailey's life.

Except one.

Who's the little bastard that tells Alfalfa that George and Mary are dancing over the swimming pool? Who has that kind of mad-on for George or Mary, and why? It's the only bit of the watch that sticks out at a weird angle, and even then, you have to look more than a little obsessively to see it.

I think it should be Clarence's opposite number. I think there should be a devil at work in Bedford Falls, trying to eat George's soul as hard as Clarence is trying to save it. We could find out that the devil wasn't only the guy that told "Charlie Othello"-- swear to God, that's Alfalfa's name in this-- about the swimming pool, but, like, that he's all over Bedford Falls. He could be the liquor store owner that sold Old Man Gower the booze. Harry's girl, that saw to it George had to stay in Bedford Falls, because Harry sure wasn't. The kid that suggested they go sledding on the lake. The Man on the Porch that wrecks George and Mary's first kiss. The cocksucker on Black Tuesday that refused to leave without his $242. The teacher that sent Zuzu home without buttoning her coat.

It'd be kind of funny, too, if The Rat was the, you know, Old Pete Granville-- the poor kid from the poor family that lived in that old dump of a house that all of those stuckup rich kids loved busting the windows out of with rocks.

I've seen this movie a lot.