D H said:
Christmas is a colorful time of year. You should try seeing life in more than black and white, Astronuc.
I hope nobody takes this as a suggestion to colorize this movie.
Too late - check out the latest release "It's A Wonderful Life: The Collector's Edition":
I went directly to the colour version and came back to check the B&W version. I own the Republic edition, which was THX-certified and made from the original negative. This B&W version (the 60th Anniversary edition transfer) is a little bit more cleaned-up. The extras are the same as they were on the Republic and 60th Anniversary editions so the major selling point here is the colour and I wasn't disappointed. All through both versions, by the way, the bitrate pretty much seems stuck on 10, which makes these discs super-SuperBit editions...
The colour is nothing short of miraculous. I was of course awed by the general quality and inventiveness of the colourization process at first but I must say that the overall colour presentation doesn't distract at all from the drama. If anything, it makes it a better film, with more detail, more texture, more things to see, more realistic touches that are lost in the B&W version, in a word, more involvement in the story and a sense of heightened reality.
DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) wrote to me that he doesn't like the fact that colourized films "rewrite history" and I have to admit that he's probably right about that, in the sense that no major studio would have financed the colour photography of a 2-hour non-musical meandering existential morality lesson like It's A Wonderful Life back in 1947. So what we are seeing is a bit like a glimpse into a parallel universe where enlightened producers would have financed quality colour films like this one.
The result is just glorious, even when it doesn't mimic the obvious sheen and glamour of Technicolor: the hazy golden tones of the childhood scenes and Mr. Gower's drugstore, the spot-on recreation of the roaring twenties (with seafoam-coloured flapper tulle dresses like my mother used to tell me about), the liveliness of the comedy scenes, the extra poignancy of the dramatic scenes where everything seems to shift into dreariness - including the colours - and the absolute EC-comics eeriness of the "dream" sequence where everything has taken on a film noir fatalistic quality. I could go on: the natural aspect of the snow scenes both in the daylight and at night and the lovely summer moonlight courting scenes, the you-are-there quality of the interiors, the added life given the matte paintings, the homey atmosphere of the happy family scenes alternating with more lugubrious passages, the Matisse-inspired Russian peasant blouse of the female patron at Nick's Bar, the shimmer of the high school swimming pool, Donna Reed's luminous smile, Zuzu's petals. Colour allows many gradations from brand new modern and cheery to drab, ancient and lived-in, that are only hinted at and not properly seen in B&W and for this, I think It's A Wonderful Life is a better film and its narrative qualities are actually improved in this colour version. It tells the story more convincingly.
The only thing that would allow a casual observer not familiar with the B&W film to guess this is a colourization is, as usual, the skin tones. Although they are realistically varied from one character to the next, they still rely on a rather limited palette centered on copper tones in each individual face. But this a very minor quibble that doesn't distract from the overall success of the process.
I'm also sure it's an illusion that the 2.0 mono actually sounded a lot more vivid while I was watching the colour film. This version is especially recommended for people who think they have seen this film too many times and could use a fresh look at it from a different perspective.
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Benoît A. Racine, Toronto
I thought I was getting a bit anxious for Christmas when I already started pulling out Christmas decorations last weekend (haven't put them up yet, just started mining through the storage space for the boxes, trying to decide what will be cat proof and what won't), but as I was driving home last night, I noticed that one of my neighbors already has their Christmas tree up and lit in their front window! 
I've always started decorating the day after Thanksgiving (though I might start a little early this year), but for some reason, I just keep feeling like it should already be Christmas season this year and am craving Christmas music already (already started singing Christmas carols in the shower 
).
It's one of my favorites.
