It’s A Wonderful Life Is Secretly Super Steamy

As you spend time with family this holiday season, it’s inevitable that there will be talk of which festive movie to watch. An older relative (or your cousin with good taste) will suggest It’s a Wonderful Life. If you’re not already a fan, you’ll acquiesce out of obligation — because yes, it’s an important film, but it’s also played so much that you already know the story: No man is a failure who has friends, and all that.

But have you considered... that it’s hot?

Maybe the reason Frank Capra’s 1946 film has transcended the years isn’t because of its life-affirming themes of hope and community (OK, those are nice) but its versatility — you can thirst and cry while watching.

To recap: It’s a Wonderful Life follows George Bailey’s journey from young dreamer to disillusioned grown man, who’s forced to run the family’s building-and-loan business in the wake of his father’s death.

Then there’s Mary, the girl who’s harbored a hardcore crush on George since they were kids. One evening, fate brings them together for a phone call with a mutual friend. Speaker doesn’t exist yet, which is a good thing, because it gives the pair an excuse to get super close to each other as they lean in to hear their buddy on the other end.

Of course, George’s head swivels toward Mary once they’re occupying the same square foot. (What shampoo does she use?) It’s an angsty fanfic come to life — and 1946, so you know it can’t end in bed, but that just makes it hotter: How can this resolve? A splash of ice water from the frozen pond George pulled his brother out of??

George hovers over Mary, jaw clenched, nose nearly buried in her hair. The whole thing feels like you’ve walked in on something you really, really weren’t supposed to see. I mean, Love Actually has explicit nude sex scenes, and those are infinitely easier to sit through with my parents in the room than George and Mary’s phone call.

When the tension gets to be too much, George breaks it by shouting at Mary, disavowing the prospect of a domestic life with her — only to embrace her for a passionate kiss moments later. You can almost feel their wet, tear-stained cheeks smushing against each other.

If you watched it as a kid, you were probably pretty upset by the whole exchange. But as a wise adult who knows media can be sad and erotic?

The messy, harrowing scene feels less like a Christmas movie and more like, say, Kate and Anthony’s “bane of my existence” exchange in Bridgerton Season 2. (IYKYK.) And according to the American Film Institute, it was hot enough to earn the disapproval of Hollywood’s Hays Code, which was all about governing moral standards in film and, specifically, denounced “excessive” kissing and “lustful embraces.”

While the phone call scene is certainly the steamiest by today’s standards, the film never lets us forget how into each other George and Mary are — like when they share a kiss in bed after Mary reveals she’s pregnant, another moment that surely had censors sweating.

The alternate-reality nightmare where George sees where Mary would be without him (shudder, a single librarian who wears glasses) is rightfully lampooned today, but even that melodramatic scene shows George’s fiery, urgent passion for the love of his life — begging her to remember him, his wide eyes and groveling like something out of Brontë. The scariest thing George can imagine is not being in Mary’s life? Honestly, swoon.

It makes sense that the movie is dripping with chemistry: Not only are Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed beautiful actors, but they made the movie in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Stakes were high! Emotions were high! What is it they say about sex and death?

Of course, It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t a heartwarming story about family *despite* the passion — but because of it.

The emotional crux of the film is that while George can’t see it, he actually has a very rich life — a loving family that doesn’t just include his wife and kids but, in a broader sense, the tight-knit community he’s built in Bedford Falls. He’s not an island but a vital part of someone else’s story, too, and all the wet kisses and private moments bring that into sharp relief.

That George and Mary start in such an emotionally turbulent (but, yes, hot) place only makes their family and adorable kids feel that much more fully realized. In other romances, we don’t often get to see the couple beyond their “happily ever after.” Conversely, in holiday movies, we tend to meet the family unit after it’s already established. (I would love to know more about Kevin McCallister’s parents, including what on Earth they do for work, for example, but Home Alone provides little such backstory.)

It’s a Wonderful Life, though, fully fleshes out the Baileys as people before making them parents — they’re human, they’re in love, they’re hot. Seriously: If you’re able to, watch the movie with your grandma and ask her what she really thinks of Jimmy Stewart in that phone scene.