Most Americans think of “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a life-affirming Christmas classic.

However, there was a time when America’s top law enforcement agency feared that the movie would transform red-blooded Americans into red flag-waving communists.

As the Smithsonian Magazine points out, an unnamed FBI agent in 1946 filed a report after watching the film, in which he called the movie “entertaining,” but warned of that it contained themes and tropes that could be used to promote communism.

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According to scholar John A. Noakes, the agent identified “a malignant undercurrent in the film” that he alleged “employed two common tricks used by Communists to inject propaganda into the film.”

In particular, the agent zeroed in on the movie’s treatment of capitalist banker Mr. Potter, a greedy misanthrope who served as the movie’s lead antagonist. The movie’s central plot, which revolved around George Bailey’s attempt at suicide after being denied a loan from Potter, was judged by the agent to be a “subtle attempt to magnify the problems of the so-called ‘common man’ in society.”

The agent’s report was part of an initiative spearheaded by then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to root out potential communist propaganda within the film industry, which even then had a reputation for being run by “far left” agitators.

Read about the whole story at this link.