Young George and Mr. Gower


That scene always makes me cry!

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Their emotions are real; for one thing, the Mr. Gower actor really did hit the Young George actor very hard on the ear, so much so that it drew blood, and the crying by both of them could be to do with the hit as well as the emotion of the scene in terms of the telegram Mr. Gower received.

So I can see why that raw emotional scene would make anyone cry! :(

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Any citation on that? It looked like Gower was tapping on George's head, not hitting at all, much less enough to draw blood.

EDIT: Just found the scene on youtube, while a couple of hits looked like he was brushing away a fly, there were also a couple that did look like he might have cracked him once or twice hard enough to hurt him.


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I saw it myself just now on my copy on streaming. They were hard hits.

I would post a link to IMDb Trivia about it, but since IMDb is apparently "mud" these days...!

Oh, better still... A YOUTUBE VIDEO!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8QA95mTcbI

Yeah, the shot cuts away from the slaps to the girl flinching, but that was a real reaction to a hard hit, and you can see the blood on George's ear afterwards, and the emotional climax.

Why not do your own research next time, strntz, you lazy bum!

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Why not do your own research next time, strntz, you lazy bum!


Because I'm lazy?

Some of those hits were hard, but the blood look applied otherwise it would be smeared.

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The one scene that makes me cry. I even told Elaine.

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George should’ve done him a favor and shot him with some carbonated water like happened in the alternate Biff universe.

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Mr. Gower hitting George was horrible. George was very forgiving.

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Mr. Gower was drunk after hearing that his son had died of influenza and drinking to try to blot out the pain of his loss.
George was very forgiving because he read the telegram that Mr. Gower received about his son's death and understood why he acted that way, and the fact that Mr. Gower was so distraught that he accidentally put poison into a prescription for a child and only George noticed and never delivered, that saved Mr. Gower from getting into a lot of trouble later on, and Mr. Gower was eternally grateful to him for that.

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Mr. Gower’s realization of what was going on and his dropping to his knees and hugging George is what really gets me.

And George. “I know you’re upset.”

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Yeah, it is a powerful scene. I have It's A Wonderful Life on streaming and I rewatched the scene after I read this OP. Made me tear up, as you did.

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Haven't you ACTUALLY seen the scene? Don't you understand??

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Gower is totally shitfaced while doing his job, almost kills somebody with a bad prescription, then slaps the crap out of the kid who's trying to help him. George should have quit, and never spoken to the son of a bitch again. His dad should have called the cops. Yeah, Gower's son was killed. So sad, but no excuse. Admit it: if I got drunk and slapped your kid's face half off his head, you'd come after me, regardless of the circumstances.

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What was he doing with poison?

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because it was common for chemists back in that era to have poisons for dealing with pests/etc

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