Lionel Barrymore created the template for Javier Bardem’s blank nastiness. As he tries to suck the life out of a New York hamlet and its middle-class residents, Potter owes something to the silent-movie tradition of villains who delight in their evil. Director Frank Capra knows Potter horrifies us because, like Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, we can’t comprehend how he sprang from the same world we did. There’s probably a Potter origin story to explore in a latter-day “Wonderful Life” prequel; let’s hope no one makes it.
Mr. Potter tells George he is worth more dead than alive.
