Case Study No. 0144: Mary Hatch Bailey

Clarence...Where's Mary?
0:32
Immersed in a wish-come-true of experiencing the world if he'd never been born, George Bailey panics as he asks his Guardian Angel Clarence where his wife is.
Tags: It's a Wonderful Life
Added: 4 years ago
From: plurp7
Views: 24,491

[outside in the cold, George Bailey is confronting Clarence Odbody about the alternate version of Bedford Falls that he finds himself in]
GEORGE: Clarence ...
CLARENCE: Yes George?
GEORGE: Where's Mary?
CLARENCE: Oh well, I-I can't, uh ...
[George runs up to his guardian angel and grabs him by the collar]
GEORGE: I don't know how you know these things, but tell me! Where is she?
CLARENCE: I--
GEORGE: If you know where she is, tell me where my wife is!
CLARENCE: I'm not supposed to tell!
GEORGE: Please, Clarence! Tell me where she is!
CLARENCE: You're not gonna like it, George ...
GEORGE: Where is she?
CLARENCE: She's an old maid. She never married.
GEORGE: Where's Mary? Where is she?! Where is she?!?
CLARENCE: She-she's just about to close up the library!
[George pushes Clarence down as he runs off in despair]
CLARENCE: [to himself] Oh, there must be some easier way for me to get my wings ...

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From earthlink.net:

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Capra, Frank (Director). It's a Wonderful Life. United States: RKO Radio Pictures, 1946.

Starring: Donna Reed (Mary Hatch Bailey); James Stewart (George Bailey); Henry Travers (Clarence Oddbody/Guardian Angel)

You know the story: George Bailey gets so depressed that he wishes he were never born, at which point guardian angel Clarence shows him what the town would be like without him. When George demands to know where his wife is, there is horror in Clarence's voice when he declares: "She's about to close up the library!" Fantasy Mary is mousy, a spinster, wears glasses, panics easily and faints. The choice of librarian as her life-sans-George employment is very deliberate because "of course" she's unmarried and dowdy -- she works in a library. (It's understood she is a librarian although this is never stated.)