10 Best Pieces Of Advice From Our Favourite Film Father Figures

3. Pa Bailey (It’s A Wonderful Life)

It's A Wonderful Life
RKO Radio Pictures

On prospects:

“You know, George, I feel that in a small way we are doing something important. Satisfying a fundamental urge. It’s deep in the race for a man to want his own roof and walls and fireplace, and we’re helping him get those things in our shabby little office… This town is no place for any man unless he’s willing to crawl to Potter. You’ve got talent, son. I’ve seen it. You get yourself an education. Then get out of here.”

Everyone needs a Pa Bailey in their life; his name alone fills our hearts with joy and hope, for he is such an honest man who wants to make the lives of every person around him better.

This is one of the main reasons he originally founded the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan with his absent-minded brother Billy, as he wanted to help the people of Bedford Falls buy their own affordable houses.

Through his selfless attitude, Pa advises his son, George, to enrol in college and travel the world, knowing that is his true dream, despite having his own wishes for his son to inherit the family business.

Inevitably though, George sacrifices his plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and allow his younger brother, Harry, to become a “genius at research” and later win the Congressional Medal of Honour.

Like father, like son, eh?

 
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Contributor

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer by day and a bespectacled blogger by night, kind of like a superhero without the conceited cape. She is a self-confessed cinephile and the proud founder of her own perpetual movie marathon, comprised of genuine greats, forgotten oddities and everything in-between. All words are her own, including any use of emojis - which is the only other language that she is fluent in aside from English.